Review:  I may have to stop reviewing cookbooks from Taunton Press–every single one I have chosen to review thus far I have wanted to own.  My personal copy ordered from Amazon is on it’s way to me as I type this.

What is it about this one?  At first glance, it seems a little gimmicky.  About 10 or 12 years ago, there were several cookbooks published that either limited the number of ingredients or number of steps for a recipe.  Sometimes they were successful and sometimes less so.

Johnson Dodge has an understanding of ingredients, of chemistry, of baking and cooking, and of today’s cook that works like magic here.  When you only have four ingredients, they all count, and they all must work together to make the finished product.  She gives a great introductory section where she talks about ingredients, techniques, equipment and more.  Almost every recipe has suggestions to change it up, or comments on technical things or ways to gussy it up with sauces or glazes or the like.  Usually when I review a cookbook, I make two or three dishes to see how they turn out.  These recipes were so easy and so good, I found myself making one every time I turned around.

I started with Jammin’ Sugar Cookie Thumbprints (p. 22) and Toasted Pistachio Crisps (p. 19).  I am lazy, so I almost never get out my mixer.  On the thumbprints, I filled them with raspberry preserves.  They were rich, buttery, crispy and the raspberry was a perfect contrast.  There were several suggestions for switch-ins and anyone with a little imagination could come up with more.  I was not able to slice the dough for the crisps, it kept crumbling.  (Possibly my fault for either mixing by hand or not chopping my nuts finely enough).  It didn’t matter, I rolled the dough into balls and pressed each flat with the palm of my hand.  My husband loved them, suggesting I add them to my regular baking.  From there I tried Crunchy Peanut Butter Buttons (p. 32).  You will be amazed that such simple ingredients make such a divine cookie.  Next time I think I’ll try the suggestion and add mini M&Ms.  These cookies were surprisingly even more peanuttier the second day.  The Oatmeal-Cinnamon Crisps (p. 28) made a believer out of me.  I looked at the “dough” and then my homely piles of oats on the cookie sheets and thought there is no way this is going to work.  And then it did, almost like magic, when the brown sugar caramelized to make little crunchy mounds of goodness.

There were two recipes that were less successful however.  The Lemon Meltaways (p. 29) had nice texture but didn’t taste very lemony.  This again may have been my fault, as I didn’t measure my lemon zest, just zested the one lemon I had and figured it was enough.  The Chocolate-Toffee Crumble Cups (p. 37) were delicious when first baked, but after they had cooled, the toffee in the dough seemed to get very hard and chewy and made them not as good.  In this case, I think I would make them again and only put the toffee on the top, or try one of the suggestions for other things to switch-in their place.

Almost every recipe I tried had a higher yield than indicated.  (If you are into cooking or just like to be exact, I recommend buying cookie scoops of varying sizes, they work so well.)   I wanted to try other recipes in the book, so I can’t wait for my copy to get here.  And Abigail Johnson Dodge, if you see this, I would love a Cookies 4 Today book next.  (You can tell I can’t get enough of these cookie recipes!)

Reviewed from publisher provided egalley downloaded from Netgalley.com  Amazon Affiliate: If you click from here to Amazon and buy something, I receive a percentage of the purchase price.

Bibliography

Review: This was one of my favorite books from last year.  I don’t just love cookbooks because I love cooking, I love cookbooks with gorgeous photographs and interesting head notes and tips and techniques.  I really enjoy this kind of book, as they go into multiple variations of beloved recipes such as chocolate chip cookies and brownies as well as providing new and interesting dishes to try.  I know there are people out there who don’t like chocolate, but this book is for all of the rest of us.

I first read this online in galley form, and thought it was wonderful, but when I was able to check out a copy from the library, I liked it even more, with it’s large over-sized format and photographs that make you want to make every recipe (all 125) in the book.  From an introduction that describes the process of making chocolate and encourages a chocolate taste test through a gamut of chocolate delights and confections and tips and tricks for cooking with all forms of chocolate,  I find myself struggling not to add this to my ever growing personal collection of recipe books.

