andrew's Reviews
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Website: 101 Cookbooks
I made these last night after seeing the previous review and being intriguted by the idea of baking a giant cookie in a skillet. My daughters were too!
It is a stiff dough, and best to work with a stand mixer paddle attachment if you have one. I found that I underbaked it a little and had to pop it back in the oven to make sure the center had set - with such a thick cookie you do have to watch out for this. Especially since with whole wheat flour it will look fairly brown before it's actually done.
Also, make sure your skillet is clean! I use our deep cast iron skillet for bacon and onions and usually just give it a rinse before putting it away. Luckily I checked and made sure it was as minimally bacony and oniony before making this!
Update - I have since made the original recipe just as regular sized cookies, and I prefer it. The large one was good, and might be fun for a party, but regular cookies are just so conveniently sized (and you can freeze them, etc).
useful (1)
Ad Hoc at Home
By Thomas Keller
Artisan - 2009
Unlike many of the other recipes in this book, this one didn't involve extra steps beyond how I'd normally roast a chicken. It really is fairly simple, and the result was very good, with one caveat. So, with something like chicken (and this is how you can tell a chef by the quality of their chicken), what brings it to a high level is the quality of the bird itself, the preparation and the roasting.
I used a hormone and antibiotic-free, free-range chicken, and let it rest at room temperature for a couple of hours as he suggests. I took it out of the oven just as it hit 160 degrees F at the thigh (make sure you start checking early - last time I made this I checked 30 minutes after I turned the heat down and it was already over 160) and let it rest for 20 minutes, also part of the recipe. This resulted in a particularly juicy bird (so often people overcook and dry them out, worried about not getting them hot enough).
My caveat is the roast vegetables; they ended up soaking in about an inch of chicken fat, butter and canola oil, and some of them were less roasted than a sort of confit. Also roasted leeks didn't really work for me. Now, I might have had a particularly fatty chicken. In future I'll check earlier and drain off much of the fat - not that I'm against chicken fat, but that I like roast veggies to be fairly dry.
I will do it again though, it was quite tasty, and crucially, provided leftovers for a wonderful pot pie (page 24).
useful (3)
A very good chicken pot pie indeed, and very nearly excellent.
I love chicken pot pie, and have made various variations on the theme. My previous favourite was Mark Bittman's from How to Cook Everything. This one, save for a little seasoning, edges it out, and in fact is a different sort of beast altogether.
As I'm finding with this book, what Thomas Keller has done is taken some familiar dishes and raised them up a level using some of the techniques of a high-end restaurant, but yet not making them so complex as to be out of the range of a competent home cook.
There are two things that raise this pie up - first, the vegetables are cooked separately, with peppercorns, bay leaves and thyme, to subtly flavour them. This step, fiddly though it may be, ensures that each vegetable is cooked properly and that the texture and flavour of each vegetable is preserved rather than blending into a sort of stew like in most pot pies. Secondly, the bechamel is reduced over 40 minutes or so to make a sauce that is rich but subtle.
It does take a while - dinner was a bit late the first time I made this as I had to make pastry, cook the veggies, reduce the sauce, put it all together and then bake it. Subsequent times I have taken a few shortcuts which haven't hurt the recipe.
Now I cook all the vegetables in one pot except the celery (which I blanch) since they all have the same cooking times and it doesn't seem to muddy their flavours. I also increase the seasoning, adding some dried sage and a good shaking of cayenne for a little heat.
I recommend baking it low (I baked it on a baking stone) to crisp the lower crust. This is a double-crusted chicken pot pie that holds together, which doesn't happen very often!
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Other than an unfortunate brining error on my part, this was absolutely delicious. Yes, it's a bit more work than just throwing a tenderloin in the oven, what with the brining, but the mix of flavours the brine adds is wonderful. And coooking it a little rare keeps it very tender and juicy. My wife said 'wow' with her first bite. Oh, and I didn't use cured lemons (I didn't have 2 weeks to wait...).
