• Eat Your Books

  See Susie's review of this cookbook in her round-up of the best 2007 cookbooks at NPR Kitchen Window

  See Seattle Tall Poppy's review of this cookbook and the Seattle launch party for the book.

  See Lisa is Cooking's review and her take on Fleur de sel caramels, Honey caramels, Bittersweet citrus tart with jasmine cream and Sesame seed cake from this book.

• ellabee on November 19, 2015

  The book's appealing concept is accurately expressed by the subtitle. It's also a near-perfect cookbook from the physical and formatting p.o.v.: compact and manageable, one recipe to a page, beautifully photographed result near at hand. Easy-to-locate and legible chapter tables of contents with page numbers. Good index (less important for EYB members, but still). Would make an excellent gift to cooks at almost any level of experience. One complaint: The worthwhile two- and three-page Medrich essays that dot each chapter are made less accessible in two ways: 1 - not indexed in either main or chapter ToCs, 2 - laid out with chocolate brown type on a darkish, greyed lavender background. That color scheme is evocative and delicious used elsewhere in the book for smallish notes. Applying it to more than a dozen solid pages of text in all shows a distressing lack of empathy with readers (and does no favor to the author, either).

• LVautier on September 18, 2010

  Alice Medrich has become one of my favorite authors despite the fact that chocolate just isn't my favorite dessert ingredient to work with. I think that life is better with dessert or some sort of baked treat. But I find most sweet baking too sweet. I think of sugar as being like a seasoning, too much of it and it overwhelms flavors instead of supporting them. Medrich has provided me with a couple of standby make quickly treats that my husband I just love.

Notes about Recipes in this book

• Whole wheat sablés

  • jzanger on February 19, 2012

    I made these last night. They're my go-to shortbread cookie (I use half AP and half WW pastry flour), but instead of the cacao nib variation that I usually do I added 1 1/2 Tbsp of jasmine green tea. I ground all but about 1 tsp of it in a spice grinder and added it with the butter and sugar along with the zest of an orange. I sliced the cookies a little thinner than usual and made them into sandwich cookies using a jammy homemade pear butter. I was very happy with these and will definitely make them again!

• Plum and almond tart

  • caitmcg on June 15, 2015

    A variation on the Rustic Plum Tart, with a flat almond crust that's easy to make and pairs beautifully with purple plums.

  • Astrid5555 on September 24, 2017

    Excellent effort to outcome ratio, can be made in the food processor. Great almond flavor with nice little fruit pockets from the plums. Again, done much earlier than the recipe states (30 minutes) despite using my light tart pan.

• Olive oil and sherry pound cake

  • caitmcg on June 15, 2015

    A wonderful cake with a tight, moist crumb. Use a nice, fruity olive oil as its flavor and that of the sherry come through in the cake. Keeps very well.

• Sour cream ice cream

  • caitmcg on June 15, 2015

    Very simple to make, and wonderful with summer berries or stone fruits, or fruit sauce.

  • dinnermints on June 30, 2018

    Delicious and refreshing. I made this after accidentally grabbing some Trader Joe's sour cream instead of cottage cheese, and it was a worthy accompaniment to Ottolenghi's rhubarb and blueberry galette. I'd try using a fancier European sour cream for this next time.

• Italian chocolate-almond torte

  • caitmcg on June 15, 2015

    So simple to make, with such a sophisticated flavor. Definitely more of an "adult" dessert. Also flourless and gluten and dairy free, so a great choice for those with dietary restrictions.

  • TrishaCP on June 21, 2013

    An amazing rich flourless torte made by grinding unsweetened chocolate, sugar, and almonds together, bound with eggs whites. A perfect rich ending to a meal.

  • dinnermints on May 26, 2022

    Lovely cake, and yes, I was surprised my toddler ate the small piece I gave him; it is more of an "adult" dessert as caitmcg mentions. I made this for my husband's weeknight birthday, and with the almond-chocolate mixture and egg whites prepped during lunch, it was a quick cake to pull together. Mainly, though, I chose it because I had two large bars of unsweetened chocolate that I bought in a tizzy at the beginning of the pandemic that had been languishing in my pantry. This cake uses a whopping 7 oz. :)

• Lemon tart

  • LVautier on June 10, 2012

    I made this last minute and should have worn my glasses and read more carefully. As a result i had to make on-the-fly adjustments. I had already begun cooking the filling when I realized that there couldn't possibly be enough, as a result I had to begin doubling the recipe half way through the cooking process. I didn't measure, I just added lemon juice and then sugar until I felt that it tasted like the original mixture. I used a pie pan instead of a tart pan, and with the doubled recipe my filling was 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick. If you are using a tart pan you might want to triple the recipe, it is easy to think up ways to use a bit of extra lemon curd. Despite the unexpected adjustments, I would definitely make this again, my husband loved it, very nice and tart.

