• hpadvantag on February 23, 2010

  This is a wonderful book for those wanting more than just a recipe...great technique, explanation and delicious recipes!

Notes about Recipes in this book

• Vanilla date cupcakes

  • ComeUndone on July 21, 2012

    Made it back in 2006. An unusual take on the ubiquitous cupcake. Lovely taste. Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wscwong/115901460/

• Tropical fruit crumble

  • hillsboroks on July 25, 2014

    I've made this several times for a summer picnic dessert and it is always a hit. The combination of tropical fruits under what looks like a traditional crumble topping always surprises and delights people. The flavors come together perfectly and it is easy to put together for a quick but unusual dessert.

• Butter-toffee crunch shortbread

  • Frogcake on December 08, 2018

    Best shortbread I’ve tasted! I used a cup and a half of salted caramel chips in place of butterscotch chips and skor bits. 45 minutes in the oven seemed sufficient. I cut the piece into bite-sized squares. I have a feeling I will have to make a second batch soon.

• Plum and cardamom sweet bread

  • MidwesternerTT on September 26, 2016

    Blogger in 2008 used apricots with this recipe and was happy with results. Linkhttp://www.bookstocooks.com/cookswithbooks/ookstocooks.com/2008/08/plum-and-cardamom-sweet-bread-from-in.html

  • ashallen on September 18, 2021

    This is a great cake. Once cool, texture is firm and reminds me a lot of pound cake, though a bit coarser and moister from the plum bits. Flavors are great - the tart, jammy plum bits contrast really nicely with the sweet, buttery cake and the cardamom flavor is great with the plums. My plums weren't very sweet but their tartness turned out to be an advantage here! I buttered/floured my aluminum loaf pan instead of using parchment paper and the cake didn't stick at all. The cake batter nearly filled my loaf pan but there weren't any issues with batter overflow during baking. I removed the cake from the oven once the coolest parts in the middle reached 190-192F - worked well. Top browned pretty deeply but had a nice caramelized flavor without bitterness. It also sank a bit in the center instead of forming a pretty peak, but that was perhaps due to my rotating the cake in the oven before it was set enough.

• Black sticky gingerbread

  • SpatulaCity on November 28, 2023

    Dense and springy - love it! Nice molasses and ginger flavor, with a perfect amount of sweetness. My 9” square pan was filled to the brim. The cake was tasty after sitting for a day, but sooooo delicious and perfectly yummy after sitting for two days. Excellent!

• Golden new-fashioned dried fruitcake with cashews, pistachios and bourbon

  • leilx on October 28, 2021

    Good. Try again. Not a long keeper

• Poached quince with vanilla and cinnamon

  • ashallen on September 25, 2019

    This is a very simple preparation but the flavor of the quince is amazing - complex, sweet, ethereal - and it does a great job of fully tenderizing the fruit. Both the fruit and the poaching syrup, whether served together or separately, are absolutely delicious. Poached fruit desserts are generally not the desserts that grab my attention, but this was my introduction to quince and it was a revelation!!! [Cross-post for In the Sweet Kitchen/The Wednesday Chef.]

• Wild blueberry buttermilk cinnamon muffins

  • ashallen on September 01, 2019

    The flavor of butter comes through nice and strong in these muffins. Texture was very delicate, soft, and cake-like. I prefer muffins with a sturdier texture and so would probably replace the cake flour called for in the recipe with all purpose flour in the future (or perhaps I'd stir the batter a bit more to see if that firmed them up). [Cross post with Book/Cookstr.com]

• Orange, dried cranberry and cornmeal muffins with millet

  • ashallen on August 22, 2019

    I didn't care for these muffins. The flavor combination was fine. But the batter was so wet that standard-size (not large 1 cup) muffins took ~40 minutes (vs. 20-25 minutes as specified in the recipe) to bake and brown a bit. They didn't rise very much. And the millet was kind of gritty. But they were very moist. Some of the batter didn't fit in the standard 12-count muffin tin, so I baked it in a mini-muffin pan along with the bigger muffins - the little muffins browned better and had a lighter texture. Were I to make them again (though I don't think I will), I'd cut back the orange juice to 1 c from the 1.5 c called for in the recipe and see if that helped.

• Moroccan-spiced rice pudding with dates, orange flower water and honey

  • ashallen on September 08, 2020

    The flavors in this pudding were nice and nicely balanced. I used clover honey and Ceylon cinnamon so the honey and cinnamon flavors didn't clobber the other flavors. It came out thicker than I prefer, though - thick enough to support a spoon standing upright immediately after cooking despite partially covering with a lid and adding some extra milk about half-way through. Leftovers thickened further after chilling - I reheated it and stirred in some more milk to get it back to a pudding-like consistency. The recipe has a higher ratio of rice to milk than some other recipes I've made - had I noted that before cooking, I would've cooked it at a more gentle simmer.

• Toasted hazelnut pound cake

  • ashallen on September 13, 2019

    My husband loves this cake. He'd mention it whenever the topic of cake came up for several weeks after we ate it. Solid but not intense hazelnut flavor - however, my hazelnuts had been in the freezer for a few months and my Tourangelle hazelnut oil had only mild hazelnut flavor (sadly). Not overly sweet. Baked it in a shiny springform pan - this worked fine for the batter (which is quite thick) but some butter oozed out during baking so need to make arrangements to catch it. Removed from oven once center hit 195-200F. Cake did fall a bit in center while cooling but I had disturbed it in oven (180-degree rotation) before it was fully set (oops). Great when eaten with creme anglaise. Next time I'll tweak the salt and sugar levels upwards a bit and grind the nuts more finely until they *just* start to clump in the processor - this time I ground them until fine but still very loose. Recipe available online at Grace's Kitchen. [Cross-post In the Sweet Kitchen/Grace's Kitchen.]

• Grapefruit curd

  • TheWayEyeRoll on January 18, 2022

    I had left over egg yolks and was looking for something easy to make. This fit the bill perfectly. Very happy with the result. This has a nice mix of sweet and tart. I think this would make a very nice filling for a tart, with some whipped cream on top and garnished with candied grapefruit peel (which is another recipe is this book).