Notes about Recipes in this book

• Very vanilla sprinkle cake (Baked ultimate birthday cake)

  • julesamomof2 on May 25, 2017

    Cake was very dense vs. light and fluffy/moist. Won't make this one again

• Chinese five-spice sesame scones

  • Zosia on October 07, 2014

    The flavour was quite nice and the spicing gentler than I had expected with the amount of 5-spice powder included but they were quite dry. The authors do warn that the dough will be dry but it was unworkable; I'm sure I didn't help the finished texture by adding more buttermilk and possibly overworking the dough. I used metric weights and volumes where provided.

• Toffee coffee cake surprise

  • Zosia on October 07, 2014

    This is one tasty cake! Moist and tender and the flavour of toffee. I cheated and used Skor bits in the filling and reduced the granulated sugar by 100g in the cake; it wasn't missed. The cake is very rich and a little goes a long way, easily serving 20. I used metric weights and volumes where provided.

• Nutella chip cookies

  • Zosia on January 18, 2015

    The cookies were very well received but I really didn't think they captured the flavour of nutella...they were too sweet and both chocolate and hazelnut flavours needed to be more intense. It was quite difficult to judge degree of doneness since the cookies were extremely soft when hot and took some time to set up so I over baked the first two batches by a minute or two....not quite as soft and chewy in the centre as the following batches (11 minutes).

  • trudys_person on March 30, 2017

    I made these, substituting Reese's peanut butter/chocolate spread (available in Canada), and they were amazing! (I left out the hazelnuts.) I will definitely make them again using Nutella.

• Brown sugar praline ice cream cake (The New Orleans)

  • Zosia on October 09, 2014

    Recipe errata: for the salty caramel sauce, 60ml, not mg should be set aside for the ice cream; for the brown sugar praline ice cream, 140g Classic Pralines are required to make up the 3/4 cup crushed, not 75g. (The amount in the praline recipe to set aside for the ice cream is correct). Minor mistakes but, interestingly, only affecting the metric measurements.

  • Zosia on October 16, 2014

    Very rich but delicious dessert that can be as easy or as complicated to make as you choose. I made all of the components and had a problem with the praline being fudge-like and too soft to crush. (I emailed the authors about it and received a reply with some helpful suggestions and a thank you for pointing out the errata.) The graham crumbs were very nice with the cake but next time, I would put a thicker layer on the bottom to add more structure and impact.

• Pistachio white chocolate cheesecake

  • KCKB on January 14, 2023

    6 oz (1.5 sticks) is WAY too much butter for the crust - it won’t set up correctly. After comparing with some other recipes, I redid it with only 1/2 stick and it worked much better. I wonder if the error might be that it should really be 6 *tablespoons* of butter instead of 6 *ounces*? That would make more sense.

• Buttery pound cake with salty caramel glaze

  • TinyCitiKitchen on August 14, 2023

    This humble pound cake has a special place in my heart. The first wave of Covid forced us to cancel plans for a big family trip for my mom’s 90th birthday, and then the city locked down the week before we would have had a small dinner at a good restaurant. We couldn’t even get together in someone’s home. I was quarantining with Mom, so it fell to me to try and do SOMETHING festive. There would only be 2 of us eating whatever I made, and the grocery stores (if you remember) were running short of almost everything. I went through every book, hoping for a solution. Then I saw this recipe. Mom adores salted caramel, and everything I needed was in the house.

• Buttery brown sugar bourbon walnut balls (Derby cookies)

  • vhague on February 08, 2015

    Have made this twice now, both times to rave reviews. The cookies do not spread much, resulting in small round slightly crumbly bites. Not overly sweet at all, and the whisky/bourbon is nicely balanced

• Old-school oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

  • porterbl1 on October 14, 2014

    For the errata- The oats measurement in grams is incorrect. It results in 2-3 cups of extra oats. I got 305 grams on my scale, instead of 480.

• Brown sugar shortcakes with brown sugar syrup, mixed berries, and whipped cream

  • Zosia on May 19, 2015

    The biscuits had a wonderful caramel flavour that went beautifully with the berries but there's room for improvement in both the recipe and the baker. The cakes spread outwards more than they rose upwards so I would freeze them solid before baking next time. They were a little dry and crumbly, most likely over-baked by me. I shaped the dough into a square and cut 9 square biscuits - they were the perfect size. The berries were very sweet and had too much liquid; I think just a tbsp each of sugar and liqueur would be fine, perhaps flavouring the cream, also very sweet, with more of the liqueur.

• Hot chocolate pudding cake

  • Zosia on January 18, 2015

    Very rich and intensely chocolate-y. Served warm from the oven, the pudding portion was the consistency of a thick chocolate sauce, very nice with ice cream. Reheated in the microwave after refrigeration, it had a true pudding-like texture. Good either way.

