Features & Stories

ckbk’s Best of 2022

22 December 2022 · Discover ckbk

Another year has flown by and it’s time to crunch the numbers to see which books and recipes have been the most popular in 2022. Without further ado, here are the top 20 recipes:

  1. Gunpowder Chicken from Mowgli Street Food

  2. Mother Butter Chicken from Mowgli Street Food

  3. Paprika Chicken from 30 Minute Mowgli

  4. Chicken, Coconut and Pineapple Curry from 30 Minute Mowgli

  5. Million-Dollar Dahl from 30 Minute Mowgli

  6. Treacle Tamarind Fries from Mowgli Street Food

  7. Masala Omelette Wrap from Mowgli Street Food

  8. Angry Bird from Mowgli Street Food

  9. Eight-Texture Chocolate Cake from Quay

  10. Green Dahl with Rhubarb and Ginger from Mowgli Street Food

  11. Slow–Roasted Tomato, Chickpea, Halloumi and French Bean Salad from The Vegetarian Kitchen

  12. Giant Lemon Drizzles from Bad Girl Bakery

  13. Sesame Chicken from Taste Tibet

  14. Pad Thai Protein Salad from The Plant-Based Cookbook

  15. Spinach and Chickpea Curry from 30 Minute Mowgli

  16. Chicken Gyros from The Real Greek

  17. The Best Chicken You Will Ever Eat from Well Fed

  18. House Lamb Curry from Mowgli Street Food

  19. Taste Tibet Famous Chicken Curry from Taste Tibet

  20. Chicken Cacciatore from Italian Comfort Food

Nisha Katona’s accessible spicy Indian street food recipes are unassailable in their popularity on ckbk, not least thanks to the addition of 30 Minute Mowgli and more recently also Meat Free Mowgli, which have joined the original Mowgli Street Food title.

ckbk users certainly really love curry recipes and chicken recipes! Especially well done, though, to Bad Girl Bakery, whose Giant Lemon Drizzles took the top baking spot after Peter Gilmore’s ever-popular (but slightly more involved!) Eight Texture Chocolate Cake.

Giant Lemon Drizzles (a muffin/cake hybrid) were described by ckbk user Jane Severs in her review as “dangerously delicious”, while Good Old Cheese Scone (another popular recipe from Bad Girl Bakery) has a review noting noting “the recipe may be long but the end result is well worth the effort!” Please keep the reviews and ratings coming in – they enhance the site enormously. ckbk’s authors are proving to be a responsive bunch, so you may even receive an immediate response from the author!

 


Jeni Iannetta’s Giant Lemon Drizzles from Bad Girl Bakery.

 
 

The most popular cookbooks in 2022

Here are the top 20 cookbooks that ckbk users have been relying on most this year - a mix of reference and technique books, regional cuisines and baking bibles.

  1. Mowgli Street Food by Nisha Katona ↔️

  2. 30 Minute Mowgli by Nisha Katona 🆕

  3. Professional Cooking by Wayne Gisslen ⬇️

  4. Oxford Companion to Food edited by Alan Davidson ⬆️

  5. The Cook's Book of Everything by Lulu Grimes ⬆️

  6. The Italian Regional Cookbook by Valentina Harris ⬆️

  7. The Weeknight Cook by Birgit Binns ⬆️

  8. Bad Girl Bakery by Jeni Iannetta 🆕

  9. The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Cuisine by The French Culinary Institute 🆕

  10. My Street Food Kitchen by Jennifer Joyce ⬆️

  11. Baking by James Peterson 🆕

  12. Easy Vegan by Sue Quinn ⬆️

  13. The Vegetarian Kitchen by Prue Leith and Peta Leith 🆕

  14. Le Guide Culinaire by August Escoffier ⬇️

  15. The Complete Guide to Traditional Jewish Cooking by Marlena Spieler 🆕

  16. Prue: My All-time Favourite Recipes by Prue Leith ⬇️

  17. The Baking Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum ⬇️

  18. Lucy's Food: Minimum Effort, Maximum Impact by Lucy Cufflin 🆕

  19. The New Basics Cookbook by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins ⬇️

  20. The Professional Pastry Chef by Bo Friberg ⬇️

The two highest new entries are 30 Minute Mowgli, a valuable quick and easy followup to the original Mowgli, and Bad Girl Bakery, which fully justifies the effusive praise it has received from Nigella Lawson no less..

The third new entry, The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Cuisine, is part of a series added to ckbk in 2022 from the French Culinary Institute (now part of the Institute of Culinary Education) in New York. These titles have achieved instant popularity, especially as more and more culinary schools (including the ICE) have signed up for access to ckbk for their staff and students. We see that many chefs and culinary students are searching for traditional sauces: Demi-Glace (also known as Sauce Espagnole), Crème Anglaise, Sauce Bordelaise and Sauce Suprême are the most popular.

Other popular professional titles include the defining work of classical French cuisine, Auguste Escoffier’s Guide Culinaire (‘A must for all chefs’ according to Daniel Galmiche), Wayne Gisslen’s Professional Cooking and Bo Friberg’s The Professional Pastry Chef.

 
 

We hope you’ve enjoyed this round up, and we look forward to seeing which of our newly added cookbooks make it into 2023’s top rankings.