I was drawn to some of the more unique recipes such as port ganache- glazed brownies with dried cherries and fried chocolate hazelnut wontons with orange dipping sauce, but the true test of a book like this I believe are in its renditions of old favorites and classics.  For about as long as I can remember, my recipe of choice for chocolate chip cookies has been that on the back of that familiar yellow bag that has been around now for over 70 years.  But sometimes my husband complains that these are too crunchy.  So I was eager to try the recipe for Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies found on page 12.  According to the recipe, cold butter and eggs combined with a higher proportion of brown sugar will give a chewier cookie.  After baking these, I think I might have found a new chocolate chip cookie recipe to replace the old standby.  Chewy and irresistible and a recipe that even cut in half yields a ton.  The true test was my husband.

“What’s in these?” he asked?

Uh-oh, I thought, he doesn’t like them.

“They are like potato chips.  I can’t stop eating them.”

The secret?  I think it is the vanilla, three times as much as in the old familiar recipe.

I also tried the Chocolate Chip Muffins on page 244.  Recent attempts to move away from boxed muffin mix to scratch muffins had not been successful.  Again I was skeptical, as the directions called for overloading the muffin tins to get a bakery style top.  My past experience with that were muffins that overflowed the pan and baked together into a huge mess.  Again, I was wrong.  I was rewarded with huge beautiful muffins that were, of course, better than a box mix.  My only complaint was that there were too many for the two of us, so next time I’ll probably cut the recipe in half.

Now I am eager to try more–perhaps brownies will be next?  Chewy, fudgy or cakey?  Mint or peanut butter or cream cheese?  Perhaps I’ll need to buy this book after all.

Review Excerpts: “From the simple to the elegant, the editors of Fine Cooking have all your chocolate cravings covered….the 125-plus recipes cover cookies, brownies, cakes, pies and tarts, puddings and mousses, and other delectable treats. Recipes are clear and filled with enough basic tips to make novice cooks feel like pros.”–Library Journal

“[A]n absolute must for chocolate lovers. This new cookbook, filled with tantalizing color photographs, makes you want to dive into a bowl of chocolate and never come up for air. It’s a breathtaking, mouthwatering look into the world of chocolate.”–Chattanooga Times Free-Press

Reviewed from public library copy. Amazon Affiliate: If you click from here to Amazon and buy something, I receive a percentage of the purchase price.

I first started reading Cooking Light in the mid-1990s, when I was still living in a college dorm.  I didn’t have a kitchen, but sometimes the cover would catch my eye from the newsstand and I’d buy the latest copy.  In addition to delicious sounding recipes with lots of photos, they also had healthy living product reviews, nutrition information, workouts, and more.  Not too long after that,  I moved out of the dorm to a little house with a kitchen and my parents got me a subscription.

I remember the first double issue (Cooking Light publishes one double issue a year that has tons of holiday recipes and gift ideas) I received had the recipe for Easy Chocolate-Caramel Brownies on the front.  I HAD to make them right away, but I didn’t have a car to drive to the grocery store.  So I walked to a little convenience store a little ways off and paid too much for all the ingredients but was so happy to bake (and eat!) the brownies.

Since then, I have subscribed to the magazine off and on, depending on whether someone was giving it to me as a gift or I could read it at the library.  I saved my back issues for years, only giving them up when we moved to Florida.  (They took up too much space.)  Fortunately, like many magazine publishers, Southern Progress Corporation realized putting their recipes and features online does not diminish their print readership.  Find Cooking Light and sister magazine’s recipes at MyRecipes.  A recent change in design, layout, and focus has made Cooking Light a joy to read and savor.

This year’s double issue includes a holiday party on the cheap, spectacular food gifts to make and give (toasted coconut marshmallows, cranberry liqueur and more), great gadgets and gifts for cooks, new takes on Christmas cookies and much much more.