About that error: I'd never brined pork before and in my ignorance, I didn't weigh the salt. I used a brand of kosher salt (Windsor, a Canadian brand) which was quite a bit more dense than Diamond Crystal, which is what Keller uses. I neglected to look at the weight in the recipe, just using volume (he specifies 5 oz for 8 cups of water; I ended up using closer to 8 oz) and it was a bit salty for my taste, though it didn't bother my wife. Next time I'll use 4 or 5 oz.
useful (2)
This recipe makes a very buttery, thin chocolate chip cookie which is very good, but not quite the best cookie of its type (as one online reviewer called it). I reserve that honour for the New York Times chocolate Chip cookie (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/09/dining/091crex.html?_r=1).
They are fairly straightforward to make - the most complicated part is making sure you have two types of chocolate (55% and 70%) and carving off the chips yourself. The chocolate melts into the cookie rather than staying discrete as with a 'regular' chocolate chip cookie, and they can get a bit messy - so do be sure to cook them on parchment or a silpat as he suggests.
Update: a couple of days later I have to say that these cookies have grown on me (and my houseguests). They seem to get better after a day or so, and people liked the way the chocolate spread into a layer inside the cookie. They also stay chewy for a couple of days after making, which is nice. 4 1/2 stars now!
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Very nice, moist cupcakes. The recipe makes a fairly wet batter (it has 1 cup buttermilk, 1 cup sour cream as well as 3 eggs and 3 oz butter, to less than 2 cups of flour), and I had to pour it into the cupcake liners using a liquid measuring cup. I was concerned they might not rise well, but they did just fine.
The only substitution I would suggest would be to use larger cupcake liners (I used large, but should have used 'giant') as following the recipe, it makes 24 quite small cupcakes. Probably 18 would be ideal. Filling the liners 2/3 to 3/4 full is about right.
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This is an egg-white buttercream (also known as a Swiss buttercream), and the first one I've made. Previously I'd made the simple 'American' butter and icing-sugar versions. It's more work, but it has a creamier, lighter result.
You combine sugar and egg whites in a bowl over a simmering water bath, bringing the temperature up to 150 degrees F or so (this safely pasteurizes the egg whites), then beat in a mixer, adding butter to stabilize it.
It makes a very creamy, soft, not too sweet frosting. Adding vanilla at the end makes this a Vanilla frosting; adding a little melted chocolate gives it a delicate chocolate flavour.
It is, however, a very sticky icing - it's hard to work with it without getting globs all over the place. It's delicious, but definitely messy.
useful (4)
A very simple cracker recipe - just flour, water, yeast, salt and butter. You can go from start to eating crackers in 45 minutes.
I found the recipe as written didn't quite work for me - Keller suggests 10 minutes at 350 degrees, but I needed closer to 15. He also suggests rolling them out to 1/8th of an inch, but I found this too thick to make a crispy cracker. Something like a 1/16th was better - just before it became transparent. I also found them a little saltier than I like, so in my second batch didn't sprinkle fleur de sel on top. You may want to keep an eye on them near the end, as unless they're all exactly the same thickness, some will brown faster than others.
I plan on trying these with some parmesan rolled into them, and maybe some rosemary too, and I think this will lift them to a 4.
useful (0)
An excellent vanilla cupcake recipe. These are made with butter and egg whites, and the resulting cupcakes are a similar to angel food cakes - light and moist and delicious. The difference here is that the egg whites and sugar are beaten into a meringue before being folded into the rest of the batter. I made them exactly as the recipe states and got 24 standard-sized cupcakes.
These will be my default vanilla cupcakes now - they're better than any other I've made.
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I'm giving this five stars as it is an exemplary vanilla ice cream recipe and the resulting ice cream was rich and creamy and truly excellent. However, the recipe for vanilla ice cream is pretty much the same all over, and Keller doesn't do anything here that's different: cream, milk, sugar, vanilla bean and egg yolks. The only differences are minor variations in the amount and ratios of each.
For example, he adds a pinch of salt, which some recipes leave out. He also does something very useful, which is to give a weight for the amount of yolk required. When I made this, I only needed 8 yolks instead of the 10 in the recipe to get the same weight.
When you make ice cream yourself, you're pretty much guaranteed to get something superior to most ice cream you've ever had.
Oh, and if you need something to do with all those leftover egg whites, make some of his white cupcakes - they need 6 egg whites, and the icing needs another 6.
useful (3)
These are very good indeed. I made them just as the recipe called for and they disappeared very quickly. I agree that the slightly more browned edges are a fine tradeoff for not using a silicone pan (in fact, the contrast between the chewy edges and the soft center is part of what makes these great). Yes, lots of butter (3/4 lb) and chocolate (1 cup of cocoa and 6 oz of chopped), but the taste is worth it - just have small pieces!
