These cookies might be an all-time favorite for those who enjoy a little extra salt in desserts. They rate a perfect 5 for texture, baking up crispy on the outside and soft/chewy on the inside. They also rate a perfect 5 for the level of sweetness- even with the sugar sprinkle on top and milk chocolate chips, the sugar seemed about the right balance with the peanut butter and salt (not too sweet).

The flavor is good, but the reason I rated the overall cookie four stars instead of five is that they are a little too salty for me and have a slight bitter aftertaste.

There is a lot of baking soda in these. It seems like cookie recipes often use larger amounts of baking soda to facilitate browning, and I suspect that the soda might also help create the lovely texture, keeping these from setting until they have spread into a thin, crispy-on-the-outside-chewy-on-the-inside cookie. If I make these again I'll start with a small batch and use less baking soda, in hopes of reducing the saltiness and eliminating the bitter aftertaste.

I liked these better the day after baking, when all the flavors had had a chance to blend and mellow a bit.

For those who weigh ingredients, this book uses 139g as the weight of a cup of AP flour (I learned this from RLB's baking forum, where a member had been in contact with one of the authors).

IMHO, this is worth the bad food points. It has a fair amount of butter, sugar, and salt, but it makes the squash perfect. I tried to make it with less sugar and less salt, but when I tasted it near the end of cooking, I quickly decided to add the missing quantities. I was so glad I did, it elevated the dish to something tasty enough for a special occasion.

I agree with the other reviewers, this recipe is so easy it hardly counts as a recipe, but then it's good, so I'm inclined to rate it well anyway. I think roasted vegetables were more of a novelty when this book was first published in 1999, so Ms. Garten should get credit for being in the forefront of that movement.

Perhaps because I had fewer sprouts than the recipe called for, mine were very brown on the outside before the inside was done. And I cut the largest sprouts in half to facilitate even cooking- that may have been a mistake as they were a bit dry by the time they were cooked all the way through.

This was good to try for meals where the oven is already being used, but for stove top meals I'll continue to saute brussel sprouts, as I like the moistness that comes from finishing them off in a covered pan after they've been browned.

Our go-to pizza dough, we make it nearly every week. This is a no-knead dough so it's incredibly easy, perfect for a novice bread maker or for anyone who needs to spend more time on toppings, salad, etc. The recommend King Arthur Italian-style flour makes a noticeably light, crisp crust, but the all-purpose version is nearly as good. Letting the dough sit overnight in the fridge gives nice flavor. And the portion size is somewhat small, it serves two modest appetites. We double it for a family of three.

This is the bread depicted on the cover. So far, it's my favorite savory bread from this book. I love everything about it, from the open crumb (large holes) to the magical flavors produced by durum flour and a mellow biga.

It's worth noting that coarse semolina doesn't work well for this recipe (it calls for finely ground durum flour). As the coarse flour is easier to find, I have tried both allowing it time to absorb the water in the recipe, and grinding it in the food processor, but the substitution still doesn't work as well as the fine flour does. If the coarse flour is all that is available, you can reduce hydration a bit and the bread will still be good.

This is a delicious quick bread rather than a yeasted bread. It can be sliced thinly and keeps well, perfect for cream cheese sandwiches for lunchboxes or weekend snacking. It's healthier than carrot cake, with more carrots, less sugar and less oil, yet it is still moist and delicious. I didn't miss the extra sugar or oil at all.

The recommendation in the recipe to wrap the loaf and let it sit for a day is a good one, mine was a tad dry at the edges when first baked, but after sitting it was more moist.

The only change I made was to use golden raisins instead of dark ones, as this was primarily for my 10 year-old daughter and she likes goldens better. When she saw me grating a large pile of carrots to make this, she informed me she doesn't like carrot cake. But now she's eaten it with cream cheese every day for the last week. It's definitely good for veggie-phobic kids.