I like this magazine so much that I am renewing my own subscription and giving some subscriptions as Christmas gifts as well.

Cooking Light publishes 12 issues a year (the double issue counts as 2.)

Reviewed from personal copy.  Amazon Affiliate: If you click from here to Amazon and buy something, I receive a percentage of the purchase price.

Bibliography

Review: I have many memories of cakes.  Birthday cakes, special cakes only made at Christmas, cakes I made to enter at the state fair.  Many of these were baked in a bundt or tube pan, and often served plain or only with a light glaze.  Lauren Chattman’s new cookbook brought back all those baking memories and inspired me to make more.  Her book includes 100 simple but delicious cakes meant to be mixed and baked in a few hours or less, and stored at room temperature under a cake keeper, if you’ve got one.  Assuming there is any cake left to keep.

The recipes are divided according what size and shape pan in which they are to be baked.  There are snack cakes, coffee cakes, crumb cakes, bunt cakes, chiffon cakes, angel food cakes, fruit upside down cakes, cakes with unusual flavor combinations, and some with familiar but delicious tastes.  The directions are very clear, including preparing the pan, tests for doneness and suggestions for serving.  In many cases, Chattman has modernized the preparation for the batters.  For example, with all butter based cakes, such as pound cakes, there is no fussing about how to add the liquid and the flour, you basically add one and then the other.  This makes for what will seem like a different batter than most bakers expect, but it bakes up just fine.

The design of the book itself is very appealing.  Coming in at just under 8 X 8 inches, and under 200 pages, it is not the intimidating tome that many recent cake and baking cookbooks have been.  Gorgeous full color photos of many of the recipes and lots of white space are a joy.  Too bad there isn’t a picture of every cake.  Listing the ingredients on the side of the page instead of the top and highlighting them in a different color makes them very easy to read and follow.

I have made several recipes from this book, and loved all of them.  I have made the World’s Quickest Yeasted Coffee Cake (p. 39) two or three times, it is more than just quick, it is delicious.  And while it is adapted from a Fleischman’s yeast recipe, Chattman’s is better.  One note, this cake does not store well, so bake when you know you have people to share it with.  Triple Chocolate Bundt Cake (p. 121) is very similar to a recipe that my sister and I make that starts with a cake mix and pudding.  This one, however, is from scratch, and you can tell the difference–it bakes higher and has a better crumb.  A note on this one, if I make it again, I will lower my oven temperature 25 degrees, as I think it was ever so slightly overcooked.  The fault being my oven, not the recipe.  Just this afternoon, I made the Pumpkin-Chocolate Chip Pound Cake (p. 101).  Having read Chattman’s note about changing out pans and pan sizes, I decided to double the recipe and bake it in a bundt pan.  I couldn’t find my cloves, so I substituted the same amount of ginger.  Also, I knew my husband wouldn’t like the chocolate chips and I forgot to buy walnuts at the store, so I left both out of the recipe.  The bundt pan was very full, if you have a smaller pan, you would need to take some batter out.  I baked mine at 325 degrees for 60 minutes and it came our perfect.  A crisp outside and moist inside and a beautiful golden orange color throughout.  My husband thought it was fabulous, plain and unadorned, and I did too.

Therein lies the beauty of this little book.  Each recipe is like the foundation on which you can build your own versions of whatever strikes your fancy.  Once you know the basic idea for a fruit upside down cake or a crumb cake, you can change the fruit to what you have on hand or what’s in season.  You can add and subtract mix ins, change flavorings, and more.  This might be just the book to get me away from boxed dessert mixes.  This would make a great gift, especially if you added a cake keeper and the different baking pans used in each chapter.