I didn't have alkalized cocoa powder, but since this recipe doesn't have any leavening agent, I figured it wouldn't make much difference, and couldn't taste any.
They freeze very well - eating them cold, right out of the freezer is amazing on a warm day; they still stay quite soft. Yum!
useful (1)
Sweet and delicious - I made this as a side dish for a summer BBQ and it was very nice indeed. The lime is a great complement to the sweetness of the corn. I did only use a tiny bit of cayenne and didn't have any chives, so I didn't get the full taste of this - but with fresh corn and lime it was fantastic. I'll definitely make again now that corn is in season.
This recipe is also online at the James Beard Foundation site.
useful (1)
This was good, but it wasn't remarkable, unlike many of the other recipes in the book. The biscuit topping seemed less thick than the pictures in the book and the biscuits spread out until they covered almost the entire top; they tasted fine but I think I would have preferred them to be a little less all-enveloping. I also found it not quite sweet enough (this may depend on your particular blueberries).
useful (3)
These didn't work out for me quite as well as everyone else. They were nice, but I may have been overcautious. The recipe makes lots of references to not overmixing the butter and flour, and I ended up undermixing, I think. I did have to do some extra fiddling when I'd patted the dough out on the counter as it started falling apart when I tried to cut it.
This is mostly my technique, though, not the recipe. I did find, however, that like some of Keller's recipes, this was a little too salty for me. The recipe calls for over a tablespoon of kosher salt, which is quite a lot for a batch of biscuits. Were I to make these again I'd try cutting this in half and see how they went.
I did half the recipe and got 8 biscuits using my cookie-cutter.
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Website: All Recipes
Very nice hot cocoa recipe - simple and fairly quick (well, okay it does take 15 minutes or so to boil the cocoa powder and sugar mixture and heat it all once you add the milk). Not too rich, not too thin. I followed the suggestions of the other reviewers on All Recipes and reduced the sugar to about 1/2 cup and it was plenty sweet.
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American Pie: My Search for the Perfect Pizza
By Peter Reinhart
Ten Speed Press - 2003
After experimenting with several different types of crusts, from Peter Reinhart's Bread Baker's Apprentice and from this book, I've settled on this one as our default thin-crust pizza. For my taste (and pizza crust tastes do vary), it is just about perfect. It makes a thin, relatively crisp crust that develops nice little air pockets here and there, and can handle a fair amount of toppings without collapsing. I make it exactly as in the recipe, sometimes fiddling a little with the water ratio - unlike his other books, he doesn't weigh all the ingredients here, so it's a little harder to get the water exactly right. It likely also varies by humidity, etc.
See my other reviews from this book for toppings and sauce.
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In the past, I've used pizza sauce from jars, pasta sauce, whatever was tomato-based and lying around, sometimes a bit of BBQ sauce. I repent now - please forgive me, everyone to whom I fed pizza in the past.
This sauce is perfect - it's not cooked (any more than the canned tomatoes are already cooked, unlike a pasta sauce), which is a very important thing (it cooks a little more in the oven), it has tasty chunks of tomato pulp in it, and it is 'bright' with the addition of red wine vinegar or lemon juice (I use good red wine vinegar) to give it some acidity. When I can get them, I use canned San Marzano tomatoes, as they are just so much richer and more flavourful than regular canned tomatoes.
A full recipe is enough for four or five thin crust pizzas, so I freeze the extra sauce in a ziploc bag.
useful (4)
I'm not sure why this isn't simply named caramelized onions, as it's a fairly straightforward recipe for them, but nevertheless it's a good one, and one of our favourite pizza bases - we use this instead of sauce sometimes.
useful (1)
This makes a very rich and creamy sauce, perfect to use as a base for sauteed mushrooms. It can be a bit too rich, almost - depends on your feeling about heavy cream! Over time, we've reduced the cream and used onions which have been cooked more slowly so they become naturally a bit creamy, and it's still just as good. The thyme is a necessity - it's just the right flavour note here.
useful (3)
Around My French Table: More Than 300 Recipes from My Home to Yours
By Dorie Greenspan, Alan Richardson
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt - 2010
This is a simple, interesting and quite tasty dessert. Essentially, it's a Cream of Wheat cake, with a flavour and texture somewhat like a cross between a flan and rice pudding. It's moist and eggy. If you like either of those, I'll guarantee you'll like this.
