I really liked the way that the essays were included with the recipes because I love hearing people's stories that fueled their passion. The recipes are easy to follow. This was a very enjoyable book to read.

Fun and light, it's a fantastic first baking book - the recipes are easy, and the essays are alternately hilarious and thought-provoking. A perfect intro to baking during stressful times!

Loved the stories that went along with the recipes! Lots of great choices and an interesting story behind them. I did hear that the term was originally used by another woman who was not mentioned in the book, and that is a shame.

Update: February 20th 2020

Since the publication of this book it has come to light that the premise of the book was initially put out into the world by Tangerine Jones, long before the book we see now came into being. Ms. Jones is not credited with her creation of the relevant social media accounts, hashtags and social justice movement. The response on behalf of the authors and publishers has been underwhelming in its embracing of the inclusive feminism the book claims to symbolize. Individual authors have also responded to the controversy in a bit of a mixed-bag.

While I will not be changing my review, it would be disingenuous to go back and white-wash my initial impressions, feel obligated to to include this note so that future readers may make choices about the book equipped with the full understanding of its context. My willingness to embrace the premise and production of the book without deeper research was my misstep, one I will be more conscious of in the future. The idea of Rage Baking as an inclusive feminist/social justice movement falls apart when white women build fame on the shoulders of BIPOC without attribution or compensation.


This book has already been added to my “buy this!’ list at work. The recipes alone make this one a winner. Add in essays and commentary from feminists around the country and five stars doesn't feel like enough.

Our library has a very active cookbook club, full of members with very exacting tastes in their cookbooks. This one checks all the boxes. The pictures are beautiful. The recipes are well written and all the steps make sense. The anecdotes that pepper the recipes create a narrative feel. The food looks amazing and provides creative spins on classic comfort baking. This book meets all these criteria and more.

As a collection of essays this book also stands out. In a time when the current political climate can create, rage, fear, anxiety and despair (all within one hourly news cycle) these essays give a voice to many of our feelings. Hearing the perspectives of many like-minded feminists was uplifting and inspiring. Readers may leave this book motivated to bake a great batch of cooking and volunteer with a local political campaign.

The therapeutic qualities of baking, or any type of cooking, are well known. Rage Baking shows how to take those qualities and apply them to a community while still feeding your passions and providing for family and friends. Think of it as one HUGE bake sell that will benefit us all. For the foreseeable past, baking has been a woman's task to accomplish. It was a duty, a skill that was honed out of duty and necessity. That is no longer true, yet the satisfaction when you make something wonderful with your hands and heart will reap much more than just feeding the hungry. Katherine Alford and Kathy Gunst are feeding into a much larger women's movement that is quickly making changes to the home lives of many women who do not have the chance to experience baking for their communities. This book is not just a recipe for better mental health. Sharing the stories and your personal results can improve the quality of life for your friends and neighbors. Now I must go bake!

YES! I am a lazy baker. I will devour any shortcut. Meticulously follow any instruction that cuts time and still gives a great product. But even I was enchanted by the Rage bakers inside this beautiful bakers book. I was inspired and guilted into trying more than one recipe to a fully realized end. What a fun ,engaging experience is waiting all the readers of this wonderful inspired book.

I received an advance copy of this book via NetGalley.

Rage baking. It is totally a thing, a philosophy, a need to whip batter, pound dough, make something beautiful and delicious out of aggressive physical action. I've done more than my share of rage baking, especially in the past few years. I was pretty excited to read this book--to commune with other women like me. Therefore, I was surprised to be disappointed by it.

The book is a mix of essays, a couple interviews, and recipes. The recipes are organized into sections such as cookies and bars, pies, etc. There's no such organization with the other content. Beyond the recipe grouping, there's no sense of flow at all. It makes the book feel oddly disjointed, unsure if it wants to be a cookbook or empowering collection for female bakers... and it could have certainly been both. The included recipes are generally interesting, but the little intros often don't feel that connected to the 'rage' theme at all.

