Which Cookbook Would You Give Them?

Cookbooks make such wonderful gifts, and there are so many beautiful ones that people would love to receive as gifts. We've rounded up a few different types of people and some of the cookbooks that they would love to receive as gifts! Take a look if you're needing something for someone else, or maybe just for yourself.

How We Cook,We've all had a stage where we struggled to feel comfortable and confident in the kitchen. These cookbooks are packed with delicious recipes but are more approachable and beginner friendly making them perfect for students who have just moved out of home, family cooks who haven't managed to expand their recipe repertoire beyond the basics, or anyone wanting a fresh look at easy and tasty cooking. More Than Toast is by biased favourite and one I have gifted already many times. The newest cookbook from Two Raw Sisters, is another great option as it's not just teaching you recipes but how to adjust and adapt in ways that make sense. Always Delicious by Vanya Insull is another cookbook perfect for beginners and full of tasty treats, plus its nice and new so might be one they haven't come across yet (buy it and tell them they must immediately make the Mars Bar Slice).

Got someone you know who loves a dinner party and hosting family and friends? I love Around the Table by Shea McGee - a cookbook and also a guide for how to make any gathering not just successful but memorable. A cookbook on my wishlist is the Lucky Dragon Supper Club because it's not only just visually BEAUTIFUL, it's an Asian inspired collection of dinner party ideas and I love modern Asian flavours. Plus this cookbook includes tips for what you can make ahead and how to make the actual event more successful. I also love Nothing Fancy by Alison Roman because it takes a simpler approach to hosting, focusing on things that are easy and still impressive that will give you more time to connect rather than stress in the kitchen.

First, Cream the Butter and Sugar by Emelia Jackson is my top pick for a gift for a baker because the book is beautiful and its the perfect book for bakers who are both novice and experienced. Obsessed with the Best is another baking bible that is so fun to read through, let alone cook from, because Ella Quittner is sharing her experimentally tested recipes in a charmingly obsessive way. 

For something a little niche I love Baking Yesteryear by B. Dylan Hollis which collects together vintage recipes from 1900s to 1980s and would make a great gift because it might give them something new to explore! Mooncakes & Milk Bread is another stunning, niche baking book all about food inspired by Chinese Bakeries that might give a more experienced baker something different to try out.

Sunita is our recipe book expert and she's also gathered together her list of top baking books and, honestly, any of them would make a wonderful gift for a baker in your life! Make sure to take a look.

With full time work and parenting, trying to find time for meal planning, food shopping, and then preparing the meals just feels like an impossible task. Every week I start again and by the end I'm convinced I'll never get there. Thank goodness for the cookbooks that help to take some of the mental load by either making it super easy to plan and prep, or providing inspiration for quick and easy recipes that can be thrown together and still leave time for a quick kitchen reset before bed. What to cook when you don't feel like cooking is one I hope someone buys for me as I've had a look through and it's that perfect combination of quick and easy meals that are still tasty and full of flavours. It also has a great index at the back sorted by ingredient which makes the decision making that little bit easier. Nadia Lim's Yum is also a must buy for any family especially ones with young kids. It's packed with child friendly meal ideas that are quick, full of nutritious ingredients, but still enjoyable for the adults too so you're not having to cook 3 different meals to try and get everyone fed.

My brother has always been a foodie, I remember him going to an after school cooking class when he was at Primary school and making us dinners from an early age. It's such a great thing to encourage for our tamariki - empowering for them to take risks and prepare kai, but also helps to build resilience when inevitably things go wrong. There are so many amazing cookbooks for encouraging our youngest chefs. You can't go wrong with the Edmonds My First Cookbook, and I'm also a huge fan of Michelle Dickinson's Kitchen Science Cookbook which is super fun and includes ideas for things like making unicorn noodles or edible slime.

If you have someone in your life who enjoys reading a recipe and then completely disregarding it in order to experiment with their own intuitive sense of cooking there are still some amazing cookbooks that might inspire them and make great gifts. Anything by the master that is Yotam Ottolenghi is great because he is such a creative chef that I think anyone would find inspiration in his approach to food and flavour. The other master I would buy for any chef or foodie is Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat (and I am still needing someone to gift me a copy please and thank you!). It's such a fascinating book that would also work for beginners, but even for more experienced cooks it's a glorious read that breaks good cooking down to it's core principals.

The other option I think for the more experimental chef who knows their stuff but still wants inspiration would be to get them something super specific that will transport them to a region and provide a master class in a specific type of cuisine. This could be Gennaro's Hidden Italy, the much loved Dishoom, Ixta Belfrage's guide to recipes of Brasil, and Sumayya Usmani's recipes from Pakistan!

There's usually one in every family (hi, hello - it's me as your resident vegetarian and coeliac food obsessed human, sorry fam) and there are some wonderful books to gift to the person who loves food but has difficulty because most cookbooks are completely unable to adapt for their dietary requirements. 

The Elements of Baking is a must buy - it's less of a cookbook and more of a life changing guide to adjusting all your favourite recipes. This one book means I can utitlise many other cookbooks with small adjustments and has been honestly quite life changing. Either of Emma Galloway's beautiful cookbooks make a wonderful choice for someone who has restrictions, they just happen to be Gluten Free and plant based but they're so much more about the delicious range of food and ingredients available for us. For other gf folks I highly recommend Becky Excell's Gluten Free cookbook range - I am obsessed with her approach to still being able to eat all your delicious favourites with small tweaks.