It's quite simple to make, and fairly quick - after you make the Cream of Wheat following the package directions, you stir in sugar and vanilla, then beaten eggs and vanilla when it's cooled. Caramel in a pot quickly and then on the bottom of the cake pan with the batter on top.
It doesn't keep very well (maybe a day at most), and mine was a bit less firm and had less caramel than the picture in the book, but it was a hit, and I could easily see doing it again.
useful (3)
I made this for brunch this morning, taking into account aj's notes from the previous review. I made sure there were lots of chives, skipped the walnuts, measured the cheese by weight to be sure I was putting enough in, and for good measure added some left over caramelized onions (about 1/3 cup). I also mixed the cheese up a little, adding 1 ounce of gruyere and 1 of parmesan I wanted to use up from the fridge.
The result was quite cheesy, nice and savory and went very well with our brunch. Even though I used a lot of chives, it could easily have had more - without the onions it might have been missing flavor - in the recipe she suggests scallions as an alternative, and I'm sure they'd be nice too. Also I found that adding the sharper cheeses intensified the flavour. I'll definitely be making this again.
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Authentic Indian Cooking
By Madhuri Anand
Anand Enterprises - 2004
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Website: BBC Good Food
Truly succulent, dark, and flavourful stew. It's not unlike a version of Boeuf Bourguignon with venison. We used venison shoulder steak from a wild deer, given to us by a farmer friend. I cut about 700g of meat from the steaks and then did the recipe pretty much as written, just adding a little more carrot and some mushrooms I wanted to use up. A great way to deal with a tougher cut of venison.
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The Best of America's Test Kitchen 2008: The Year's Best Recipes, Equipment Reviews, and Tastings
By America's Test Kitchen Editors
Boston Common Press - 2007
These muffins are fairly good, with a nice gingerbread flavour, but they seem to be missing a little something. We're going to try to redo them with cooked apple, raisins or dates to add a bit more moisture and something to chew on inside. I'll update this when we do.
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Oh yes. This is Roesti as it should be done. I have searched for a good Roesti recipe for a while, as I had it done properly in a Swiss restaurant in Toronto and it was heavenly - crispy, brown and buttery on the outside and soft and creamy on the inside.
When I tried doing it at home using recipes I'd found online or in magazines, it just didn't work. It would either be too raw on the middle, fall apart in the pan or just be somehow off.
This recipe gets it right completely, as far as I'm concerned. In typical Cooks Illustrated fashion, they isolate the main points to getting it right: correct potatoes (Yukon Gold); getting rid of water from the potatoes; adding starch back in (corn starch or starch from the potato water itself - which I prefer) and then cooking it at the right heat for the right length of time.
A nice wedge of this with scrambled eggs and sausages makes a fantastic brunch.
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These are glorious, and the recipe is very comprehensive and hard to mess up. However, we did not have tiny ramekins so we used the standard 1/2 cup ones we had at hand. Bit of a mistake, as this is very rich and it was almost too much at the end of a good meal. For future reference, we'll either buy smaller ramekins or find other containers (or fill them half full - though this will look rather odd).
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Close... but not quite close enough. They make a big deal about this being a low fat chocolate chip cookie that doesn't taste like one, and it almost is. The use of dates and browned butter gives a nice flavour note and compensates somewhat for the lower amount of butter in these cookies, but still you can tell that there's something missing from them.
Compared to the New York Times chocolate chip cookies (Google them for the recipe) that caused a bit of a stir the summer of 2008, they're obviously lacking. Fat tastes good, and it's hard to compensate for that.
My preference is to make a full-fat cookie, but make it smaller. A recipe that supposedly makes 18 cookies can easily make double that or more if you restrain yourself.
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Superlative. For me, this combines some of my favourite ingredients delightfully. The crust, which with tarts can be problematic, is simplified and worked flawlessly the first time I tried it (though I might make it a little thinner next time to make more room for filling). Pressing it into the shell and freezing it afterwards guaranteed a shrink-free and stress-free experience.
