5 comments about Great Good Desserts Naturally!: Secrets of Sensational Sin-Free Sweets.

1. Although I am not a vegan, I do try to limit my dairy. However, dessert is my major weakness. This book is nothing short of fabulous. It taught me how to make healthier desserts, make appropriate subs., etc. She explains all of the uncommon ingredients for those we are new to vegan desserts. I have made a ton of recipes from this book and have not been dissapointed by any! I highly recommend this book.



2. Fran has really broken some important ground here and offered helpful tips for substitutions and alternatives to the nutritionally pathetic traditional method of dessert making. DO NOT come to this with the expectation of everything tasting like grandma made it -- vegan baking cannot taste exactly like double fudge cake with butter cream icing, nor should it have to. It is tasty in its own way, and once you get used to it, other desserts are overwhelming and unappealing.
   
   Before you read further, however, know that I am not sold on the 0% refined sugar routine because I don't like everything to taste like maple syrup and barley malt, and would rather not spend an arm and a leg to purchase these items over plain old sugar. Fran refers to everything that does not have white sugar as "sugar-free" which is very misleading, inaccurate, and confusing if you don't know what she's referring to. For example, "sugar-free lemonade" (which I thought must just be frozen lemon juice and water?) actually meant organic lemonade sweetened with juices. If the viscosity of the syrup she calls for is necessary, then I will use it, but I ration them out so as not to break the bank.
   
   If you share this mindset, don't dismay -- it is easy to tweak the recipes to allow for some refined sugar. I was seriously impressed with the boston creme pie/cake, which I fed to many dairy-eating carnivores that didn't know it was vegan (and my husband went crazy over it). I was disappointed that the only sugar cookie recipe was wheat-free and nearly inedible (I threw the remainder away after I served them, and vowed never to make something out of here for others without trying it first!). Brownies were amazing, oatmeal cookies were very good (and I tried those using no white sugar), chocolate sauce/glaze made me want to sing and dance.
   
   The "great" recipes in this book are reason enough to buy it, but the good information about successfully baking using the prescribed methods is invaluable (minus the scientific claims and warnings that are presented without reference to any empirically valid source, yet printed as fact).
   
   It is not the most professionally made book (several typos and not aesthetically pleasing), but that doesn't matter to me as long as it's useful. Buy it, peruse it carefully, adapt the techniques, and then use that as a springboard for fashioning your own great good desserts!



3. These are some of the best desserts ever. I served the blueberry slump at a dinner party, and my guests were blown away that it was all natural. Go Fran!!!



4. If you really want to make vegan desserts at home, this is a good reference. However, be prepared to shop for hard-to-find, expensive ingredients like arrowroot, kuzu, and agar. Also, I wish the author included approximate times for each recipe, like some of my other cookbooks do. I made the tofu frosting, and even though it was good, it wasn't good enough to justify the two hours it took to make. I think this book is good enough to give it four stars, but I've discovered that, personally, I'd rather just go to a vegan bakery than bother doing it myself.



5. Bought this book after loving Fran's second book so much ` More Great Good Dairy-Free Desserts Naturally'. This is another fantastic baking book from Fran covering everything from cookies to cakes. There is a wealth of information at the beginning of the book about healthy alternatives to traditional ingredients, as well as lots of information throughout the book. Every recipe I have made from this book has been delicious!

No comments about Real Fast Puddings: Over 200 Desserts, Savouries and Sweet Snacks in Under 30 Minutes.

4 comments about Ice Cream: The Delicious History.

1. SALT: The Spice that CHANGED THE WORLD, COD: The Fish that CHANGED THE WORLD, BETA: The Video Format that CHANGED THE WORLD... I was a little tired of these histories of "things" that attach such gravitas and world-altering qualities to the subject in question. Thankfully Ice Cream has no such pretensions. It is what it is: a delicious history of ice cream.
   Powell digs into the fact and fiction surrounding ice cream's history, and we're often delighted to find that the myths and legends are every bit as fascinating--and sometimes more telling--than the actual facts. The author has a light and personal narrative style that makes this a quick, fun read, which fits the subject matter well. It may not CHANGE THE WORLD, but it will certainly make you hungry. Perfect for throwing into the ole beach bag or as a gift, but to be fair to the receiver, make sure you include a pint of the good stuff to go with it.



2. Although it was not what I expected it was well written and informative.



3. The history of ice cream, at least what can be definitively determined to be fact, is interesting and historic. There are numerous facets to the subject, and the author takes a look at most of them, however the lack of detail can sometimes be frustrating. Many times, the entire history of a major segment of the industry is boiled down to a few pages.
   
