Archive for the ‘Desserts and Sweets’ Category
Friday, March 23rd, 2012
Pros: Mmmmmmm…..
Cons: Just remember to put that butter out to soften, and it helps to have a good stand mixer
Rating: 5 out of 5
Review book (published 2011) provided courtesy of Chronicle Books
I’m eating a lot less sweets these days, but I’m still a sucker for certain things. A great crisp cookie is one of them. Tina Casaceli’s Milk & Cookies: 89 Heirloom Recipes from New York’s Milk & Cookies Bakery
includes 89 recipes for cookies of all kinds, from the soft to the uber-crisp. Casaceli organizes her recipes by type (vanilla cookies, double chocolate cookies, oatmeal cookies, peanut butter cookies, sugar cookies, and “special cookies”, as well as family favorites and brownies & bars).
Most chapters start off with a “base” dough for the relevant type of cookie, such as the vanilla base dough on page 20. Then each recipe within that chapter tells you how to alter or add to the base dough to get the results you want. This is a method that’s more important to an operation that’s trying to produce a ton of cookies on demand and doesn’t want to have to create 90 different doughs, and it does mean a little flipping around as you’re making your recipes. The changes are simple ones, though, so as long as you don’t have a three-second memory limit like I do, you’re probably fine. The classic chocolate chip cookies are a great example of a use of the vanilla dough base. They’re packed full of both chocolate chunks and chocolate curls (or shavings), and have a sort of soft inside and crispy edge. The recipe makes plenty, which is good, because they’ll disappear fast! (Ours certainly did.) The vanilla dough can also be used to make such recipes as white chocolate-macadamia nut cookies, dark chocolate-toffee cookies, and walnut cookies.
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Tags: Cookbooks, cookies, cooking, recipes
Posted in Desserts and Sweets | Permalink | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, July 14th, 2010
Pros: Delightful, delicious, and oh-so-seasonal!
Cons: None so far!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Review book (published 2010) provided courtesy of Chronicle Books.
Farmers’ markets can be delightful places, filled with ripe, seasonal fruits and vegetables, as well as things like honey, maple syrup, fresh eggs, milk, and dairy. If you have one near you, you’ve probably meant to take advantage of it more than you actually have. If so, grab a copy of Jennie Schacht’s Farmers’ Market Desserts
. It’s filled with inspiring photographs of fresh fruits and farmers’ market treats, as well as the desserts it offers up. It has a chart of the peak US growing season for a wide range of produce from almonds to figs, melons to zucchini. And the recipes come with plenty of suggestions for substituting alternate fruits should the one you want not be in perfect condition on a given week.
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Tags: Cookbooks, cooking, desserts, farmers' markets, fruit, Jennie Schacht, recipes
Posted in Desserts and Sweets | Permalink | No Comments »
Friday, May 28th, 2010
Pros: *drool* uh, I mean, fantastic results!
Cons: Try not to go into diabetic shock, okay?
Rating: 5 out of 5
Review book (published 2010) provided courtesy of Chronicle Books.
Also posted at Epinions.com.
Cake, frosting, chocolate… ohhh my. I knew I was in trouble as soon as I laid eyes on Elinor Klivans’s Chocolate Cakes: 50 Great Cakes for Every Occasion
. As is de rigeur for most Chronicle cookbooks, the following is true: There are plenty of gorgeous photos, although not of every recipe. The table of contents includes the recipe titles so you can find what you want at a moment’s notice. There’s a simple but useful index. The pages are glossy and will stand up to a fair amount of use. The pages lie surprisingly flat, and the layout of the recipes is clean, clear, and easy to read. Now that that’s out of the way, I can get to what’s important: the cakes!
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Tags: cakes, Chocolate, chocolate cakes, cookbook reviews, Cookbooks, Elinor Klivans, recipes
Posted in Baking, Chocolate, Desserts and Sweets, Food Type-Focused | Permalink | 4 Comments »
Tuesday, May 18th, 2010
Pros: WONDERFUL results; fantastic mix-and-match ideas
Cons: One or two small mistakes—but the recipes are simple enough that if you know your way around a kitchen, you can figure them out
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Review book (published 2010) provided courtesy of Chronicle Books.
Also posted on Epinions.com.
Whoopie pies (also called “gobs” in some places) are one of those things I was familiar with growing up, since I lived in the northeastern US. They look like ice cream sandwiches, only traditionally the cookies are actually chocolate cake, and the filling is marshmallow. It’s one of those decadent, bad-for-you childhood treats that can become so much more in the hands of a creative cook.
In Whoopie Pies: Dozens of Mix ‘em, Match ‘em, Eat ‘em Up Recipes
, Sarah Billingsley and Amy Treadwell give us a gourmet take on whoopie pies—without sacrificing any of the decadence or childlike delight!
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Tags: Amy Treadwell, Cookbooks, cooking, dessert, gobs, recipes, Sarah Billingsley, sweets, whoopie pies, whoopies
Posted in Desserts and Sweets, Food Type-Focused | Permalink | 5 Comments »
Monday, December 7th, 2009
Pros: Hilarious, incredibly useful, and soooooooooo delicious
Cons: NONE
Rating: 6 out of 5
Review book (published 2009) courtesy of Chronicle Books.