And what can I say about bacon and caramelized onion? Mmmm. For vegetarians (ovo-lacto), skipping the bacon still results in a very tasty tart.
Update: I cooked this again and would suggest one slight adjustment to the crust - omit the tablespoon of sugar. The tart is sweet enough with the onions that it doesn't need any sweetness from the crust.
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The Best of BetterBaking.com: More Than 200 Classic Recipes From the Beloved Baker's Website
By Marcy Goldman
Whitecap Books Ltd. - 2009
These are excellent muffins (and you'll have to read the recipe to get the story behind their name). I did not change a thing and they turned out very well. They are moist without being greasy, can take a wide range of fruits (I used frozen raspberries) and have a lovely streusel topping. They're also quite simple to make. They are definitely going to become a family classic.
Update: I've made these several times now and they continue to impress. It's a very versatile recipe, and consistently makes great muffins.
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Very tasty, fluffy muffins. The mixture of cornmeal, lemon and rasbperry is very nice indeed.
However, a caveat. You must use large/jumbo muffin liners with this. I didn't, assuming (foolishly) that the silicone muffin pan I had would make it easy to remove them. Incorrect! They have a tendency to fall apart when they're warm and steaming.
I used whole grain cornmeal, which has a nice crunch to it. I didn't have lemon oil, but the zest of one lemon seemed to do just fine. It's a very wet batter, but rises relatively well - not as much as her Lawsuit muffins though.
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I made these exactly as written in the recipe and they were just perfect. The cookies are nice, and the addition of ground almonds makes them a little crumbly, but not so much they are not strong enough to sandwich. And of course dulce de leche is excellent pretty much anywhere.
I made dulce de leche the easy way - I gently simmered a can of sweetened condensed milk for about 3 hours. I know it says on the can not to do this, but I've done it many times with no explosions, and a quick search online found that many people from South America do this also and as long as it's completely covered with water, it seems to be fairly safe. Note however that I take no liability for caramel explosions whatsoever...
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The Best Recipes in the World
By Mark Bittman
Broadway - 2005
This is quite a good recipe, reminiscent of Bittman's tagine with chickpeas. It's a variation on Bulgur Pilaf with Meat. I cooked it exactly as written and it made a hearty vegetarian main dish. The cinnamon spicing is characteristic of this sort of dish, and gives it an interesting flavour. If I was cooking for adults I'd likely add a little spice to give this another layer of complexity, but this was for a meal including some kids, so I kept it heat-free.
I have a feeling it will improve after a night in the fridge. I'll probably make this every so often, as the family liked it, though it wasn't quite flavourful enough to make 4 stars.
Edit: I just upped this to 4 stars, as it definitely goes up a notch after a day of storage. I gave some to a friend who raved about it. As for myself, I'm still stirring in a little harissa for some heat, and definitely liking this one more.
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My wife loved this, and my 9-year-old gobbled it up (without chicken though, as she's not much of a meat eater). It has an unusual flavour with the addition of half a vanilla bean - really out of the ordinary if you've not experienced the use of what in the West are spices commonly used in sweet dishes being used in savoury dishes. With nutmeg, cinnamon and ginger plus raisins, it really does have a holiday sort of feel about it.
I would have added more heat, and when I served it I mixed in a little harissa paste, which was just perfect and brought it up to 4 stars in my view.
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The Best Vegetable Recipes (Best Recipe Classics)
By Editors of Cook's Illustrated Magazine, Cook's Illustrated Magazine, John Burgoyne, Carl Tremblay, Daniel J. Van Ackere
America's Test Kitchen - 2007
This is a bit complicated - to do it right, you must use russet potatoes, preheat the oiled baking sheets and partially steam the cut potatoes. But the results are very good indeed. Before this recipe, I'd mostly made potato wedges in the oven and used whatever potatoes were kicking around, but they're right that russets are ideal for this type of recipe (Yukon Golds are also pretty good), and the steaming seems to help, though it's a bit messy.
We don't have peanut oil, so use canola instead, and sea salt instead of regular salt.
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There are lots of latkes recipes out there, and I've tried a few of them. Many are disappointing - it's not always easy to make them relatively ungreasy and also cooked properly throughout.
