Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)The book begins with a baking overview of sorts. It gives an explanation of techniques that will be used throughout the book. Then, it goes over baking equipment. Next, the book has a short discussion of ingredients. The section on ingredients offers quite a bit of information on things like the right temperature for the ingredients and reasons why unsalted butter is better than salter butter in the recipes. After that, the book has Joanne's Top 12 Baking Tips with explanations for each tip. The author also has quite a few explanations on the science behind the tip or technique throughout the book.
The book covers breakfast treats, cookies, cakes, pies & tarts, other sweets, and breads. Each chapter has popular treats (i.e. red velvet cake, sticky buns, and chocolate chunk cookies, which are wonderful) and also has more unique recipes, too (i.e. hazelnut-almond dacquoise, lemon marshmallow meringue pie, and rosemary shortbread). There are also recipes to make homemade versions of popular, American treats, such as oreos, pop tarts, and fig newtons.
One downside to this book is that there are few pictures. For example, only about four of the twenty-five recipes in the cookie section have a picture, which is a shame because the pictures in the book are beautiful. One note - the carrot cake recipe calls for baking the cupcakes for 50 minutes, but mine were done after 25 minutes. I'm not sure whether that was a typo or whether I just have a hot oven.
*Update 11/7/10* The chocolate chunk cookies were some of the best chocolate chip cookies that I've ever made. I also really liked the Chunky Lola cookies. The surprise hit so far, though, was the cornmeal lime cookies. They were surprisingly addictive and the perfect end to a Latin-flavored meal.
*Update 12/13/10* I took this cookbook home for the holidays. We made a huge batch of the sticky sticky buns, and they were incredibly rich and so yummy. They taste like a cross between a honey bun and a traditional sticky bun. A couple notes - One, you may want to put a cookie sheet under the rolls as they cook. We had quite a mess to clean up when the goo from one of the rolls bubbled over. Second, baking the rolls in a glass pan seemed to help them cook more evenly than baking them in a metal pan.
*Update 1/27/11* After reading reviews of other cookbooks on here, I felt that I should note that this book has the ingredients listed by weight and by volume (i.e. grams and cups). I know that a lack of weight measurements can be a make or break issue for some people with a cookbook, so I wanted to make it clear that this book does have measurements listed both ways.
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Flour: Spectacular Recipes from Boston's Flour Bakery + Cafe
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