Cooksbakesbooks' Reviews
207 recipes reviewed. Showing 51 to 100Sort by: Book Title 
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Website: The Food Network
Please make this bread. It is so good that you will think about it all year and will make another one, and another. The bread part is so tender and not too sweet. The cream cheese filling is creamy and nicely quite sweet. The glaze with beautiful colored sugars on top is so gorgeous. This is one of the best things I have ever made.
I make one change to the recipe: I only put in half the filling and it is still a generous amount.
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The Herbfarm Cookbook
By Jerry Traunfeld
Scribner - 2000
This is an elegant dish that is very quick and easy to put together. You can vary the ingredients a bit depending on what you have on hand. Either vermouth or white wine works well in the sauce. I often use fresh sage instead of the tarragon it calls for. I have used minced onion in place of the shallot. The cream in the sauce gives the dish enough body to overcome the leanness of the chicken breasts. When serving it, garnish it with some of the same herb you used in the dish (either chopped or whole) to brighten the color.
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Homemade Cookies
By Farm Journal
Doubleday - 1971
These rate 5 stars, easily. They are soft and smooth, and well-flavored, not too intense, and not too delicate in their taste. The banana flavor is slight, but marvelous when it does peek through. This is a great way to use up overly-brown bananas.
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Ice Pops: Recipes for Fresh and Flavorful Frozen Treats
By Shelly Kaldunski
Weldon Owen - 2011
This pop was marred by a too-chunky texture and a too-earthy, not-sweet taste. This pop wasn't a treat, as such--it wasn't refreshing and sprightly--but it tasted healthy.
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This pop was grainy in texture (like ice milk) and the flavor was too intense to be refreshing. I was hoping it would be like heavenly buttermilk ice cream with a lemon-y flavor, but it was not. The lemon flavor was too dominant and the texture was not creamy.
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This was a good pop--refreshing and just sweet enough to be a treat. The lime flavor is just right, not overpowering nor too subtle. Putting the rind layer on is a nice touch, but it would be just as good if made with only the pink part of the watermelon through and through.
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This made a good pop, refreshing and sweet, but not too sweet. The coffee flavor was strong, but the cream and sugar balanced it well.
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Joy of Cooking: 75th Anniversary Edition - 2006
By Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, Ethan Becker
Scribner - 2006
I have made this recipe a couple of times and it is not spiced correctly nor is the seasoning intense enough. I do not have another recipe to suggest using instead of this one, but I can say that canned baked beans are actually better than these. The dish is edible--it's good enough to give it 3 stars. But we have not finished eating a batch of these. They just aren't good enough to go back to more than a meal's worth.
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This is a serviceable peanut butter cookie recipe. It is very good, but not ethereal.
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This is a go-to snickerdoodle recipe. If it's snickerdoodles you want, you'll get a good one if you make them from this recipe. It works really well with Penzey's Ceylon cinnamon. The cinnamon, the egginess and the soft, chewy texture make this cookie so fabulous, so it's really special if you use very good cinnamon.
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This makes delicious chocolate pudding, but it makes a very small amount. There's something about pudding that invites you to eat a ton of it in a sitting, and this recipe will only satisfy two pudding lovers, at most (it says: 4 servings).
As always, excellent ingredients will yield a superior finished product. Use whole milk, fantastic chocolate and high quality vanilla, and you will be delighted with this.
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Sometimes I get a craving for brown bread with cream cheese that I just can't shake. If the only kind you've ever had is from a can, or if you've never had it all, it may not beckon you. But once you've had a good one, you may agree, and want it at odd times.
It is a steamed bread, so you "bake" it on the stove top wrapped up inside a pot of simmering water for a long time, which makes it excellent to make on a cold, dry winter day.
When it emerges from its lengthy steam bath, you are presented with a dense, pleasantly mealy, subtly sweet cakelike bread that goes well with butter, cream cheese, ham, preserves, or any of a number of other toppings. It is traditionally served with baked beans, as another option.
