Notes about Recipes in this book

• Gingerbread pancakes

  • ashallen on June 30, 2021

    Very nice pancakes with a moist, fluffy texture and nice spicy flavor. They're not very sweet or rich by themselves, so they definitely pair well with butter and maple syrup. I bet a pear or apple compote would be really great too! White whole wheat flour worked well. Recipe says to use 2-3 teaspoons ground ginger - I used 2 teaspoons of very fresh ginger and didn't find them to be overly gingery, so next time I'll go for 3 (I do like ginger, though...).

• Sunday crepes

  • ashallen on November 06, 2019

    A fine, basic crepe recipe.

• Potato pancakes

  • ashallen on July 21, 2019

    The ingredient proportions in this basic recipe work fine. I usually substitute finely chopped scallions for the onions/chives. Finely chopped parsley (up to 6 tbsp) folded into the batter also works well. Recipe calls for beating the egg whites separately to firm peaks and then folding them into the batter, but I never found this to make a difference in the final texture (could be my technique!). I now skip this step and simply beat the whole eggs together at the start of making the batter. Peanut oil works great for cooking the pancakes.

• Popovers

  • ashallen on November 07, 2019

    A good, basic recipe for popovers. I use 6 stoneware custard cups (6 ounce capacity, I believe) and grease them generously with butter.

• King Arthur Flour's basic "p.d.q." muffins

  • cynthia_oi66aj on April 11, 2026

    These are my go-to breakfast muffins, and I use this recipe mainly for lueberry muffins. The muffins are not as sweet or cake-like as many newer recipes. They can be modified many ways, adding dried fruits, fresh lemon or orange peel, seeds, nuts, etc. The muffins will rise into big domes very quickly if started in a hot oven and turned down when they are put in to bake, but it is easy to forget to turn the oven down!

• Bagley House zucchini lemon muffins

  • ashallen on August 25, 2019

    The texture on these muffins is great - simultaneously moist but light. Also not a super-sweet muffin - the raisins add a lot to their sweetness. To suit my own preferences, I'd tweak the flavors so that fewer of the vegetal notes from the zucchini come through (muffins have sometimes seemed borderline savory) - perhaps by adding some orange zest along with the lemon zest and a bit more sugar.

• Zella Lane's bran muffins

  • bching on January 15, 2018

    You can't beat this recipe for flexibility. You can use just about any dried fruit (and/or nuts) as an add in and best of all, the batter keeps for a long time in the fridge so you can bake the muffins as you need them.

  • sarahawker on January 05, 2024

    Made this a few times and it's really a terrific recipe. If you like raisin bran cereal this is a portable version and can be baked and still warm while getting ready for the day.

• Gary's mother's muffins

  • ashallen on July 16, 2021

    Very easy, painless way to make mayonnaise disappear (I'm not a mayonnaise fan!), so I'm sure I'll be making these again. Recipe is for unsweetened muffins (though authors suggest experimenting with the base recipe) - I added 2/3 cup sugar and 1 tsp vanilla which yielded a pleasantly sweet muffin. Suggested baking time is very short - my muffins needed an extra 5-10 minutes. Nicely moist, but heavier-textured than I prefer and very pale on the sides and bottoms. I used a heavy gauge aluminum tin this time but will try a thinner and darker tin next time to see if that helps with lightening the texture and browning.

• Cranberry nut bread

  • ashallen on September 09, 2019

    Good - classic cranberry bread recipe. On the lean side with 2 tbsp fat for a 9x5-inch loaf.

• The Governor's Inn Vermont pear bread

  • ashallen on September 12, 2019

    This is a quick bread type cake that reminds me of zucchini bread except that the flavor is of pears and pecans. The recipe's been inconsistent for me - it's sometimes turned out really well (moist, flavorful) and sometimes less well (faint pear flavor, a bit too dry) and I haven't nailed down the cause yet. My best current guesses are that it's important to use King Arthur flour (as specified in the recipe) and very flavorful pears. It's delicious enough when it comes out well, though, that I'll definitely try again!