   In addition, I found several factual errors, not the least of which was stating the Benjamin Franklin was an American president. Those types of errors tend to make me wonder about how accurate the remaining portion of the research is.
   
   Finally, I found it distracting that the author jumped around in history from chapter to chapter. There was no straight chronology, but rather a twisted tale back and forth through the ages.
   
   With all that said, the writing is well done and this would make for a great "quick" history of the subject.



4. Marilyn Powell has written a cultural history of ice cream that starts way back, and she pushes at the definition of "ice cream" to include all sorts of wet or cold and sweet things that you or I would not have in the house. Did you know that before the invention of home refrigeration, ice cream was a dish only kings could afford to eat, kings and peasants in icy countries? The Crusaders brought ice cream back to England and France from the Moorish and Islamic countries they attempted to conquer, and thus it has Arabic roots: we get the word sherbet from the Arabic, and it is probably Italy that thought first to add milk or dairy to the sugared ice treats folks were enjoying until then, not knowing any better.
   
   Even in Beowulf, the carousing soldiers quaff not only mead, but the delicious proto-ice cream a grateful king left out in the snow. Ms. Powell lives in Canada (Toronto to be precise), so her cultural history is very Canadian-centric. She goes back to a local mansion and pores through the household bills, noting that the high society people who lived in this fabulous Spadina House, Alfred and Mary Austin, once ordered enough ice cream for 310 guests in the summer of 1900. She also notes that Canadian literary treasure Timothy Findley recalled his mother, in the Depression, making "snow bread," out of freshly fallen snow. Powell's chapters are studded with recipes all of which sound professional enough, if not exactly tasty.
   
   She is also familiar with the Quebec custom of throwing hot maple syrup into fresh snow, and then it hardens into a taffylike substance she relates dimly to the "taste for cold" which she argues has shaped Western civilization for millennia.
   
   We see how changing consumer needs, hedged in by modern technology, developed one innovation after another: the ice cream cone, the Eskimo pie, the banana split, right down to today's artifical hemp and soy milk-and-sugar substitute "frozen dessert."
   
   Ms. Powell writes the sort of book about ice cream that Virginia Woolf might have written--it's discursive, it's recursive, her style laps back and forth between past and present as if trying on party dresses, there is a continual appeal to friends and neighbors for associative anecdotes. It's appealing, but don't dip your toe in unless you can stand a lot of indecision about which way to go next.

No comments about Ice Cream.

1 comments about Mr. Food Cool Cravings: Easy Chilled and Frozen Desserts.

1. I wouldn't have thought that the topic of chilled and frozen desserts would make for an entire cookbook, but I was wrong. If you enjoy entertaining, making chilled and frozen desserts ahead of time is a real help on the day of the event. And typical of Mr. Food, all the recipes sound both good and easy to fairly easy.

No comments about Something Sweet.

2 comments about Farm Journal's Best-Ever Vegetable Recipes: A Fresh Approach to Main Dishes, Appetizers, and Snacks, Soups, Salads, and Desserts--With 400 Never-Fail.

1. Every recipe I have tried in this book is top notch. They are easy to use and succinct. To begin with it clearly discribes a large vareity of vegetables and shows availability, how to pick the best in quality and basic cooking instructions. There is a unique section devoted to instructions for making edible centerpiece art. Of course there are salads hot and cold but also dressings, dips and sauces all a hit every time I use them. The Main dishes are both meaty and meatless. And how about desserts? A personal favorite is Carrot Cheese Cake. Then there is a large section devoted to canning and preserving your summertime and garden bounty. It also includes a spice chart to most effectively flavor your meals. Keep it handy for a lifetime of eating pleasure.



2. Do you want new ways to may vegetables? This cookbook is for you. Farm Journal cookbooks are the best.

2 comments about Chocolate Therapy: Indulgent Recipes to Lift Your Spirits.

1. Yum! The first recipe I made from this book was the Instant Gratification Chocolate Parfait...one bite and I was sold on chocolate as therapy. The 15 minute Stress Buster recipes are right up my alley, and the Killer Brownies and Sinful Celebration Cake were beyond divine. The great quotes and chocolate trivia in the book are entertaining to read and the recipes are within reach of the casual cook, yet will fulfill any chocoholic's dream. I've given this book to several chocolate-loving people as a gift.



2. Chocolate Therapy is just what the title says. Lots of unique and delicious recipes. The book is full of really interesting facts and quotations about chocolate. I copied down many of the recipes before I gave it to my daughter-in-law for Christmas.

2 comments about The Taste of Sweet: Our Complicated Love Affair with Our Favorite Treats.

