Meet the Cottagecore Baking Book, the prettiest cookbook of 2024

Meet the prettiest cookbook of 2024: the Cottagecore Baking Book. It's written by an Iowa mom, Kayla Lobermeier, and it's chock full of absolutely adorable recipes that feel really special. I received a free copy from Page Street Publishing for review purposes, and I'm excited to tell you about it! 

Who wrote the Cottagecore Baking Book?

The Cottagecore Baking Book is written by Kayla Lobermeier who is the author of The Prairie Kitchen Cookbook and well known for her cottagecore social media channels and blog, Under a Tin Roof. Lobermeier and her mom Jill Haupt manage Under a Tin Roof together and share their adventures running a flower farm and living life together as a multigenerational household in southeast Iowa, where Haupt and her husband share a farmhouse with Lobermeier and her husband and the Lobermeier children. Kayla has been featured in many print and digital publications including Willow and Sage magazine, Where Women Cook, Heirloom Gardener, Folk magazine, In Her Garden, Beekman 1802 Almanac and Gardenista. Lobermeier has also written several ebooks, which are available on Under a Tin Roof's shop page, including Valentine's Day Tea Party, Tea at Beatrix's and Swedish Spring. She teaches gardening and cooking classes from time to time at Kirkwood Community College in Iowa.

What are "cottagecore" and "cottagecore baking"?

Cottagecore is an aesthetic movement that is based on essentially a romanticized rural life (that's an oversimplification though, and there's lots more you can read about it if you'd like to dive in deeper to the complexities.) As an actual Iowa farmer, Kayla knows the reality of farm life well, and loves paying tribute to and sharing the beauty in country living. Besides the daily beauty of an Iowa flower farm, she also infuses her writing, videos, and other content with inspiration from history, fairytales, fandoms, her wonderful imagination, and requests from her fans, whether that's Lord of the Rings or the American Girl Doll cookbooks. Kayla says on her site that:

"The cottagecore movement is all about returning to a simpler, more sustainable time. And what could be more simple, sustainable, and delicious than home-baked, from-scratch treats and sweets?"

She also emphasizes inclusion in everything she does, and explicitly says in the book: 

"Cottagecore is for everyone, anyone that wish to live a softer, simpler life."

I love the whimsy, beauty, and kindness she adds to everything she does. And this book is full of cozy scratch recipes that look special---and delicious. They range in difficulty from some I think my kids and I will be able to make together fairly easily, like the Pecan Coffee Cake Muffins or the Sweet Pineapple Clover Rolls to other that are much more technical and intimidate even this experienced home baker, like Chocolate Hazelnut Choux au Craquelin or Personal Clementine Pavlovas. But I'm excited to try some of those more difficult recipes and see if I can grow my baking skills under Kayla's expert instructions. 

What's in The Cottagecore Baking Book?

Inside The Cottagecore Baking Book are 60 recipes for delicious baked goods, mostly sweet but a few savory, arranged into eight chapters:

• Afternoon Tea Quick Breads, Muffins, and Scones like Sweetheart Chocolate Chunk Scones
• Country Garden Pies and Tarts like Tea Party Strawberry Tartlets
• Whimiscal Cookies and Bars like Lemon German Springerle
• Forest Lore Cakes and Icings like Lavender and Earl Gray Petit Fours
• Cozy Hearth Yeast Breads like Summer Garden Sourdough Focaccia
• Romantic Cafe Pastries like Puff Pastry Croque Madame
• Fanciful Pancakes, Waffles, and Donuts like Rose Waffles with Strawberry Syrup
• Old-Fashioned Desserts like Sticky Toffee Pear Puddings

The recipes are accompanied by beautiful photos, plus sweet illustrations by Lobermeier's mom Jill Haupt. The combo makes the book almost as fitting as a coffee table book as a cookbook. 

The first recipe I personally tried was the Lemon German Springerle Cookies. I'd never heard of these before seeing them in the Under. Tin Roof Instagram feed, and I'd never tasted them until I made my own with the Cottagecore Baking Book. But they looked darling in the book, and the press kit came with not just the book but also this beautiful wooden Springerle mold (you can get one here!) 

At first, I underestimated how much flour to put on the molds even though Kayla specifically said in the book to be generous with the flour, and my cookies kept sticking. But once I actually took her advice, it went beautifully. I just had to basically complete cover the patterned part of the mold before each cookie. Kayla's recipe was easy to follow once you accept that you need to actually follow the directions and not just wing it, haha, and the cookies baked up tender and pretty. The light lemon flavor was delicious, and these cookies would be so lovely for a tea party or a spring holiday with this floral mold, or any time of year with a seasonally appropriate mold. I looked a bit at some of the springerle cookie molds for sale through some links on Kayla's blog, and there are especially a lot of beautiful Christmas ones, but also for occasions and seasons throughout the year. I paired my cookies with a mug of chai and it was delightful.

I'm so proud of myself for making this successfully! I feel like I beat a technical bake competition from a baking reality show. Anyway, as I have the opportunity to try more of the recipes in this book, I will try to update this post to include pictures of those as well, and to let you know if they worked and if they didn't, my best guess why (which will probably continue to be my own lack of culinary skill and attention to detail, haha.)

Order your copy of The Cottagecore Baking Book

The Cottagecore Baking Book will be available nationally and across the globe on February 20th, 2024, in both brick & mortar bookstores and online. To order or fimd shops that will be carrying the book, visit the Under a Tin Roof cookbook page. Congratulations on another wonderful book, Kayla! I can't wait to try more of these charming recipes.