I think the book would have also benefited by looking more to history for recipes and essays. As it is now, it's quite focused on the current political climate (and comes from a fiercely liberal standpoint), and because of that, it will quickly become dated. A sense of inter-generational rage-baking would have bolstered the book; one of my favorite pieces, "My Two Mothers" by Kate Alford, hit on this feeling nicely and left me wanting for more. I also loved and strongly related to "F*** You, Cake (P.S. I Actually Love You)" by Von Diaz, which explores the love/hate regard for food so many of us experience.

While not a bad book by any means, <i>Rage Baking</i> didn't leave me feeling inspired or with a sense of a common bond. Instead, the book felt muddled to me, a promise unrealized. Maybe I should vent my frustration with some baking.

Cookbooks often provide some history lessons along with the recipes, and this one definitely does. Rage Baking is also a cookbook to actually sit and read through. Each of the recipes includes at least a paragraph about what it is and why it's in the book, and most include a beautiful full color photograph. Interspersed are essays and transcripts of interviews, sharing womens' viewpoints on the current times and baking. There were great, thought provoking moments in here. Lots of delicious sounding recipes, many for things I've either never tried or haven't made myself. All of it feels very personal, and lots of the recipes seem to be from or inspired by friends and family of the woman that provided it. An impressive list of women contributed to this, and for the ones I was not familiar with, I was glad to see brief bios at the end of the book.
This is not the book for you if you are ok with the outcome of the 2016 election and where we're at in 2020 in America, as women and as citizens. If you are open to or agree with a group of strong minded women who are concerned and angry and find a little bit of solace in baking, then this book is very interesting.
I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

There's a lot to be angry about these days, and the authors of this cookbook/feminist essay collection are here for you. They have solicited short pieces and treasured recipes from authors, activists, and more. This book doesn't really offer solutions to the systemic problems in our society that lead to so-called rage baking, but it will inspire you to try some new recipes and focus on something other than the news.

Rage Baking is a cookbook and essay collection about the feelings engendered by the modern political landscape and a discourse on positive response and plans for the future. Due out 4th Feb. 2020 from Simon & Schuster on their Tiller Press imprint, it's 208 pages and will be available in hardcover and ebook formats.

I have been in a spiral of shocked dismay and, yes, rage over the political and social events of the last few years. Every single time I think 'NOW, it absolutely positively must be the breaking point, it can't get worse', politics, the climate crisis, the news, finds a way to sink even closer to the absolute bottom. We're way beyond what I even thought possible when I was younger and less pessimistic. The introduction to the book has a good quote from one of the editors:

Let me be clear: this is not a book telling women that if they get back into the kitchen and start baking, their rage will be sedated and all will be well. Far from it. This is a book about women’s voices, women’s recipes, women in community with one another. Don’t let anyone tell you you’re being too dramatic, too loud, too outspoken. Too Sarah Bernhardt. Speak out. Speak up.


Each of the recipes is accompanied by a small intro/essay by the contributor. At least one (Ruth Reichl’s Oatmeal Cookies) is gluten (flour) free. The recipes run the gamut from ultra simple to the complex and most of the spectrum in between.

An abbreviated table of contents lists the recipes with page numbers directly for ease of use in each section. The introduction, with essays by the editors along with a discussion of tools and ingredients, is followed by chapters arranged roughly thematically: cookies/bars/bites, breads, cakes, puddings & custards, crumble/pies/tarts, and ends with a resource and mail order links list, short contributor bios, and an index.

I only tried a couple of the recipes in the book: the first recipe for Ruth Reichl's oatmeal cookies (gluten free, only 7 ingredients, and delicate/fall apart but quite delicious), and zucchini-almond bread which was delicious and moist (and didn't even last long enough to get cold). On a careful read-through of the recipes, I didn't find any glaring errors.

So the recipe part of the book is a winner in my opinion. The recipes are easy to follow and made with easily sourced ingredients which should be available at any well stocked supermarket. The essay part of the content, written by dozens of women who are mostly not primarily known for their cooking (some exceptions from the food industry of course) are full of bewildered sadness to straight up rage (we're mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore). I found reading and baking along with the essayists very cathartic. There weren't any truly sublime points for me personally from the essays or the recipes, but the combination felt constructive and at least lifted me out of the morass of the current dystopian reality for a few hours, and that was nice.

