Skip to main content

Cookbook review

Image
By Jill Holly et al.
Wren with cake

These cold rainy days we've been having are perfect for baking and one of my favorite cookbooks is King Arthur Flour's Whole Grain Baking book. It's packed with tons of delicious recipes, like this Lemon Poppyseed Bread I just made. Other favorites include: Banana Crunch Cake, Parmesan-Pine Nut Biscuits, Cornmeal-Maple Biscuits, Lemon Barley Scones, Whole Wheat Pretzels, Chocolate Graham Crackers, Cranberry-Apricot Chocolate Chews, and Molasses-Rye Snaps. And I haven't even started on the sections about pastry, or yeast breads. There's a huge chapter on sour dough too.

The tone of the writing is friendly and ingredients are listed both by volume and by weight to help you get even better results. There's lots of information about flour and ingredients but never does it feel like an advertisement for King Arthur's products. I also appreciate what a wide range of grains are included and how they talk about substituting whole grains into other recipes you love.

Each recipe gives nutritional information and while there aren't many pictures, there are lots of drawings and side bars with information on techniques. The layout and typeface are clean and easy to read, with almost all of the recipes contained on one page spread. Overall, it's just a nice, well-thought out cookbook with delicious and easy recipes. What more could you ask for?

Wren
Glazed and ready to eat!
Mmmm. All glazed and ready to eat!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Present-ation!

By Jill Holly et al.
I've finished making a whole pile of frayed ruffle hearts . They're cute the way they are, but to make them extra special, I'm putting them in pretty cellophane bags, with curly ribbons and hand-made tags. Sometimes I get lazy and don't spend the extra effort on great gift wrap, but it's so worth it, isn't it? The other exciting part of this is I'm not just sending these hearts to family and friends. I've got 3 set aside for Aunt Peaches Valentine Swap ! Yea!!!
5 comments
Read more

How to be happy

By Jill Holly et al.
Today’s assignment in my writing book is to write a story in which the protagonist does not get what she wants but nevertheless ends up happy. I’m drawing a blank. Crazy because, well, this seems like the absolute frickin’ theme of life. Actually, THAT’S what I want to write. I want to write about the assignment rather than writing the actual assignment. And is it just me and my sense of irony, or is that yet another way that I’m not getting what I want but ending up happy? Of course, lots of us don’t end up happy. But that’s the struggle, isn’t it? I’m tempted to say it’s the actual meaning of life, but I won’t. I’m still holding out on discovering something more profound. Or glittery. And there are people who get what they want. (Accumulated bitterness in my heart makes me think these people are rare.) And to be honest with you, I believe that most people, when it comes right down to it, don’t actually know what they want. So they have exactly no chance of getting it. Speaking ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Lessons from BlogHer '13

By Jill Holly et al.
BlogHer '13—my first blogging convention—was last weekend. And I learned a lot! For example: #1 No Russians are reading my blog. When I look at the statistics for who's looking at Smalltropolis, it's very impressive. For example, today I have 43 pageviews from Latvia. Switzerland is represented, as is France, Denmark, China. Just a world-wide appeal I have goin' on. (Gloat.) Thing is, as I learned at BlogHer, that's almost certainly because the analytics I'm looking at aren't very accurate. Lots of spam is included. To get the real numbers, I need to sign up for Google Analytics. Блин! #2. Great photography doesn't come from the womb. The kick-off keynote speaker was Ree Drummond. I'd certainly admired the beautiful photography on her blog, The Pioneer Woman multiple times, so it was pretty enlightening when she showed some of her early photos. They were, quite simply, dreadful. It really drove home how good writing and good photography a...
2 comments
Read more