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This is tremendously easy to mix up and, if you don't over-handle the dough, will make very nice scones, even when they're plain, plain, plain.
Add 3/4 of a cup of very fresh whole wheat flour instead of the same amount of all-purpose, and you will have scones that hold up well to any desired topping, and have just enough texture to make them fantastic.
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This is a great all-purpose frosting to use on cakes, cupcakes or cookies. It has an excellent flavor in the vanilla version, but you can vary the flavor however you like, with lemon, chocolate, liqueur, cinnamon, etc. It makes a dense, slightly gritty frosting, so this is not what you want if you're looking for a silky texture or lightness.
I made this once as a dip for a platter of in-season summer fruits for a party and it was devoured very quickly.
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This makes a quick dinner entree if you have all of the ingredients on hand (and it is much better with tahini than with peanut butter). Be sure to use the hot chili oil, or add some hot sauce, to give it some depth of flavor. Serving it with cucumber, as is suggested, is a nice way to have it. The cool crunchiness counters the paste-based topping in a welcome way.
It's a light kind of dish, but still satisfying, and can be served with many variations of side dishes.
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I decided to give this recipe 5 stars because it is good enough that I make it often. With equally good results, I have used ground beef, ground turkey, or the Morningstar Farms meatlike crumbles instead of the boneless beef chuck that is called for. In fact, if you want a vegetarian chili, the crumbles version is really outstanding.
As always, if you use really great ingredients, you will be rewarded. Great chili powder (the kind with added cumin, etc.) is a must, but you can vary the chiles to suit your taste. The recipe calls for fresh jalapeños, but I often used roasted New Mexican chiles.
If you are in a hurry, you can skip putting in the full amount of water called for, and you'll have a chili thick enough to eat in a half hour or so. But, if you have the time, adding all the water and cooking it down from there makes a very nice end product, good the day you make it, without the need to rest it overnight to develop the flavors.
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This is a good recipe for Mexican Wedding Cakes (also known as Russian Tea Cakes). It calls for toasted pecans, which is a wonderful nut to use in this recipe. I have also used walnuts, and that variation is equally delicious. There are only six ingredients, and this cookie is egg-free. You must use butter, and not margarine or shortening, to yield the correct flavor.
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This recipe makes a very good gingersnap. If you use freshly-ground spices, the flavor is very strong and delicious. Even if your spices have been ground way ahead of time, this still makes a nicely spicy cookie. The texture is kind of firm and chewy. They are easy to eat many of in a sitting.
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This is a good basic French toast recipe. If you are looking for a recipe that will make regular, familiar French toast, here you have it. The version with half and half is very good.
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This makes a good cream-based biscuit. The dough is very easy to put together because the fat in it comes from cream only; you do not have to work butter or shortening into this dough. This recipe has no eggs in it. It is good used as the basis for strawberry, or other fruit, shortcake, as the title implies. Be careful not to overbake the biscuits or they will be tough and won't taste good, either.
Egg-free.
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Ladle, Leaf and Loaf: Soup, Salad, and Bread for Every Season
By Lisa Cowden
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt - 2000
I was skeptical that this would turn out well, so I was bowled over when this bread was not just good, it was outstanding. It is not pasty at all, like quick breads sometimes can be, and this recipe was tested perfectly, because the balance of flavors is spot on. The bread has a good herb and onion flavor, and it is very moist. It has some cheese in it, but its flavor is in the background, and helps give the bread its great dense, moist texture.
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Delicious. Simple to make and excellently flavored with any pre-mixed curry powder you like and some added cumin. Homemade chicken broth makes this soup especially wonderful.
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This was one of the best soups I have ever had--and it's not only vegetarian, it's vegan. I made it with a mix of wild mushrooms, but all portobellos would have also been exquisite. It is very easy to make, and makes a fabulous item for Thanksgiving, or any fall or winter holiday.