The four star rating is for the quickbread itself, spreading it with cream cheese elevates this to a 5.

This sublime flourless cake is my all-time favorite chocolate cake, I return to it again and again. It is dense, supremely moist, tender, and has a little added texture from the ground almonds. It is a not-too-sweet cake, with a perfect balance of butter, toasted almonds and cocoa. Full-flavored yet mellow, it isn't as intense as the Chocolate Oblivion (also Cake Bible). It pairs well with dark ganache spiked with either rum or coffee, or with whipped cream.

For the best flavor, use a full-fat, dutched cocoa, or if you must use a lower-fat cocoa, substitute by weight, 75% low-fat cocoa and 25% chopped unsweetened chocolate (this corrects the cocoa butter content).

For the best texture, use ground almonds that are as fine as possible. If you are grinding them yourself, start with room temperature toasted sliced almonds and grind with some of the sugar from the recipe.

This recipe is a little more time-consuming than some, due to egg whites that are beaten separately and due to the need to toast and grind almonds if you opt not to buy toasted almond flour. But I like it so well I still make it more often than any other cake recipe.

The photo shows this cake after trimming and frosting with dark ganache with coffee.

This recipe is listed as a variation of La Brioche Cake. It is a strawberry shortcake-style recipe, intended to be served with fresh strawberries and whipped cream, and it is my all-time favorite way to eat strawberries. It is also good with peaches or nectarines.

The "cake" is actually a brioche bread, syruped with liqueur to transform it into a dessert. I don't have good kirsch on hand, so I make the syrup for this with 4T of gold rum, eliminate the lemon juice, and pull back on the sugar a little, to 120 grams. I also like to add the zest of one large orange to the dough during shaping. Brioche gets baked to an internal temp of 190F.

This buttercream is silky smooth, rich and not too sweet, which means I'll never again suffer through gritty or overly sweet powdered sugar frostings. It's bascially whipped butter lightened with Italian Meringue. It is a little more challenging to make than a powdered sugar frosting, but very worthwhile to master.

There is an updated technique on the author's Youtube video, which basically involves dumping all of the cooled meringue onto the whipped butter at once and then whipping at med-high or high speed. This is much faster and simpler than the tablespoon-at-a-time method in the book, and I've done it several times now, it works well.

An important tip is that this buttercream almost always curdles a little bit just before it forms an emulsion- keep beating on med-high or high and as long as it's at the right temperature it will come together. The ideal temperature for both the whipped butter and the cooled meringue is about 70F.

If the temperature of the buttercream is too cool and it curdles, even badly, it can still be saved by bringing the mixture to the correct temp and then beating on high speed.

Another point is to err on the lower side of the 248-250F for the temperature of the cooked sugar syrup. Going over 250F will produce an overly firm, hard-to-pipe and unpleasant-to-eat buttercream. If the sugar syrup does overshoot 250F, it's easy to swirl in a little water (the temp will lower) and then try for 248F again.

Finally, unsalted butter is a must. Salted butter doesn't taste good in this.

My favorite flavors are the lemon curd and the white chocolate. Normally, I don't care for white chocolate at all, but in this buttercream it doesn't come across as too sweet and it does something incredibly dreamy to the texture.

The photos show a cake frosted with lemon curd mousseline, and cupcakes frosted with white chocolate mousseline.

This is a glorious flourless chocolate cake, and it only uses 3 ingredients. Simple and elegant. It really does taste like a chocolate truffle. It's a crowd pleaser and received many compliments.

A Make-Ahead, Sit-Out-All-Night Cake:
I chose this because I could make it a couple of days in advance, and because it could sit out during a party and wouldn't get dry the way a traditional flour- or egg-based cake would. It was still perfectly moist and delicious at the end of the night. However, it is a bit messy to cut if you don't follow the suggestion to use a hot sharp knife.