Review Excerpts:  “The former pastry chef Lauren Chattman’s new book sets out to prove that baking a cake can be an everyday activity. In the spirit of industrious folks like Julie Powell, who spent a year cooking her way through Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking (the experience spawned a book and a movie), Chattman baked a different cake every day for almost a year; the resulting 100 unfrosted and unfilled cakes range from old favorites like the crunchy-topped blueberry buckle to an Italian-style red grape, polenta, and olive oil cake.”–Saveur

““Author Lauren Chattman’s recipe for Cinnamon Pudding Cake and Almond Brown Butter Cake conjure winter days and warm milk. Pear Cake with Sea Salt Caramel Sauce appears dinner-party worthy without being fussy. Meanwhile, cakes like Fig and Cornmeal with Pine Nuts or Chocolate Chipotle — a rich buttermilk loaf with a subtle, smoky kick — strike just the right balance between comfort and sophistication. Make no mistake: these are not quick cakes. They are simply simple cakes, no frosting, no flower cut-outs, no intimidation.”–The Associated Press

Reviewed from publisher provided copy. Amazon Affiliate: If you click from here to Amazon and buy something, I receive a percentage of the purchase price.

Bibliography

Review: Southern Living Magazine is one of the definitive sources for Southern recipes, hospitality and entertaining for it’s readers.  Each recipe is tested and only the highest-rated recipes make it into the magazine and homes of readers around the country.  The focus of this volume is comfort food:  recipes that are made for potluck dinners, passed down generations of families, swapped between friends.  They have personal stories behind them, remember the time when…the place where…

Because of the nature of comfort food, the 165 recipes are organized less like a typical cookbook.  Recipes are organized into general categories such as comfort food classics, fresh from the garden, holidays and special occasions and so on.  For this reason, the index is essential if you are looking, say, for all the recipes with chocolate or beef or apples.  Interspersed between the recipes are short essays and reminiscences about different recipes and food traditions as recalled by editors and readers of the magazine.  As someone who loves reading head notes and extra information in cookbooks, I really enjoyed these.  There are full page full color pictures of almost every recipe, which along with the essays make this a book as much for browsing as cooking.

The recipes are, for the most part, up to Southern Living’s high standards.  I did find it odd that a recipe for pizza called for a prebaked pizza crust.  There are some recipes for very classic dishes, such as million dollar pound cake (p. 185), chicken fried steak (p. 42), caramel cake (p. 193) and sweet potato casserole (p. 146).  There are some comfort food classics with a twist.  Three-cheese pasta bake (p. 13) is an update on macaroni and cheese made with penne pasta, white cheddar, parmesan, and Gruyere cheeses.  Pimento cheese panini (p. 53) is like a sophisticated grilled cheese sandwich, and I am dying to try making my pimento cheese with jalapenos as the recipe suggests.  Barbecue sundaes (p. 263) are a fun idea, and there is an accompanying essay to go along with the recipe.

One recipe that caught my eye was Pecan Streusel Coffee Cake (p. 80) so I decided to try it out.  In this coffee cake, the streusel goes on the bottom and forms a kind of crust for the cake, which makes for an interesting combination of flavors and textures when combined with the contrasting roasted pecan topping.  The technique is interesting as well, first you take the dry ingredients and cut in the butter.  (I tried doing this, as the recipe suggests, with a pastry blender, but gave up and used my fingers instead.)  Then you press half of this mixture into the bottom of your prepared pan.  To the other half, you add the liquid ingredients and leavening to make the very thick batter.  This goes on top of the crust, and then the nuts are sprinkled over all.  Mine took a little longer than the specified time to bake, but that is probably because I used an 8 inch square pan instead of the 9 inch one as listed.  The flavor was good, if a little sweet.  I did leave out the coffee, thinking that my husband wouldn’t eat it, but next time I will put it in, as I think it would contrast the brown sugar without being too coffee flavored. One suggestion I do have is to cut it into squares while it is still warm.  The brown sugar in the crust almost caramelizes, making it hard to cut when completely cool.

I am trying very hard to convince myself I do not need to buy this cookbook, I have more cookbooks than I can use as it is.  I guess I will settle for borrowing it from the library instead.  But I am considering giving it as a Christmas gift.

Reviewed from library copy.