Also posted on Epinions.com.
Actual quotes uttered during the testing of this cookbook by me, my husband, and friends:
“Is it legal for cakes to taste this good?”
“She’s a natural storyteller.”
“We don’t have to stop making cakes from this book just because you’re ready to review it, do we?”
(With pen in hand) “What’s the name of that cookbook?”
I’ve been reviewing books since roughly 1998. In that time, I’ve reviewed almost 200 cookbooks. I can say without a doubt—and I noticed this well before I started getting any review copies from them—that overall, Chronicle puts out the best cookbooks. Don’t get me wrong; cookbooks from other publishers can, individually, be equally as good. But for the most consistent high quality and production value, I look to Chronicle. I’ve only once, I think, been “meh” about one of their cookbooks, and I’ve never given really low marks to any of them. That’s a surprising track record.
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Tags: All Cakes Considered, All Things Considered, cake lady, cakes, Cookbooks, cooking, dessert, Melissa Gray, recipes
Posted in Baking, Desserts and Sweets | Permalink | 8 Comments »
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
Pros: Wow. Delightful, hard-working recipes that showcase the best of chocolate.
Cons: Sugar, calories, fat, calories…
Rating: 5 out of 5
Review copy courtesy of The Taunton Press.
Also posted on Epinions.com.
Hi, my name is Heather, and I’m addicted to chocolate. I prefer dark to milk, although the new “deep milk” is good, and I’m picky about my whites (most brands taste chalky, but that’s why I stay stocked up on Green & Black’s). I love trying out new and wacky flavor combos like bacon-chocolate, or chocolate with almonds and sea salt (Vosges makes an awesome bar of the latter); or good old-fashioned pairings like chocolate and coconut. Above all, I like to cook with it. My husband and I always keep a few bars around to break up and whisk into a hot mixture of milk and half-and-half, maybe with a dash of liqueur, for hot chocolate, but it’s fun to go wild sometimes instead. And believe me, if you want to go wild with chocolate, this cookbook put together by the editors of Fine Cooking magazine, Absolutely Chocolate: Irresistible Excuses to Indulge
, is perfect.
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Tags: Chocolate, Cookbooks, cooking, desserts, Fine Cooking, recipes, sweets
Posted in Chocolate, Desserts and Sweets | Permalink | 10 Comments »
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009
Pros: Extremely useful for beginner or non-ambitious cupcake decorators!
Cons: Has a narrow purpose
Rating: 5 out of 5
Review book (published 2009) courtesy of Chronicle Books.
Also posted on Epinions.com.
I love cake. I ADORE cupcakes, which are small, portable, easy-to-indulge-in tidbits of cake. They’re more fun if you decorate them a bit, make them a little snazzy, but it’s hard to find a good middle ground. There’s a ton of cake-making equipment out there, but maybe you just want a simple swirled icing, nothing too fancy, and you don’t want to spend much money to do it. There are books by the dozens teaching you how to make elaborate icing flowers, but maybe like me you just don’t have that kind of artistic talent—or hands that steady! (Let’s face it—anything fancy I try to make is going to eventually turn up on Cake Wrecks.) Or perhaps you do want to get into decorating on a larger scale, but you want to start small, keep things simple until you get the hang of the basics.
In any of these cases, Elinor Klivans’s Cupcake Kit: Recipes, Liners, and Decorating Tools for Making the Best Cupcakes!
just might be the answer to your prayers!
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Tags: cake decorating, Cookbooks, cooking, cupcakes, Elinor Klivans, food, recipes
Posted in Baking, Desserts and Sweets, Food Type-Focused | Permalink | 5 Comments »
Friday, July 17th, 2009
Pros: Delicious!! Versatility of card deck format
Cons: Small mistakes; clumsiness of card deck format
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Review book (published 2009) courtesy of Chronicle Books.
Also posted on Epinions.com.
I find card deck-format cookbooks to be both a positive and a negative. It’s great to be able to pluck a single card from the deck and stand it on the kitchen counter to work with—particularly when compared with a soft-bound book prone to closing. On the other hand, you have to consistently remember to put the cards back in their case, preferably in order, or the whole thing becomes chaos and you risk losing cards. Ultimately I expect this is one of those personal preference things that some cooks will love and others won’t.
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Tags: Cookbooks, dessert, ice cream, Lou Seibert Pappas, recipes
Posted in Desserts and Sweets, Food Type-Focused | Permalink | 2 Comments »
Thursday, March 5th, 2009
Pros: Handy easel design; simple recipes; delicious results
Cons: Although the book seems perfect for inexperienced cooks, it leaves some details out
Rating: 4 out of 5
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Tags: Cookbooks, desserts, Moosewood, recipes, restaurants, vegetarian
Posted in Desserts and Sweets | Permalink | 1 Comment »
Monday, May 19th, 2008
Pros: Delicious & so much healthier!
Cons: Occasional mild structural problems
Rating: 5 out of 5
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Tags: agave nectar, Ania Catalano, Cookbooks, cooking, diabetes, health, organic, recipes, whole foods
Posted in Baking, Desserts and Sweets, Healthy | Permalink | 17 Comments »
