Book Review: The Cookie That Changed My Life and More Than 100 Other Classic Cakes, Cookies, Muffins by Nancy Silverton

The Cookie That Changed My Life and More Than 100 Other Classic Cakes, Cookies, Muffins
by Nancy Silverton (641.865 Sil)

I am one of those people who cannot pass up a good cookbook with a catchy title or excellent photo on the cover when I look at the New Book Display. I checked out this one because I wanted to see what recipes renowned chef Nancy Silverton picked out as “classic” recipes but with her own touch on each of them. The cookbook is an excellent assortment of dessert recipes with step-by-step instructions as well as detailed information about the ingredients you should buy and the equipment you should use in baking each recipe. What I enjoyed most about the book is the commentary provided by Ms. Silverton describing what she was looking for in the recipe to create “perfection.” In some cases, she took a recipe by some other famous cook and made it her own by adding different ingredients (this is the case with the cookie that changed her life — a simple recipe for peanut butter cookies that she improved upon by adding a peanut butter topping and roasted Spanish peanuts). Nearly every recipe includes a large glossy photo of the finished product — something that I especially look for in cookbooks. This is an excellent book for browsing or for adding to your collection, especially for those new to cooking desserts. I highly recommend this.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum.)

 

( Nancy Silverton entry on Wikipedia )

 

Recommended by Kim J.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Book Review: The I Love Cookies Recipe Book by Jacquelyn Parkes

The I Love Cookies Recipe Book
by Jacquelyn Parkes (641.865 Par)

Let’s get this out of the way right off — there are not photos of every recipe in this book. Which is a major drawback otherwise I wouldn’t have recognized how fabulous “Peanut Butter Crispy Brownie Bars” are simply from the recipe. Seriously, photos of every single recipe are necessary in recipe books.

 

Aside from that, I enjoyed browsing through this book and nabbed a few recipes for my kitchen.

 

What drew me to this recipe book is the cookie yields are small: 24, or 36, or 48 — some are even 12 or 16 (okay, what actually drew me to this book was the photo and recipe for Chocolate Thin Mint Cookies). With the lower yield, you don’t have massive amounts of cookies if there are only one or two of you at home (for example, the original Toll House cookie recipe yields 60 cookies — assuming you aren’t eating the dough along with the baking…). Nor are you struggling to find a large enough container to store them all (again, assuming you baked all of the dough). Neither are you spending the entire afternoon mixing, baking, and cleaning up the kitchen.

 

The author claims these are 100 of our favorite cookie recipes. I think she did a fine job of giving us a favorite assortment of Drop Cookies, Brownies and Bars, Shaped Cookies, Rolled Cookies, Slice and Bake Cookies, and Holiday Favorites. She also gives us a US/Metric Conversion Chart.

 

The I Love Cookies Recipe Book begins with Cookie Basics, including Equipment and Pans: Essential Equipment, and Not Essential but Nice to Have (I always enjoy looking at the extra fun equipment you might buy). There’s also a segment Gilding the Lily: Decorating Tips, and a small section on Tools for Decorating.

Each recipe is only one page in length — so there aren’t a lot of intricate steps — and also includes nutrition information, since we all recognize how nutritious cookies are for us.

 

( publisher’s official I Love Cookies Recipe Book web page ) | ( publisher’s official Jacquelyn Parkes web page )

 

Recommended by Charlotte M.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!