• Very tangy lime or lemon bars

  • LVautier on January 31, 2012

    These were the first lemon bars I made for my husband and I don't think I will try out other recipes on him. He loved the sweet/tart flavor of the lemon with the shortbread crust. I think he would find other recipes dull in comparison.

  • PatriciaScarpin on May 13, 2011

    I've made these and they are fabulous! The shortbread base is super easy to make (with melted butter). I mixed lime and lemon for the recipe and it tasted great.

  • okmosa on January 17, 2022

    These are terrific. Food 52 did a version with brown butter in the shortbread layer which I tried and was good but I haven’t made the original so I don’t know how it compares. Also I noticed Alice used 1 less T butter in the shortbread in her Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy book which I’ll try next time. So good these are!!

  • tofudogg on August 21, 2017

    Awesome recipe. Very strong lemon flavor and shortbread stays crisp for days.

• Rustic plum tart

  • LVautier on January 31, 2012

    This is a good recipe to practice because it works well with other fruits and after doing a few times it becomes something that you can put together in less time than it takes to heat the oven. It did take a bit of practice to be able to press out the dough evenly and thinly. From memory I think I had to moisten my hands to keep the dough from sticking to my hands. I might try sprinkling it with almond flour next time. I should note that my husband loves this VERY over baked - to the point that it is actually difficult to cut with a fork. The butter I was using ( lurpak) is higher in butter fat than american butter. When I accidentally over baked it the crust caramelized creating a flavor that he loved.

  • PatriciaScarpin on June 03, 2011

    A breeze to make (no chilling of the dough, no blind baking) and absolutely delicious. Looks beautiful too!

• White chocolate soufflé cakes with fresh berries

  • Emily Hope on October 31, 2016

    These little cakes looked quite pretty but I thought the flavor was just okay--the souffle cake by itself is just sweet, without much complexity, though the fresh raspberries do help. Probably won't be repeating this. Made for I's birthday dinner.

• Cardamom-roasted figs

  • TrishaCP on September 29, 2013

    I really wanted to love this, but as written the recipe does not succeed. (Surprisingly, for a Medrich recipe.) I knew I wouldn't get the same fig flavor with the Brown Turkey figs I had on hand (and I was right). But the big issue for me is that the cardamom was too strong (and I love cardamom). The recipe calls for cracking the pods, extracting the seeds, and stuffing them in your figs. Well, when you do that, you end up chewing through cardamom seeds in every bite- and that cardamom flavor was just way too potent. I would make this again, but use whole pods and remove them before serving.

• Buckwheat strawberry shortcakes

  • TrishaCP on June 10, 2018

    Meh. These didn't really rise for me, and I really missed the richness from butter In the biscuits.

• Chestnut pound cake

  • TrishaCP on June 21, 2013

    The rum and walnuts of the cake accentuate the chestnut flour beautifully. Lots of butter and eggs, so not for anyone calorie counting,

  • PatriciaScarpin on April 13, 2011

    One of the best cakes I have ever made. Absolutely delicious (I've made this cake 5-6 times already).

• Wheat and chocolate pound cake

  • PatriciaScarpin on April 14, 2011

    This cake is delicious! Actually, all the pound cakes by Alice Medrich are amazing.

• Raspberry-chocolate chunk muffins

  • PatriciaScarpin on January 15, 2012

    I did not like this recipe much. The muffins turned out on the heavy side - as much as I like using whole wheat flour in my baked goods sometimes it did not work in this recipe.

• Sesame seed cake

  • Astrid5555 on November 02, 2012

    If you like sesame this is THE cake to bake. Exotic looking black sesame seeds give this cake a nice little crunch which is a great contrast to the velvet texture of the cake.

• Kamut pound cake

  • Astrid5555 on February 12, 2013

    One of the best poundcakes I have baked. The Kamut flour really makes this one special.

• Nibby buckwheat butter cookies

  • eliza on December 10, 2015

    These cookies are easy to make, not too sweet, and were liked by everyone. I like the addition of buckwheat flour here, and I found them difficult to stop eating! The unbaked dough can be held in the fridge for a few days if necessary. I made these as a Christmas cookie this year since we like to have a variety of more rustic looking cookies. Made by hand since I don't have a stand mixer.

• Golden Kamut shortbread

  • e_ballad on June 12, 2017

    The texture was spot-on, but the flavour lacked that buttery sweetness of preferred shortbread recipes.

• Bea's apple crisp

  • Frogcake on October 12, 2019

    Awesome! I omitted the apricots but otherwise followed the recipe. Our favourite comfort food this time of year.

• Kitchn

  With its wide range of flavors, beautiful photographs, and deceptively simple recipes that produce astonishingly delicious results, this book is both practical as well as inspirational.

  Full review

• Lottie and Doof

  I have a lot of cookbooks, but this book is the one that I am always excited to open. It is where I go first when I need something special. The recipes are so elegant and work so well.

  Full review