This recipe works. I think there are two secrets - the first is the use of a food processor to cut 1/3 of the shredded potatoes and all of the onion into smaller pieces which cook faster. The second is collecting and reusing the thick potato starch which drains out when you squeeze the shreds. I don't (forgive me) use matzo meal, but the starch holds everything together just fine.
Okay, three secrets: the last being getting the right amount of oil to the right temperature and draining them on a sufficient thickness of paper towel. They freeze very well and I revive them by cooking them briefly in a dry frying pan - the residual oil comes out when they heat up.
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These are simply excellent. I've tried a few corn fritter recipes from elsewhere, and these are far superior. They've managed to find a good balance between a robust corn flavour and a not-too-bready consistency. They're light, chewy, bursting with flavour.
I usually make them with fresh corn, but instead of grating the raw corn, I lightly cook up several ears (3 minutes in boiling water) and cut the corn off them, then puree half the kernels in a food chopper. If I have no shallots (I usually don't have them...) I use a quarter of an onion.
Recently I made the cheddar/chive variation, and while nice, it wasn't a huge improvement on the basic recipe. A batch of these makes for a lovely hot breakfast, or a side dish at dinner; we even have them as a main sometimes with potatoes and steamed veggies.
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Simple, straightforward recipe that works, like many Cooks Illustrated basics/classics. I think the definition of what a home fry is varies, as I'd always thought of them as the chunky wedge fries that they call Steak Fries.
However, call them what you will, these cubed potatoes are tasty. Where I'd always gone wrong before was by stirring them too often - rather than leaving them for 4 or 5 minutes to brown each side.
The recipe suggests turning the potatoes three or four times, all together, so that all sides are evenly cooked. In the real world, they get a good cooking on a couple of sides and then I shake them up every so often to try to even them out.
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These are quite good, but they're so close in character to roesti (which Cook's Illustrated has a fantastic recipe for) that I don't bother to make them any longer and just make roesti or latkes when I want a potato pancake sort of thing.
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Bones: Recipes, History, and Lore
By Jennifer Mclagan
William Morrow Cookbooks - 2005
A tasty and fairly simple way to do a less-common cut of pork. I didn't have a fennel bulb or pastis/Pernod, so this wasn't quite as licorice flavoured as the recipe should be, nevertheless the end result was a nicely braised piece of meat, falling off the bone, with a tasty sauce.
Like many similar recipes, it improves overnight - the leftovers were excellent with pasta and with rice over the two days after we made this.
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We enjoyed this very much. It's a fairly standard treatment of oxtail (she does an interesting sounding Asian spiced version too, which I'd like to try). You brown the pieces and then cook up carrots, celery, onion and garlic, then deglaze with red wine, add stock and tomato paste and braise the oxtail for several hours.
What I like about this recipe is that once the braising is done, you remove the meat and strain the remaining braising liquid, then refrigerate both of them for a day or two. When you serve it up, you re-sauce it after removing the fat, and scatter carrots and parsnips (and turnips, but we didn't use them) over the meat and give it another hour in the oven.
It was great with buttered egg noodles and gave us leftovers for a couple of days.
A similar recipe on Epicurious is very well reviewed, for those who don't have this book but have a hankering for oxtail.
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Bonnie Stern's Essentials of Home Cooking
By Bonnie Stern
Random House Canada - 2003
This is a great way to prepare quesadillas. Although we haven't been able to find smoked mozzarella here, we just use a mixture of regular mozzarella and cheddar. We leave out the jalapeno and just use the great chipotle Tabasco sauce. We also add a cooked onion. Very tasty!
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This is a nice side dish, much like a low fat scalloped potatoes. It is important to use the sweet potatoes as well as the Yukon Golds, and we've found that putting some sliced onion in the layers can also be nice. Does have a tendency to fall apart a bit, but tastes good!
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This is an excellent meatloaf recipe. We just made it again last night and I was reminded again how much I like it. Because it's made with ground chicken (we use ground chicken thighs), it's not overly heavy. The addition of ketchup and Worcestershire sauce give it a nice undertone of umami.
It's fantastic with mashed potatoes, and overall great comfort food. We often skip the smoky tomato sauce and just use ketchup, but it's nice to go to town and do the whole thing when you have time.
Sometimes with the leftovers I like to put them with some tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese in a panini and grill for lunch. Mmmmm....