Chocolate Percentage:
I've made this twice, and used a 53% chocolate one time and 60% the other time. Even though I'm a not-too-sweet person, I found the 60% a little too intense and bitter. I'll stick to 53-57% chocolate for this in the future.

When it's Done:
According to the author, this should bake to an internal temp of 150F, and the water bath should also be about 150F. For me, the water bath worked well when I filled a tea kettle and brought it to a boil while the eggs were beating, then pulled it off the heat and allowed it to cool a bit while I was folding the chocolate/butter mixture and eggs together. Both times I made this, my torte took longer than the specified baking time for the internal temp to come up to 150F.

Hot Fudge Variation:
I also tried the "chocolate torture" variation, with espresso and homemade hot fudge, and have to say that the hot fudge is outstanding and only takes a few minutes to make in the microwave. However, it needs to be quite liquid in order to spread out into a reasonably uniform layer on the cake. Mine was too thick and sunk into the batter in places. Tasted great, but wasn't very pretty.

A second attempt at the hot fudge variation worked well when I used the lukewarm fudge as a topping to pour over the finished, chilled cake. It set up glossy and beautiful at room temp.

The espresso stays in the background and enhances the chocolate, it doesn't come across as a mocha cake.

This is a robust, garlicky, salty pesto that is wonderful and memorable. Like many of the recipes from this book, it has become a staple in my kitchen, I have probably made it more than 25 times.

I have fine-tuned it to my tastes, pulling back on the raw garlic and adding a very small squirt of lemon juice to help preserve a fresh green color. Walnuts also work well with this recipe if pine nuts are not available. I freeze it in ice cube trays and then transfer the cubes to a ziploc. Great on pizza and potato gnocchi as well as on pasta.

Followed this recipe exactly, from the marinade to the weight of the steak to the overnight (20 hrs) soak. It was a good, well-balanced marinade, but it overwhelmed the meat. I have found this to be the case with other, similar skirt steak recipes, too, so maybe I'm just not fond of lengthy marinades. As the balance of flavors was so good, I may try this again with a shorter soaking time, perhaps 4-5 hours.

Leftovers did make sensational sandwiches topped with arugula and tomato slices.

I absolutely loved this filled brie recipe. I served it at a large party, and the most sophisticated foodies there raved about it. The balance of buttery brioche, creamy brie, salty nuts and sweet-tart apricots is delicious. This was not too sweet, like some versions I've encountered, and the brioche kept it fairly neat- it could be sliced into thin wedges for serving.

The Brie:
I followed this part of the recipe exactly and was so glad that I did- it was perfect. I used a cake leveler to cut the cold brie, it worked like a charm. For the apricots, I used california (Sun Maid) rather than turkish, as they are more intensely flavored and more tart. They are halves, rather than whole apricots, so I used 20 halves for the recipe (called for 10 whole).

The Brioche:
I only used 2/3 of this recipe to encase the brie, partly because I didn't have the tools to create the filigree top and partly because I didn't want that much bread around the cheese. I folded the dough into pleats to try and make it look as presentable as possible.

This brioche rises vigorously during chilling, I found it helpful to start the chilling when it reached 1.5 times its volume, instead of double. I also found it helpful, when rolling out the brioche, to roll half way and then allow the dough an hour in the fridge to relax before completing the rolling.

I enjoyed this cake very much, but I expect all the fanfare attached to this recipe is because of its ease and simplicity, and because baked Italian plums are absolutely delicious. When I tasted the base cake without plum, it was bland, though that might be because I didn't know how this book measures flour and may have used too much.

Flour Measurement:
I took one cup of flour to mean 150 grams because having equal weights of sugar and flour is a classic way to formulate a cake recipe. This is a maximum amount for one cup of flour, and corresponds to a dip-and-sweep method of measuring. If I make it again, I'll probably try less flour, and use unbleached AP, as this is specified in many of the earlier versions of this recipe.