Four stars, it would likely be 3 - 3.5 for each part of the book individually, but the synergy makes it something more special.

When I requested this book I wasn't sure what to expect I found the stories and pictures to be very interesting. The recipes are keepers my husband loves chorizo so the chorizo pigs in a blanket will be a big hit on the regular around here.

The recipes are well written with no missing steps (trust me) I look at enough cookbooks for this to get an honorable mention.

The pictures make every recipe looks appealing and provides creative spins on classic comfort food so although not unknown they aren'tcopies of the same old thing. This book as the title describes is deffinatly a feminist movement memoir and all the stories and pictures document all the major pivotal moments of the era

I'm not really a feminist as far as jumping on the band wagon and writing to my senators and I tend to really stay away from political discussions. I simply shake my head in disappointment at our ever changing society norms. So I can't honestly say I feel the rage described within these pages but I do understand the issues. And I at least agree with the motto we should fight for what we believe in each in our own way.

If your not a feminist you may not enjoy this book but I would like to point out regardless of your stance it was and still remains to be a pivotal point in our society. This is both a history and delicious reminder that even if you dont agree on the issue at hand breaking bread can heal the heart and soul.

I loved this. When I requested it I didn't even know how much it would speak to me. I feel every rage the author mentions about the state of things in our country right now. I felt comfortable with familiar jokes about Portlandia and great baking tips even as a seasoned Baker.

The recipes were delicious sounding and many I can make dairy free for myself!

We are also teaching our daughter she's allowed to be loud and take up space so I loved starting the book with that concept. I'll definitely purchase a few of these books as gifts for friends!

I found the Rage Baking collection to be a unique book that blends encouragement for voices to be heard as well as baking recipes that focuses on inspiration to fight for ‘what you believe in’. It was pleasantly different from what I had thought it would be and twice as informative. I’m not a baker by any means, but I’m trying to ‘dabble’ a bit more and reading the tips and tricks, along with seeing photos (not just of the recipes but of powerful women), and reading the essays/poems (‘a conversation with singer-songwriter Ani Difranco’, ‘if dessert be a fragile sky’), made me thing this a unique book and a great gift for anyone looking to focus/channel their rage (and a great history lesson as well).

This book really talks in specifics about the reason behind the rage. I didn’t expect it for some reason to be so political. Not that I disagreed with the author and the others she interviewed; just did not expect so much in a cookbook. The recipes were also incredibly thorough and many sound like something I would be interested in making at some point! I appreciate how much detail the various recipe authors go into. Would buy for my cookbook collection!

If I was only allowed one word to sum this book up, it would be: Amazing! Whether you are a baker or an activist or hopefully a healthy mix of both, this book has something for you. The recipes will inspire you in the kitchen and the political commentary will inspire you to go out and champion women's empowerment. But for the purposes of this review, I am going to focus more on the baking component than the activism. Suffice it to say, if you are a Donald Trump supporter, you will not find the political commentary to your liking, but if you are a Donald Trump supporter, you also will not understand the pain and outrage experienced by women who cannot accept a US president who takes pride in pussy grabbing, fat shaming, gay baiting, and worse. I proudly count myself among such women. And so a portion of the proceeds from this book goes to Emily's list, an organization dedicated to helping progressive women enter the political arena and assume government offices.

From a baking perspective, the book opens with two extremely helpful sections: one that explain basic baking ingredients and the chemistry that informs how they work and why and another one that explains the equipment that you will need to be a successful baker. Once this basic information is out of the way, the book is divided according to different types of baking recipes: Cookies, Bars, and Bites; Breads; Cakes; Puddings and Custards; and Pies and Tarts. The mouth-watering desserts contained in each section include precise, easy-to-understand directions with lots of helpful tips for making that specific recipes. Each section also includes a more general section offering helpful hints for that category in general. Not to mention the female contributors to this volume read like a whose who of cooking and activism. Among the ranks of the contributors are both enthusiastic amateur bakers and James Beard winners, guaranteeing that this book has recipes for bakers of various skill levels -- not to mention the wide variety of offerings that will surely leave one ready to bake and vote for change. These offerings include (but are by no means limited to): Raspberry Triple-Layer Cake, Root Beer Cake with Chocolate-Root Beer Glaze; Maple Walnut Pull Apart Bread; Spiced Bulgur Flatbreads, Lemon bars, and Peanut Butter Sticky Fingerprint Cookies.

