Join us for an evening with author

Erin Jeanne McDowell

to discuss her new book

Bake Anything

to be held at Solid State Books on H St. NE

Tickets with AND without a book are available here!

Get ready to elevate your baking game this fall with an exciting new release from New York Times-bestselling author, award-winning food stylist, and beloved teacher Erin Jeanne McDowell! Harvest, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, is proud to publish BAKE ANYTHING: Essential Recipes and Techniques to Build On for Endless Possibilities  September 29, 2026.

In BAKE ANYTHING, McDowell redefines how home bakers approach their craft, proving that baking can be just as adaptable and creative as cooking. The book centers around mastering 11 foundational recipes—her "building blocks"—that unlock a world of sweet and savory possibilities. Once these core recipes are mastered, the options are endless.

Whether you're a beginner or a seasoned baker, BAKE ANYTHING is designed to inspire confidence and creativity in the kitchen. With her signature encouraging tone, McDowell shows readers how to transform a single base recipe into a variety of dishes. For instance, a basic pâte à choux can evolve into pistachio éclairs, a stunning cream puff cake, and more. Her versatile puff pastry dough can become sweet cardamom twists, an elegant mille-feuille, or savory sausage rolls.

“Baking is so much more than the tasty things that ultimately emerge from the oven. It can be meditative, immensely satisfying, and a significant source of joy… the more you understand the recipes and baking science behind them, the easier it is to make tweaks and changes, try new things, and even know when and how you can break the rules,” writes McDowell.

What truly sets BAKE ANYTHING apart is its innovative and interactive design. The book features stunning photography, step-by-step visual guides, and QR codes that link to instructional how-to videos. This comprehensive format ensures bakers of all levels can confidently master the fundamentals while exploring endless variations.

With its approachable techniques and boundless inspiration, BAKE ANYTHING is a must-have for anyone looking to build creativity, flexibility, and confidence in the kitchen. Add this essential guide to your cookbook collection and discover the limitless possibilities of baking!

ERIN JEANNE MCDOWELL is a bestselling author, recipe developer, and teacher with a specialized focus on baking. She’s contributed to New York Times Cooking, The Washington Post, Better Homes and Gardens, Food Network, and more. She was a baking coach on the Netflix series The Big Nailed It Baking Challenge. She is the author of The Fearless Baker, which was named one of the Best Baking Books of 2017 by The New York Times; The Book on Pie, a New York Times bestseller; and Savory Baking. She previously hosted the award–winning series Bake It Up a Notch and currently hosts Happy Baking on YouTube. She lives and works in Kansas City, Missouri.

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Dr. Irene Calis is a Palestinian decolonial scholar, educator, and organizer. She is in kinship with global Indigenous lifemaking and a collaborative partner to student-led coalition building. Her research and political commitments center emancipatory politics from the perspective of those living their struggle. She places these struggles in conversation across time and space, feeding the urgent work of forging new alternatives. Her scholarship, grounded in the Palestinian liberation movement, involves long-term ethnographic fieldwork living and working with Palestinian farming and youth communities throughout the West Bank, as well as with liberatory movements in South Africa, Oceania, and Indigenous North America. She is the Director of American University’s Arab World Studies program.

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