Sugar:
This cake has a relatively high proportion of sugar, and I was worried about it being too sweet, so went with the lower amount of sugar (3/4 cup) mentioned in the recipe. With that and the tartness of the plums, the cake definitely came across as a not-too-sweet dessert- perfect for me but my daughter thought it wasn't sweet enough. I used an additional 1 T for the topping.

Typo:
An important point is that this recipe appears to have a typo when it calls for one tablespoon of cinnamon, as most other websites and books where this recipe is printed call for one teaspoon of cinnamon. I used half a teaspoon of cinnamon and thought it was plenty- any more might have obscured the flavor of the plums (I used the small Italian prune plums, which were delicious).

The combination of fruit and cinnamon, plus the rustic look of the cake, made me think of a breakfast or brunch cake, and that was how we ate most of it, in the morning with coffee. This cake baked up 1 5/8" tall and registered 200F in the center after 45" of baking.

I loved the combination of flavors in this cake- pecans, chocolate and Bailey's are very, very nice together. I toasted my pecans lightly. I also appreciated that this torte had enough flour to bake up flat, unlike those that normally bake up with a sunken center. However, it didn't seem quite as tender as cakes without flour, so I guess there's a trade-off for the nice shape. The texture was dense, like most nut tortes, and fudgy.

My all-time favorite apple pie, we make it every Fall after picking apples at local orchards. The open face design allows blind baking of the crust for the crispiest pastry. The method of concentrating the juices gives an intense and pure flavor, as less thickener is needed. Can't wait to make it again.

Delicious, creamy and full of peaches. It took me several tries to get this one right- the key is to be sure to bake the peaches long enough that they have exuded all their juice before adding the custard mixture. If they are still firm, they haven't baked long enough. They should be almost fully baked. If you add the custard too soon, the tart will have a lot of extra juices that flow out when sliced.

I bake this pie to an internal temp of 160F to ensure that the custard is properly thickened.

A lovely pie for anyone who loves raspberries. The flavor of currants stayed mostly in the background, but complemented the raspberries nicely.

A light, elegant pie that was very popular with guests and could be made ahead and frozen.

I chose the version with the almond pate sucree crust, rather than the meringue shell, and included the optional raspberry sauce in a webbed design on top of the pie.

There are a lot of components to this pie- crust, lemond curd, whipped cream and italian meringue, plus the raspberry sauce, but it was nice to have a creation that can just be defrosted and served when needed.

Made this Lemon Meringue Pie for houseguests last week, and they all declared it was the best they'd ever had. I have to say, I agree- the filling layer is deep (perfect recipe for a deep dish pie plate), lemony and just a bit creamy. It is not as intense as a lemon curd, but perfectly balanced with the crust and meringue. I used the flaky cream cheese crust, my favorite.

Use a Saucepan
After a few bakers had trouble with the filling not setting, Ms. Beranbaum posted a change to the recipe on her website: make the filling in a saucepan (instead of a double boiler) and be sure to bring it to a full boil. I did this and had no problems.

The other important point is to fully anchor the meringue onto the crust so it won't shrink. I made the Italian meringue and had no trouble with it, but it was harder to cut cleanly after a night in the fridge.

I think the meringue quantity in the recipe is probably just right- it seemed like it was high enough as I was piling it on, so I didn't use all that the recipe made. But after baking mine seemed a little short so I probably should have used it all after all.

This is a wonderful and easy way to stabilize whipped cream with starch so it won't water out. It makes the cream suitable for piping or for storing up to a day ahead of serving (refrigerated).

It's easier to make than the super-stabilized whipped cream (made with gelatin) because the window of time to add the small, thickened portion of cream to the larger bowl is much longer- i.e., with the gelatin, you have to time it carefully (I set the timer), but with the starch, it is a more relaxed process.

The same quantities and method can also be used for cassava/tapioca starch, which will enable the stabilized cream to be frozen and thawed without watering out. Corn starch doesn't freeze well.