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Lord Krishna's Cuisine: The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking
By Yamuna Devi
Bhaktivedanta Book Trust - 1987
This is creamy and flavorful with no heat at all. You can add some extra cayenne to it to spice it up, and it would take that nicely. You can start the recipe ahead of time and add the cream just before serving.
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Madhur Jaffrey's World-of-the-East Vegetarian Cooking
By Madhur Jaffrey
Knopf - 1981
What a delicious, refreshing drink this makes. I have added 1 cup of frozen strawberries to this and an extra 1 1/2 tablespoons of sugar, and it's outstanding. Adding the optional rose essence is recommended if you have it on hand, for depth of flavor.
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Maida Heatter's Book of Great Cookies
By Maida Heatter
Knopf - 1977
I often add 1/2 cup chopped walnuts to the recipe. I mix the dough right in the pan I have melted the butter and chocolate in, so this an easy recipe that is easy to clean up after. The brownies are deeply chocolate-y, with a smooth, moist interior and a little bit of a crust on the outside. This is my favorite brownie recipe, especially if I have Scharffen Berger 62% on hand.
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As the caption says beneath the hand-drawn image of a cookie on the recipe page, "These are thin, dark, and brittle-crisp." They have a good, double-chocolate flavor, with the melty chocolate chips nicely offsetting the crisp texture of the cookie. Use really good ingredients when you make this cookie and you will be very happy with the result.
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As Heatter said herself in the recipe caption, "Dark, thick, soft, covered with a thin, dark chocolate glaze. These are easily mixed in a saucepan." I gave this my highest rating of "excellent" when I made this cookie. To ensure success, use top-quality ingredients.
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I have made these cookies more times than I can count. These are great cookie to make when you need to use browning bananas. Adding the nuts really elevates the flavor of this cookie, so I would not omit them unless you have to.
The flavor is excellent, but they are very, very soft, hence the 4 stars. Their moistness makes them hard to store, so they should be eaten right away, or frozen on a cookie sheet in a single layer, and stored in a container in the freezer after that. Do not thaw before taking them out of the container or the cookies will stick together as they warm up.
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These are really outstanding. They are crisp and chewy and so delicious. When I made them, everyone in the family was trying to be judicious and not eat them all at once, but all of us kept coming into the kitchen to have another one and another until they were quickly gone. But note that you have to use -very fresh pecans- to make them so excellent.
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This is another excellent cookie from this book. It has a wonderful texture--very cakey inside, but lightly crisp on the outside. The pineapple and pecans are a perfect taste combination.
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This makes a great cookie if you use a top-quality butter and very fresh spices. The texture is cakey (they are called rocks because of their shape, not their texture) and very soft. Their softness makes them difficult to store, and the flavor is really best the day of and the day after baking, so they don't keep well flavorwise, either. But I love these cookies and have made them often.
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These are calls rocks because of their shape, not their texture. They are very moist and soft.
Dates are so sweet by themselves that I find date cookies to be tricky to pull off successfully. This is one such example of a use of dates that misses the mark just a bit. The recipe calls for a full pound (half kilo) of dates, and it's almost date over kill. But they were fine to have as a small sweet with coffee or tea at breakfast.
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These have a subtle lemon presence. There is sweetened condensed milk in the filling, so if you like that with a lemon flavor, you'll like these. These are not elegant cookies, but they are good tasting.
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The flavor and texture of these are outstanding. The crust is not hard, like a usual Linzer bar, it is tall and cake-like, with a pronounced but not overwhelming cinnamon flavor.
I have made these with raspberry jam as well as homemade rhubarb compote and both versions were excellent.
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The caption reads: "These are Austrian. They are coal-black, chocolate, black-pepper cookies--buttery, crunchy, and spicy." I liked these a lot. They were unusual but not challenging in their flavor. It turns out that chocolate and black pepper, surprisingly, can be a good taste combination.
