Notes about Recipes in this book

• Souffléed crêpe with mixed berries

  • mjes on September 04, 2021

    Souffleed crepe a.k.a. Dutch baby a.k.a. German pancake a.k.a. ... with berries. I liked the addition of a bit of sugar and orange zest to the pancake -- I suggest that letting the batter sit for an hour or so helps spread the zest taste. As for the raspberry puree, I cheated -- don't you think that creme fraiche with a wee bit of honey and grated ginger is a reasonable equivalent? These are always a big hit with all family members whether treated as breakfast, dessert or a snack.

• Mixed berry buns

  • anya_sf on September 14, 2021

    When mixing the dough, I wasn't sure if I should switch to the dough hook at some point (I didn't) and if the dough was ever supposed to come together/pull away from the sides (it didn't, or at least I didn't mix it that long). My dough took a little longer to rise. Lacking a 10" non-springform pan, I used a 9"x 3" pan. A wider pan would have been better; the buns rose a lot (overnight in the fridge), but at least my pan was tall. In order to fit all the berries, I had to make the holes much wider than 1". The baked buns were soft, buttery, and delicious, and I was glad I squeezed all the berries in there.

• Strawberry crostata

  • anya_sf on September 11, 2021

    I made the dough in a food processor and had to add a few tablespoons of cream for it to come together, and even then the dough was fairly dry and fragile. No instructions are provided for making the lattice top; given the fragile dough, I simply laid a set of strips in one direction, topped with a set of perpendicular strips. The crostata leaked a lot of liquid while baking. Although the flavor and texture were nice (even with sub-par berries), the crostata didn't look very pretty and I would have liked more filling relative to crust. It was good plain or topped with whipped cream or ice cream.

• Strawberry Grand Marnier trifle

  • anya_sf on July 10, 2025

    Made 1/2 recipe in an 8"x8" pan. I cut the cake into 6 pieces rather than 8, since there were 3 cake layers. This was a lovely, summery dessert, not too sweet. My berries were quite ripe and sweet, but if they weren't, I would add extra sugar. The trifle was better the day after assembly when everything had melded together more.

• Banana cardamon cake

  • Tommelise on September 30, 2013

    Do try this banana cake. I have 5-6 different good recipes for banana cakes , and this one is my favorite. It is a lovely moist and fragrant cake. It can be served as a dessert with a scoop of Vanilla icecream or just eaten plain with a nice cup of tea. The only downside is that you will end up with a lot of used bowls in process. This cake is also featured in Book for Cooks cookbook nr. 3

  • anya_sf on September 29, 2024

    Recipe also calls for dark brown sugar, cake flour, sour cream, and eggs, as well as all-purpose flour and butter in indexable quantities.

  • anya_sf on September 29, 2024

    Very moist, tender cake with prominent cardamom flavor. Yogurt worked instead of sour cream. Out of cake flour, I substituted whole wheat pastry flour, which worked texture-wise, but lent a slight bitterness which I didn't enjoy, so I won't do that again.

• Macadamia nut biscotti

  • anya_sf on September 28, 2025

    I made these to use up some toffee-covered macadamias that weren't getting eaten. Since I couldn't grind them, I used almond meal in the dough and the full amount of macadamias (about 3/4 cup) as mix-ins, chopping the larger ones. That worked well and the biscotti were very good. The shape was short and thick rather than long and skinny.

• Vanilla genoise

  • anya_sf on July 10, 2025

    Straightforward genoise recipe, not difficult. I did sift the flour over the batter as I find it easier to fold in that way. My pan was slightly larger, so the cake was slightly thinner. The top got very sticky (air humidity?) and the cake was difficult to slice horizontally, even the next day.