I've made this crust several times, mostly with almonds but once with pecans. It is my favorite pate sucree, the nuts add flavor and help keep it tender.

To ensure the crust doesn't crack, I like to use a whole egg in place of the yolk and cream, the book talks about this version of the crust in the "Understanding" section on p. 58.

I love the process and smooth results of rolling the dough (instead of pressing it into the pan). Unless my kithcen is quite cool, it often needs to be chilled part way through rolling to keep it from becoming too sticky.

I've never been overly fond of fresh blackberries, but after reading that the baked fruit is wonderful, I decided to give this pie a whirl. I'm glad I did- it's delicious. The baked fruit does seem to have more flavor than fresh. The recipe states that frozen berries are of a type that have softer seeds, and that was true with my (frozen) fruit.

My fruit was tart (and the recipe adds lemon) so there wasn't enough sugar in the pie for us. We sprinkled some on afterwards, but next time I'll taste it before baking.

For the crust, I chose the sweet cream variation of the basic flaky (all-butter) crust. I liked this variation even better than basic flaky, very tender from the cream, and delicious as well. Not sure if it will displace my favorite cream cheese crust, but almost.

I made a lattice crust, partly because I didn't have the fluted oval cut-outs that make the sketches of the two-crust pie so appealing. But also because I wanted the practice. I think there is more evaporation with the lattice than with a vented two-crust pie, and after looking at other recipes, I would reduce the corn starch by 1 - 1.5 tsp if making this again.

Very delicious, and one of the easiest, no-fuss pies in the book. I've made this recipe twice now, and both times I chose it because I had plenty of other cooking to do. I have used the apricot glaze both times, as it adds a little bit of golden color and an un-identifiable extra flavor dimension. As long as you don't put on too much, the apricot flavor blends with the fruit rather than being noticeable on its own.

When I made the pear variation, I must have used a little more fruit or cut my slices a little large, because the pie took an extra 15" of baking to get the pears to be done. I covered the crust with pieces of foil during the extra baking time, as it was getting fairly brown.

I've made this twice now and I think it's destined to become a family tradition. My first time making it I was a little intimidated by the need to filet a turkey breast, but it turns out it's pretty fast and easy. And a heavy rolling pin worked fine to hammer the meat, no special tool required there.

Editing after my third go-round with this recipe: using a separately purchased turkey breast makes this an easier and approachable recipe. I did find it a bit challenging to remove the breast bones from the whole turkey.

For me, the shallots and sage leaves need to be sauteed before adding to the filling, I found them to be too strong and unbalanced when put in raw, as the recipe specifies. I also found it helpful to have the prosciutto and pancetta sliced as thinly as possible to keep from overwhelming the delicate white meat flavor.

The real beauty of this recipe is not only that it allows you to roast the breast meat separately (avoiding overcooking), but that it also allows you to make large quantities of wonderful stock the day before roasting the turkey, so you have it for the best stuffing and gravy you'll ever experience.

This makes a quick and easy weeknight dish, and is a great way to make pork chops. My chops were at the thin end of the range specified, and I found they cooked more quickly than the recipe specified. That may also be because I have an electric stove, so "low" may be hotter than with a gas range. I took them off the heat as they approached 160F on an instant-read thermometer.

In the French style, the garlic is left whole for cooking and then removed before serving, and it stays in the background, the dish is not too garlicky.

I may have been lax about stirring the lima beans enough, because they seemed to be a little unevenly cooked (some were undercooked). I think next time I may give them a quick boil/drain before sauteeing them. But that's me, not the recipe.

The only thing I would change about the recipe is to pull back on the thyme, it is a little too much for me.

These are incredibly good, sort of like a cannoli shell made out of toffee. The brandy is an undertone, they don't taste boozy. Everyone I served them to absolutely loved them, from kids to adults with sophisticated palates.

Here are my notes from making these:

-If the oven runs hot, these cookies won’t spread enough to wrap around the dowel.

