“It’s not often a baking book becomes a cultural icon, but this one

is guaranteed to do so.” – Cooking Digest

Now in paperback, the James Beard-nominated cookbook, Heirloom Baking with the Brass Sisters, is the collection of a century’s worth of the finest recipes for America’s favorite desserts and baked goods, all lovingly updated for the modern kitchen. As the Boston Globe described it, Marilynn and Sheila’s “Heirloom Baking is like your mother’s recipe box, except better organized.”

The two inimitable sisters and self-proclaimed “roundish women of a certain age” have spent decades collecting and curating heirloom recipes, passed down with care (and a few chocolate smudges on the recipe cards), from one generation to the next. They have meticulously recorded recipes for the best dishes of friends and family, and even visited yard sales and antique shops to discover the best recipes of strangers.

With heart and soul and authenticity, they embrace the familiar and the nostalgic, taking the time to recount evocative family stories and personal anecdotes tied to each recipe, and warmly recalling the character of the original baker. Rather than reinvent the wheel, the Brass sisters grease it (with plenty of real melted butter and sometimes even cream); the recipes in Heirloom Baking are all easy-to-follow and only require basic pantry items. After all, the kitchens of previous generations did not have a lot of fancy ingredients.

Included here are 150 recipes for all of our old-fashioned and childhood favorites, from Marshmallow Fudge Brownies and Lacy Oatmeal Cookies to Lemon Poppy Seed Cake and Holiday Apple Custard Pie. The book is beautifully designed with 150 beautiful full-color photographs.

Since the hardcover publication of Heirloom Baking, Marilynn and Sheila’s warm and quirky personalities, strong Boston accents, and sinfully delicious desserts have endeared them to home cooks all over the country. They have hosted their own television specials on the Cooking Channel and PBS, trumped Bobby Flay with their Pineapple Upside-Down Cake (pg 84-85) on Throwdown with Bobby Flay, and have appeared as special guests with Ming Tsai on Simply Ming.

About the Authors:

Marilynn Brass and Sheila Brass are home cooks with 119 years of baking experience between them. They have appeared in their own televised cooking specials including The Brass Sisters Holiday on the Cooking Channel and The Brass Sisters: Queens of the Comfort Food on WGBH, the PBS affiliate in Boston. They have also been guests on the Food Network’s Throwdown with Bobby Flay and on PBS’s Simply Ming, hosted by Tsai Ming. They have also made appearances on Antiques Roadshow FYI. They are the authors of Heirloom Cooking with the Brass Sisters (Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers) Heirloom Baking With The Brass Sisters was a finalist for the James Beard Foundation Award in the category of Baking and Desserts. Select recipes from the book were also included in Food & Wine Magazine’s annual Best of the Best Cookbook. Marilynn and Sheila live in Cambridge, Massachusetts.