• Nanaimo ice cream bars

  • Zosia on June 29, 2016

    This recipe is worth trying just for the digestive cookie-pretzel crust, a delicious change from the usual graham cracker-coconut crust. Ice cream of your choice replaces the custard flavoured buttercream and with the salty notes from the crust and a bittersweet chocolate topping, this frozen version ends up being far less sweet and rich than the traditional. I cut the pan into 16 dessert servings rather than 40 bite size pieces. Not many recognized it as a Nanaimo bar but everyone enjoyed it.

• Orange buttermilk picnic cake with chocolate chips

  • Zosia on October 17, 2014

    Very moist little cake (it isn't very tall) with good orange flavour. I was short on the chocolate chips and used the 90g I had; the balance of orange and chocolate was just right. I used a few drops orange oil in place of extract and the ingredient weights and metric volumes where provided.

  • TinyCitiKitchen on August 16, 2023

    The name "picnic cake" is well chosen, so don't bake this squat little cake to impress. Bake it for that combination of fruit and chocolate, a perfect finish to a casual meal (and no gooey frosting to worry about in transit). It was worth going for the mini-chips instead of using with the regular sized ones I had in the pantry.

• Purple velvet cake with cream cheese frosting (gonzo cake)

  • mmg0305 on May 16, 2015

    Cake tasted good, although a bit sticky so hard to slice neatly. Frosting a disappointment - turned out very gloopy (which could have been my fault) and lacking in flavour (just very sweet vanilla). If making again, try as cupcakes or use different frosting. Didn't add colouring as mixture was a nice purple, but should have done as it faded when baked.

• Sour cream cake with chocolate cream cheese frosting (everyone's favorite birthday cake)

  • D.Barker on June 10, 2021

    It could have been user error, but this cake turned out reeeeeally dense. I don't know what I was expecting, but I think I thought this would be much like a yellow cake (probably because my favorite birthday cake is yellow cake) but this was more like a spice cake. The flavors were fine (loved the frosting!) But I didn't enjoy the dense texture.

• Peanut butter and jelly crumb morning muffins

  • Zosia on October 21, 2014

    Moist and very tasty with a crunchy topping (that was still crunchy the next day). The muffins were much larger than I anticipated, not only rising in the pan but spreading also, making removal while still warm very difficult. Also, I had almost half the topping leftover. All of this calls for making smaller muffins next time! Baking time in my oven was 21 minutes. I used the weights and metric volumes where provided.

• Milk chocolate malted brownies with chocolate ganache

  • Neodymia on November 01, 2014

    Made the metric version (less washing up and sensible butter measurement - yay!) This recipe is a serious contender for the best brownie ever (main competition is Baked's spiced brownie). Took exactly 30 minutes to cook. Didn't make 2nd type of icing as the ganache is perfect.

  • Zosia on May 01, 2015

    Despite slightly over mixing (forgot the sugar until the very end!) and over baking them (toothpick came out clean after 30 minutes) these were very good - moist and chewy albeit a little cake-y, and uber chocolate-y with the ganache. Like Neodymia, I omitted the decorator icing.

• Chocolate Pop Tarts with peanut butter and jam filling

  • Zosia on March 14, 2015

    If I'd reviewed this while making them - at the height of my annoyance - I would have deducted more than just 1 star for the filling and frosting recipes producing double what's required for the number of tarts. (And I made 3 extra!) But the extra chocolate-peanut butter ganache is residing in the freezer, waiting for another project, the strawberry jam is in a new jar slated to be used up first, and since I'd caught on by that time, I made only a half recipe of the cocoa frosting. Made for Pi day, these hand pies were a huge hit. The pastry, which I made in the food processor, was very tender and flaky and with it's gentle chocolate flavour, was a good complement to the fantastic ganache filling. The frosting was on the sweet side, but like the pastry, complemented the intense chocolate filling. The strawberry jam was a little lost - raspberry would have held its own against all of that chocolate.

• Peanut butter butterscotch cookies

  • jimandtammyfaye on January 25, 2023

    These were a nice deviation from plain PB cookies. They were sweet, but the salt helped cut through some of the sweetness. For second panful (half of cookie batter), I threw in a handful of mini M&M's, which made them almost too sweet for my taste. I'll stick to the recipe next time.

• Baking Bites

  There are plenty of photos illustrating the recipes that will get your mouth watering and will put you in a baking mood.

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• Tasting Table

  The book is very personal (there's a purple yam cake in honor of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas), but still includes crowd-pleasing baked goods that can make any event an occasion...

  Full review