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The Martha Stewart Cookbook: Collected Recipes for Every Day
By Martha Stewart
Clarkson Potter - 1995
Super easy and quick, and delicious. It's a kind of expensive and dainty appetizer--not for a football party, but nice for a baby shower or something like that. The strong, creamy cheese mixture on top of the sweet, chewy dried pear is such a nice contrast. They are so quick to prepare, you'll have time to put a single thyme leaf on each one, and make a really lovely tray of appetizers.
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A very tasty appetizer. I made them for a party once, and a 12-year old boy couldn't stop eating them. I think he may have eaten more than a dozen. I ate several myself. You have to bake the scones, then split them, then assemble the sandwiches, but it's not too time-consuming.
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These are easy to make and yummy. I made them to make small smoked turkey sandwiches out of them, and they were good both that way, and on their own.
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These are quite easy to make and very well-flavored with thyme. Cooking the apple slices right in the same pan as the pork chops is a great idea because the apples are so warm and freshly-cooked and very well flavored by the pan juices.
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This couldn't be simpler (put Armagnac and brown sugar on a ham and bake it) and it yields a flavorful and well-heated ham. This is a recipe we have used many times.
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Not that you really need a recipe for this, but I decided to follow it once just to see how the proportions came out and the salad was well-proportioned with lots of cheese and tomatoes to go around, and it was well-seasoned. This salad, as are all salads, especially, is very ingredient-dependent. Only make this at the height of tomato season, use good-quality cheese and very freshly-picked basil, and you'll have one fine dish.
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The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook
By Martha Stewart Living Magazine
Clarkson Potter - 2000
This is the recipe that we almost always use for pancakes. They are very good--tender, not too flat nor too fluffy, and they have a good flavor from the buttermilk.
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Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook
By Martha Stewart
Clarkson Potter - 2005
I was skeptical that these would be excellent--the salt, cinnamon and vanilla seemed to be called for in too-small amounts--but, no, these muffins are great. They are quite sweet, but the zucchini and cranberries have a real presence in these. And, as much as I love nuts, it was refreshing to have a nut-free muffin for a change. These don't need nuts to be delicious.
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Martha Stewart's Cookies: The Very Best Treats to Bake and to Share (Martha Stewart Living Magazine)
By Martha Stewart Living Magazine
Clarkson Potter - 2008
These have a medium-chocolate flavor and a nice chewy bite to them. The granulated sugar coating gives them a nice sandiness on the outside. They are very easy to make and will stay tasty for a few days.
Here's a link to the recipe.
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These are large and chewy with a slightly crisp outside. The chocolate flavor is very pleasant, not bitter at all. They are very easy to make and will stay good tasting for a few days.
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I was looking for an old-fashioned type of sugar cookie and found this recipe. It was just what I was looking for with a chewy bite and a good lemony flavor. They are very easy to make. They would make good ice cream sandwiches.
Here's a link to the recipe.
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These have a little bit of a dull flavor, probably put off a bit by the coating of cocoa powder, but they have a nice crispness to them. They are a bit like a chocolate shortbread or chocolate Mexican wedding cakes/Russian tea cakes. There are no nuts in these, though. They are very easy to make.
Here's a link to the recipe.
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These are good, and easy to make, but the chunky ingredients (white chocolate, oats, sweetened coconut, golden raisins, walnuts) somehow didn't play off each other masterfully. I used Valrhona white chocolate and even that didn't make these outstanding. I think there are too many ingredients and they end up clashing, even though none is very assertive to begin with.
Here's a link to the recipe.
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These are pretty good, but they are rather dry and crumbly, and the chunky ingredients (sweetened coconut, semisweet chocolate chips, walnuts, dried cherries) are all too much for one little cookie. They look cute, in little foil or paper muffin liners, so they would look good on a tray of mixed cookies.
Here's a link to the recipe.
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