Of course, this also includes the wonderful world of miniature desserts–tiny cookies, cakes, cheesecakes, sweet bites that you pop in your mouth and then realize you’ve eaten more then you should have.  It seems the rest of the world agrees, especially when it comes to cupcakes.  I remember peeling off the little paper cup, licking any frosting that clung to the edges and njoying my own little cake.  It was even better if it had sprinkles.  Now cupcakes are the thing to have, for parties and weddings and showers and get togethers.  They come in all kinds of flavor combinations, but I still think the oldies but goodies are best:  chocolate and vanilla!

The first cupcake book I really got interested in was Cupcakes from the Cake Mix Doctor by Anne Byrn.  I already owned the original Cake Mix Doctor book as well as Chocolate from the Cake Mix Doctor. I was sure I didn’t need this one.  But then when I checked it out from the library, I realized I was wrong.  So many new varieties of cupcakes and muffins, all starting with the convenience of a mix.  Many new frostings and decorating and even party ideas.  I broke down and bought a copy, and have been using it ever since.  A few of the cupcake recipes can be found here.  I even have made several of the recipes in this book as full sized cakes, and also have had great luck with altering and modifying the recipes for various mixes, flavors, and more.  Sometime after this, I also got a great set of scoops from my sister which I highly recommend if you are going to make cupcakes or muffins often, as it makes filling tins easy.  The scoops are also great for cookie baking.

Last summer it seemed like Karen Tack and her book Hello, Cupcake! were everywhere.  The cupcakes were incredible, and it was hard to believe how easy they were to decorate and make.  (There are some tips here.)  I haven’t given up my pastry bag in favor of ziplocs for piping, but I have started to look at all kinds of things at the grocery store and other places wondering if they might be used to create a cupcake masterpiece!  A few recipes are around on the web:  Corn on the Cob cupcakes, three recipes from a Today Show segment, garden party cupcakes, flower, chick and bunny designs from McCormicks and an often changing new design on their site.

Recently a friend and fellow baker and cake decorator told me about the Whimsical Bakehouse.   I was able to get my hands on Little Cakes from the Whimiscal Bakehouse through the library.  (Yay for the library, since we’ve moved to Florida, I have little room for increasing my book collection, so I rely on theirs to help me find what I need.)  I thought this book was delightful, especially in that it included techniques, recipes, and projects for all skill levels.  I really thought the sand buckets and flower pots made out of chocolate were excellent, as were the flower cupcakes.  Not as much in this book about chocolate transfer technique, which can be found in the first book and on their site.  (So happy to see someone not afraid to share some of their recipes and techniques  online, as this will only lead to more book sales in the end.)

Finally the most recent cupcake book I have perused is Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes.  This book has a great variety of recipes and includes a ton of ideas for decorating as well.  I love that there is a HUGE picture of every recipe and project, and that so many of the recipes lend themselves to altering and modifying for different flavors or kinds.   The decorating ideas are simple but lovely, and many of them are quite charming and add to the homeiness and coziness of the cupcakes.  I absolutely can’t wait to try making flowers out of dried pineapple.  I did try the marbled cupcakes, and was disappointed that they came out very dry and the cocoa flavored batter seemed very heavy.  The flavor was good though, and I do have to wonder if not using whole milk and not carefully measuring out the batter to flavor with chocolate could have effected the recipe.  A few of the recipes are too fiddly for my tastes.  (Says the baker who often used the short cuts of the Cake Mix Doctor.)  I do not see the reason for many recipes to use only egg whites, and I will probably never buy a bag of cake flour.  And yet, so many of these recipes appeal to me, a trio of cupcakes with the flavor of favorite cookies sounds like fun:  chocolate chunk, oatmeal, and peanut butter.  (The peanut butter ones have frosting with the criss-cross fork imprint!)  So do the little cookies and cream cheesecakes and tiramisu cupcakes and many, many more.  Ten of the recipes (including the tiramisu cupcakes) from the book are here.  Some of these are in the book (including the dried pineapple flower) and here are some of the decorating ideas.