BethNH's Profile

From: , NH USA

Joined: December 16th, 2010

About me: I've been cooking and baking since I was a child and collecting cookbooks almost that long. Years ago, I lost my entire collection in a flood and I've been slowly building it back up. I cook for my husband and three sons who are not very adventurous eaters. We're on the go a lot with sports and school schedules. I love to bake and my boys and their friends appreciate all manner of baked goods.

Favorite cookbook: King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion

Ginger Pork Meatballs with Cilantro and Fish Sauce from Dinner: Changing the Game

These meatballs and the dipping sauce were to die for delicious. Although there was a lot of chopping the recipe was easy to follow. Everyone loved it and we will definitely make this again. read more >

recipe reviews (265)
book reviews (8)
useful review votes (161)

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BethNH's Reviews

4 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 4Sort by: Title | Date | Rating

Fat Witch Brownies: Brownies, Blondies, and Bars from New York's Legendary Fat Witch Bakery

By Patricia Helding
Rodale Books - 2010

What's not to love about bananas and chocolate together?

These bars take the best of brownies and mixes it with banana bread. The batter tastes like banana splits.

The brownies are moist and dense - more like banana bread than brownie. The taste is excellent with strong banana and chocolate flavor. The texture is kind of spongy and kind of threw me for a loop the first time I tasted them because I was expecting brownie texture. Once you accept that they're more like banana bread than brownie, they're actually quite good.

useful (1)  

The best thing about cocoa brownies is their simplicity. These brownies start with melted butter and then all the other ingredients can be added to the pot in which the butter was melted.

The brownies are moist and filled with chocolate flavor. They are neither fudgey nor cakey but something in between. They do not have the nice shiny crackled top that many look for in a brownie.

This would make a nice go to brownie recipe when one does not want to mess with melting chocolate. Who doesn't have a can of cocoa sitting around?

useful (0)  

If I could I would give this 3.5 stars. The recipe is basically a shortbread crust which is baked first and then topped with a coconut and condensed milk topping (with other ingredients of course).

The recipe calls for baking 30 minutes after the topping is added which seemed too long to me. I checked after 20 minutes and the topping was getting quite brown so I pulled it out.

The bars are very moist with a nice coconut flavor. I think they could be improved with the addition of coconut extract instead of vanilla (which I didn't think of until they were done). We would also have liked them to be a bit more "solid" in the middle.

All in all, if you like coconut you'd like these bars. They're simple to make and pretty tasty. The recipe says they improve over time so I'll see how they taste tomorrow.

useful (0)  

Baked in an 8x8 pan instead of 9x9 and it still felt like there was not enough topping to cover the base layer. The base layer was just a bit over cooked which lead to a very crumbly bar. The taste was yummy but they dried out quickly.

Next time, I'd bake the base layer a shorter time and increase the condensed milk just a bit.

useful (2)