With its message of women's empowerment and social justice and its mouth-watering recipes with clear directions, this book is a must-have!

I was thrilled at the idea of a #metoo influenced feminist cookbook. This wasn't exactly as I pictured it going in, and unfortunately I wasn't into what it actually was. Suffice to say I didn't feel the need to continue with it.

I'm very torn by this book. As a collection of essays and as a cookbook they would each rate 5 stars, but it feels cobbled together as is so I rated it a 4. Maybe that's because based on the title and description I was expecting something more in the vein of "Thug Kitchen'. That being said the essays are amazing and inspiring and the recipes come from some of my favorite chefs so I would recommend. If reading on a kindle it needs to be a Fire as the formatting was a little skewed on my paper white but was formatted well on the Fire (and you could appreciate the beautiful photography better in color).

This book was received as an ARC from Tiller Press in exchange for an honest review. Opinions and thoughts expressed in this review are completely my own.

I am a cooking enthusiast and a women's rights enthusiast, so when I found out there is a book that combines the best of both worlds, I was totally on board. A lot of my favorite celebrity chefs were featured in this book including Carla Hall, Elizabeth Faulkner, Preeti Mistry, and Ruth Reichl and all of the recipes look absolutely delicious. I especially fell in love with Elizabeth Faulkner's Power Muffs and Preeti Mistry's Thepla and Chundo Mango Chutney. I also loved that this book not only featured chefs but the insights of famous writers and artists like Ani DiFranco and Cecile Richards, I will definitely consider this book as a potential candidate for our next cooking demo.

We will consider adding this title to our Cookbook collection at our library. This is why we give this book 5 stars.

Strong opinionated women, who take a stand who speak out and yes who bake.Full of essays interviews thoughts at time anger frustration with the state of our country.Add in delicious recipes beautifully described photographed so many recipes to try so much to think about.This book would make a terrific gift .#netgalley#Tillerpress

Hmmm... Well, my first thought after reading this book is that apparently feminists aren't supposed to be vegan or gluten free, and apparently baking really rich desserts is supposed to somehow make it better when awful things are happening to women.

I'm torn on this one. The recipes do sound tasty, though I can't bake the vast majority of them because they're mostly the standard white flour, butter, sugar kind of treats and I bake gluten-free. I don't know that I want to bake cookies and cakes shared by fellow feminists, even if they're quite good. I love to bake, and my 16 year old son loves to bake (and he's definitely a feminist). And I do appreciate the essays in this book by all kinds of women -- especially the one about how rage baking isn't probably going to help anything (kudos to the editor for putting that essay in there). There are some nice color photos of some of the recipes, and some cool black and white photos of women marching and protesting and basically being upset about things like the Kavanaugh hearings.

But... I also limit how much I bake stuff like this even when it is gluten free, because I'm kind of tired of the baking culture that celebrates recipes made only with loads of butter and refined flour that just make us sick and fat. It's one step up from the cliche of getting sad and eating a carton of ice cream. Can I get mad and make a rocking lacto-fermented sour kraut instead? Or some whole grain sourdough bread with wild yeast? How about some elderflower soda or coconut milk yogurt or acorn flour pancakes? Can I get mad and also stay healthy with tasty food that is also good for me?

Despite my crankiness, this is a cool book with a good premise. If it bands women together to talk about things like electing more women into office who stand up for women's issues, then that's a good thing. Some proceeds go towards EMILY's List, which is a good thing too. And there really do seem to be some delicious recipes in here.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for the purpose of review.