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Bouchon Bakery
By Thomas Keller, Sebastien Rouxel
Artisan - 2012
The first time I made these I followed the recipe exactly, using a gram scale to make sure it was precise, as recommended in the book's foreword. They were almost inedible - the taste of baking soda was overwhelming; I found them too salty and too strongly tasting of cinnamon also. I baked them about half the recommended size and still found them enormous. I dumped them in the compost and tried again.
This time I reduced the baking soda to 3/4 of a teaspoon, which was more in line with other cookie recipes in the book (the TLCs the next page over have only 1/2 a teaspoon, leading me to think perhaps the 1 1/2 tsp recommended in this recipe is an error).
I also reduced the cinnamon to 3/4 of a tablespoon and reduced the kosher salt to a scant teaspoon. I also dropped the brown sugar to about 100 grams, as the weight to cup ratio in the instructions seemed off to me also. Then I baked them at my regular cookie size (a bit smaller than a golf ball - about 30 grams each) for 14 minutes. They were very good with these changes, and rivalled my best other oatmeal cookie recipes (Smitten Kitchen). I'd give them 5 stars with the adjustments.
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These were okay muffins, but nothing special. I'd been led by the instructions to believe they would be something out of the ordinary - they have molasses, honey, lots of butter, and rest in in the fridge overnight, which is supposed to create a 'very moist muffin' with a better crumb.
The result: an almost too dry muffin with a slightly odd taste of molasses which would be better suited to go with pumpkin muffins, perhaps. I baked them for 33 minutes (it's a low temperature bake), taking them out just when they firmed up. I didn't deviate from the instructions except to reduce the salt a little as 1 tsp of regular salt seemed like a lot.
I'll be going back to the very good blueberry muffins I make all the time from this recipe: http://www.cookbooker.com/recipe/1432/lawsuit-buttermilk-muffins
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The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread
By Peter Reinhart, Ron Manville
Ten Speed Press - 2001
This is fantastic bread. Peter Reinhardt says this makes excellent toast and is one of his favourites. I would heartily agree. I think it's possibly the best toast bread I've ever had. Very highly recommended.
I use buttermilk, brown rice and whole grain cornmeal for the soaker as well as bran and rolled oats.
The only issue with the recipe is that consistently I have to add at least another cup of flour when kneading this, as it's a quite sticky dough. Sometimes even more than a cup, so have some handy. I also add 10-20% whole wheat flour with good results. I've found that over 20% starts to interfere with the crumb and the chewiness of the bread.
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These didn't work out too well for me. The problem with baking, though, is it's hard to tell if it's the baker or the recipe, so I'll be trying this again and updating.
I'm a fan of the chewy Montreal style bagel. The recipe says these are the chewy New York 'water bagels', boiled and dense, which sounds a lot like Montreal style. But when I made them they were not as dense as the ones I'm used to. I also found they were rather large at 4.5 oz each. I weighed some bagels from Siegel's in Vancouver, which are pretty close to the authentic Montreal style, and they were 3 to 3 1/2 oz each, so when I try again, I'll shrink the size. I also intend to boil them a little longer, try the rope method of forming them and maybe put some honey or malt in the water.
By comparison, I tried the bagel recipe from Homebaking (see my bookshelf) and it turned out much better indeed - very close to what I was hoping for, though still not quite chewy enough.
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These are very promising, and the illustration in the book is mouth-watering, but I've had a hard time making them truly seem like crackers - they end up rising and being more like thin bread. The instructions do say that the secret is to roll out the dough paper thin, and I think that you might have to really work it to make it almost transparent. I'll update this when I try it again.
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This bread is, quite simply, a revelation. It is simple to make, requiring only an evening mixing, and an overnight fermentation in the fridge. Then the baguettes need almost no shaping, just a rough cut with a dough scraper. It is one of the simplest bread recipes in this book, and one of the best.
The result is truly wonderful. Everyone who's tasted these is wowed - they even impressed my daughter's teacher, who's from France, and knows her baguettes!
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This is a very pleasant bread - the semolina gives it a nutty flavour which works well with sesame seeds. The only reason I didn't give it 4 stars is that it's a lot of work for a bread I can't see myself making again and again - partly because if you do it as recommended it's a 3 day recipe.
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