-I wrapped my dowel in wax paper, taped only at the center so the cookies can slide off the ends without snagging on tape.

-I found it was best to let the cookies cool for 3 minutes on the dowel before sliding them off, they hold their shape better.

-These get soft/sticky if left out (though not as dramatically as meringue), but they stayed crispy in tupperware-type containers.

These are an outrageously good, upscale version of the seven layer bars of my childhood. Possibly the easiest recipe in the book, they depend upon high quality chocolate. A real crowd pleaser.

These capture perfectly the flavor of the best lemon-poppyseed muffins or cake. And the texture is wonderful- the inside is slightly moist and soft, but crispy from the poppyseeds, while the outside is a bit crunchy.

When I made these, they came out slightly flatter than the hemispheres shown in the book, but I was still happy with them. The roundest cookies in my batch were the smaller ones, and the ones that had more finely ground almonds pressed into the outside.

One of the best cakes I have ever made, and I never thought I would say that about a cake that doesn't contain butter. It's light and fresh and has a dreamy, spongy texture. I've made a tangerine version and a lemon version. The author gives leavening and flavor adjustments for the lemon version on her blog.

This cake is a little tricky and requires everything to be just right. Use a silver (i.e., not a non-stick) springform, cake strips, a flower nail, unbleached AP flour and measure or weigh everything carefully. Underbaking and overbaking will also create problems.

For the whipped cream recipe listed with the cake, be sure to use sweet orange marmalade, as the classic, somewhat bitter variety makes terrible whipped cream (voice of experience). For the tangerine version, I used homemade tangerine preserves, which worked very well. For the lemon version, I flavored the whipped cream with lemon oil and vanilla.

The photos are the lemon version, which had blueberries in the center filling and was topped with raspberries.

We love this cake and make it over and over. It is easier than a classic chiffon, about as easy as an American butter cake. It is equally popular with kids and adults. Our favorite ice cream pairing with this is H. Daz Strawberry, but chocolate comes in a close second.

With no butter or cream, the flavor of this cake depends on a good-quality, full-flavored cocoa.

We bake this as individual ice cream sandwiches in a pan with 1-cup cavities. The right amount of batter per cavity is 60-62 grams, any more and the sandwich will be too tall to eat. For cakes of this size, 75% of the recipe on p.137 will make 12. They bake for 20 minutes, and we lower the oven temp 25F because our pan has a dark lining.

Like most sponge-type cakes, the top crust on this cake is sticky (top crust when in the cake pan). If you're making little sandwiches to eat with your hands, you can trim the crust if you don't want the sticky texture.

For filling these, it is easiest to slice (torte) them while still room temp, then put them in the freezer before filling with ice cream.

I’ve made this buttercream twice now, and I can’t say enough about how delicious it is. It has a dreamy, soft and creamy texture and it's not too buttery. I have started stockpiling Green and Black’s white chocolate whenever it goes on sale, hoping to make more of this soon.

The texture of this buttercream is a little on the soft side (about like cream cheese buttercream), and it can be a little translucent in very thin layers. But it is so delicious that it is worth a little extra effort to keep it cool while piping, and since it isn't too buttery, extremely thin layers aren't needed.

Don't Scorch the Chocolate
This buttercream requires switching gears at the double-boiler: first, you try not to get it too hot (so you don't scorch the chocolate), then after adding the eggs you turn up the heat and push to get it hot enough (to bring the custard to 140F).

Freezing
It freezes perfectly, just be sure to bring it to room temperature and re-beat it with a whisk (by hand is fine) to restore its texture.

Serving Size
This recipe only makes 7 cups of buttercream- the 14 cups that is mentioned at the beginning of the recipe comes from making two batches. It scales down easily- I make half the recipe as written (3.5 cups), and the only change is that the custard cools faster.

The photo shows an 8" layer of the Golden Dream cake topped with the lemon version of this buttercream.