• Molasses corn bread

  • ashallen on August 19, 2019

    This did not turn out well - my best guess is that there is one or more errors in the recipe as printed. The recipe specifies a 9-inch round cake pan or skillet - I used a 9x2-inch round cake pan and some batter overflowed during baking. The final bread was misshapen. A thin, dark brown, plasticky and somewhat bitter-tasting layer formed on top during baking. Below the brown layer, the bread was very moist, but I found the flavor combination to be odd (not in a good way) and waaaay too salty.

• Traditional pizza dough

  • Sara on August 04, 2011

    Best dough ever! It is soft and easy to work with. I always add 2 tablespoons of KA pizza dough flavor. Yummy!

• King Arthur Flour's original "cake-pan" cake

  • adrienneyoung on June 22, 2020

    This is as good as Mercatto’s chocolate cake, for which I would cross the country on a cold and snowy night. Absolutely a keeper.

• Maple walnut "cake-pan" cake

  • Shelmar on September 03, 2019

    ok, dry

  • ashallen on September 13, 2019

    A moist, quick bread/muffin-like cake. Walnut, whole wheat and maple flavors were nicely balanced. As with most "cake pan" cakes, this one was extremely easy to put together - mix the dry stuff, mix then wet stuff, then mix them together - and had a much better texture than some other cakes I've made in the past using this method. I used a dark grade of maple syrup, King Arthur organic whole wheat flour, and bleached all purpose flour (vs. King Arthur all purpose as specified in the recipe).

• Sally Thompson's pineapple coconut carrot cake

  • ashallen on September 11, 2019

    I love the combination of flavors in this carrot cake - pineapple, coconut, and spices. It's also very moist and rich. I usually drain off some of the juice from the crushed pineapple to keep it from being too moist. Does great with King Arthur all-purpose flour (as specified in the recipe) - a softer flour might not provide enough structure given all the moist ingredients - but I haven't tried that out yet.

• The original Carpenter Street Restaurant poppy seed cake

  • ashallen on September 10, 2019

    This is a good cake, though I've had more luscious/decadent poppy seed cakes - this one has a lighter flavor, in part from using vegetable oil vs. butter. It's worked well with orange, lemon or almond flavoring. I've sometimes tried substituting buttermilk or thinned yogurt for the milk but they've made the cake wetter and heavier - I prefer the lighter texture from the milk. I've found that using 1/4 cup poppy seeds makes it seedier than many other poppy seed cakes I've eaten and is very good - recipe suggests using up to 1/2 cup which would be *a lot* of poppy seeds! It's done well baking in a 9x2-inch round cake pan (makes a nice thick layer), a 9" tube pan, or a 10" tube pan.

• Brown bag banana bars

  • ashallen on September 09, 2019

    This recipe doesn't make "bars" in the lemon bar sense but rather in the short, moist cake sense. These aren't *fabulous* (my husband doesn't like them and there were leftovers at work at the end of the day), but they do have nice banana flavor and are a bit healthier than some other cakes due to the cornmeal, whole wheat flour, raisins and bananas. They did come out kind of gummy the second time I made them, perhaps because I used a softer flour than the King Arthur all-purpose called for in the recipe. Also, I baked them in a 9x13-inch pan vs. the 10x14-inch pan called for in the recipe which made them a bit thicker than specified and probably sealed in some extra moisture.

• Virginia Bentley's "never-fail" pie crust

  • scotchgrrl on March 29, 2010

    Easy, flaky and really no fail! Quickest crust I have ever made and great compliments from my guests.

• Golden angel food cake

  • ashallen on August 05, 2019

    This cake did *not* turn out well. It collapsed and, despite the extra density from the collapse, it was dry. The flavor was bland. I did substitute 1/2 c whole wheat pastry flour + 1.25 c all purpose flour for the 1.75 c of stone ground whole wheat flour called for in the recipe. There are other recipes online for "golden angel food cakes" based on egg yolks, like this one, that use 100% all purpose flour, so I'm not sure that was the cause of the problems.

• Whole wheat applesauce cake

  • eliza on September 26, 2014

    This is a really good cake that I've made several times. I usually use the spiced pear sauce from Rustic Fruit Desserts, but it also works well with regular applesauce. I did sub some of the whole wheat flour with a little bit of all purpose when I first made it. It makes a smaller sized cake. The recipe is available on their website under applesauce cake.