Got flour? Butter? Eggs? Then head to the book shelf for a peek at the new baking books.

Bakers at every level of expertise have some new books to turn to. Here is a sample:

‘Gorgeous Cakes: Beautiful baking made easy’

(By Annie Bell; published by Kyle Cathie,; 192-page paperback; color photos; $19.95)

This is a book of fairly normal recipes for cakes, cupcakes, cheesecakes and the like, but each is dolled up with an unusual touch or two – an intriguing flavor or an extra-mile decorating fillip (little cream puffs with orange-flavor icing, for example, and coconut cake with lime filling). There are very few recipes that look difficult, and many that call out “Bake me!” Between the delicious ideas and the moderate price, this book could be a swell gift for a baking friend, or yourself.

‘Professional Cake Decorating’

(By Toba Garrett; published by Wiley; 352 pages hardbound; many color photos and illustrative sketches; $65)

After absorbing, and double-checking, that gasp-inducing price, the next most striking thing about this book is that it’s not like a series of lessons, it IS a series of lessons, very detailed lessons, with reviews and tests. And they go as far into the cake-decorating stratosphere as any aspiring cake artist could possibly want. (For clarity: This isn’t about the kind of cake decorating that involves making cakes that look like freight trains or roulette wheels. This is the kind of cake decorating that involves piped flowers and scallops and lace and incredible trellis work.) Maybe not very many will want this book, but those who do will want it more than life itself.

‘About Professional Baking/The Essentials’

(By Gail Sokol; published by Thomson Delmar Learning; 482 pages hardbound; 41.25)

A somewhat larger version of this book was published at $74.95, so $41.25 is a steal. This is a textbook that includes recipes, many with step-illustrating photos, but the recipes serve more as illustrations of basic principles than as anything you’d want to rush out and buy a book to get. And there’s plenty to read, but not in the sense that cookbooks are usually read: There isn’t a “yummy” or a “scrumptious” or any other adjective aimed at the appetite. You’ll learn about achieving various characteristics of cookies, for example, but they are described clinically, not spiritually. A fine reference, but for the truly serious baker.

‘Baking Basics and Beyond: Learn these simple techniques and bake like a pro’

(By Pat Sinclair; published by Surrey; 296-page paperback; no photos, $15.95)

The introduction to each of the 11 baked-goods chapters (plus one on frostings, sauce and the like) condenses a fair amount of information into a page or two, and each of the many recipes – which in this case are among the reasons to buy the book – carries one or more useful tips. Sinclair, a Minneapolis food consultant and cooking teacher, also knows when to say “yummy.” The brief text with the recipes is descriptive and enticing. Both beginning bakers and experienced hands may find something enjoyable here.

‘Chocolate & Vanilla’

(By Gale Gand; published by Potter; 160 pages hardbound; some color photos; $22.50)

It has to be said: This is a gimmick book. Pick it up one way, and it’s a bunch of chocolate recipes (chocolate Pavlovas, chocolate babka), with the required many pages of introductory filler that gasps about chocolate. Turn it over and it’s a bunch of vanilla recipes (vanilla flan, vanilla-blueberry crumb cake), with a less predictable (and more interesting) introduction to the wonders of vanilla. After the initial joke is over, it’s kind of annoying to have separate tables of contents for the two halves, and no index, and to have to keep turning the book over when flipping through it. But the recipes do sound – and look – really good.

‘One Cake, One Hundred Desserts: Learn one foolproof cake recipe and make one hundred desserts’

(By Greg Case and Keri Fisher; published by Morrow; 208 pages hardbound;, some color photos; $29.95)

The title says it all: The cake recipe – with various additions or changes, baked in different pans, cut-up and layered with other ingredients and in even more disguises, produces 100 quite different desserts, including cakes, bars, frozen goodies and more. It’s an interesting idea, made just a little odd by the single cake recipe the authors have chosen – it’s a hot-milk sponge. As they point out, it’s a cake that is both sturdy and fine-textured, but it’s not the most basic (or the most foolproof) of cake recipes. (It calls for six minutes of beating the eggs and sugar, and fairly quick work folding things together.) But if, as they recommend, you master that recipe, there is a surprising array of things you can do with it. (One can’t help imagining cheating by using a cake mix instead.)

‘The Essence of Chocolate: Recipes for baking and cooking with fine chocolate’

(By John Scharffenberger, Robert Steinberg; published by Hyperion; 384 pages hardbound; color photos; $35)

I tend to be annoyed by cookbooks with extended discussions of author and ingredient histories and photographs of a marshmallow in closeup or a favorite barn in Tuscany. And I could complain about exactly that with this book. Huge amounts of it, popped in here and there, discuss how the authors – a physician retired because of illness, and a winemaker – came to start the Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker company, a great deal about cacao, and lots more. And quite a few of the photos do not depict the recipes. But it’s good, even a little inspiring, reading. And it gives the volume a humanity you don’t often find in cookbooks. And, especially for a cookbook grounded in an expensive brand of chocolate, the lovely-sounding recipes are very approachable.

‘Puff Pastry Perfection: More than 175 recipes for appetizers, entrees & sweets made with frozen puff pastry dough’

(By Camilla Saulsbury; published by Cumberland; 240-page paperback; no illustrations, $16.95)

Since half the appeal of making a zillion things with frozen puff pastry is how lovely they look, the lack of photos here is really unfortunate. But if you’ve already fooled around with this product enough to appreciate how easily it can turn something ordinary into something special, this book could be a source of inspiration.