1. The Taste of Sweet gives readers plenty of (delicious) food for thought. Sugar love Joanne Chen sets herself the task of explaining why it is we love sweets so much, but in the process, teaches about everything from taste buds to artificial sweeteners. It's a combination history lesson and science lesson, along with an impassioned argument that, just maybe, sweets can be good for you. I know - say what? But after reading The Taste of Sweet, I learned that it's not so simple as good or bad.
   
   Chen's tone is thoughtful, easy to read, with personal anecdotes thrown in, but not enough to overwhelm her journalistic chops. She starts out talking mostly about candy and chocolate and ice cream, but along the way, it's clear that fruit, and how we taste it (or don't), is also important here. She visits flavorists who help determine the exact right taste of an oatmeal cookie, and those behind the scenes working to create a healthy alternative to sugar.
   
   When she says, of artificial sweeteners like Nutrasweet, "We fear these sweeteners to some extent, but we also fear the prospect of living without them." As someone who both runs a cupcake blog and recently quit a 4-6 liter a day Diet Coke habit, I know just what she means. Her exploration of Sugargate and the various ways companies are trying to find the next big thing in fake sugar is a must-read, whether you partake or don't (though honestly, it made me glad I don't).
   
   Perhaps the best parts of the book are those that explore the cultural meaning(s) of sugar. Chen has harsh words for those, like The New York Times, who go all out to praise upscale sweets emporium Dylan's Candy Bar while deploring lesser forms of chocolate. Here, we find that sweets aren't only gendered, but classed. Her assertion that our sugar snobbery "reeks of arrogance," both in privileging imported chocolates over that Kit Kat bar at the drugstore, as well as our general denigration of dessert as lesser and unnecessary, is one that is hard to argue with. At the same time, Chen also points out her own battles with self-control when it comes to sweets. She's an unabashed sweets lover, but not ignorant of the fact that they cannot replace vegetables (and her reaction to the combination of the two near the end is fascinating).
   
   One thing that's clear after reading this book, whether you agree with Chen on all points, is that how sweet a given food is, or isn't, is extremely subjective. I had never heard of tasters, non-tasters, or super-tasters before this book (they have different numbers of taste buds), and that was simply fascinating, though also makes one wonder how not just manufacturers, but those preparing food for guests, can come to a common denominator. Chen's style is delightful, and she weaves together the various strands of her story perfectly. Dare I say this is the perfect book to read while enjoying your favorite candy (or cupcake)?



2. About:
   Chen writes about all things sweet. Sugar, fake sugar, how we taste sweetness, the history of sugar, tastes and baked goods around the World, how and why you get full, how flavors are made, how sweets became "bad" and their relationship with weight are all covered.
   
   Things I thought were interesting:
   
   Some folks are "super tasters"
   
   The idea that there is a "taste map" on the tongue where different areas taste different things (bitter, sweet, etc.) is a myth.
   
   If you tell folks that a wine is from South Dakota and tell some other folks that the exact same wine is from California, they'll say the California wine tastes better.
   
   Companies adjust the taste of their products to localities. A drink may be sweeter in one country than another.
   
   If a restaurant sells zucchini cookies but starts calling them Grandma's zucchini cookies, not only will sales increase, but consumers will say they taste better.
   
   In a study on chocolate cravings, only an actual chocolate bar curbed the craving as opposed to a pill capsule with cocoa in it. But people who fast and are shown favorite foods have the same brain area light up as an addict craving drugs.
   
   People eat more when distracted, i.e. when watching TV.
   
   Slim-Fast has 180 calories and 4 tablespoons of sugar per can and is supposed to make people thin. A can of cola has 150 calories and 3 tablespoons of sugar and is supposed to make us fat. Granted, one is supposed to be a meal replacement but still....
   
   The 3 cheapest fruits are apples, bananas and oranges.
   
   Anything under 5 calories per serving can be reported as having no calories. No calorie Splenda really has 4 calories.
   
   More than a dozen feedback loops affect human food consumption.
   
   Pros:
   Fascinating and well written in an accessible style that makes scientific concepts easy to understand. Sources cited. There is a yummy looking cookie on the cover.
   
   
   Cons:
   I thought it odd that Chen includes a shot from her knees up as her author photo. It's as if she needs to prove she's not fat even though she wrote a book on sweets. She mentions that 12 different processes affect food consumption in humans but provides no source for this fact. Lacks a satisfying conclusion.

5 comments about A Year in Chocolate: Four Seasons of Unforgettable Desserts.

1. Let me start by saying that I have never prepared any recipe of Alice Medrich's that was not all that she promised. This book is no exception. It has some nice recipes and a lovey selection of desserts. My only problem was that I was expecting more. It is a small volume, like her cookie book. I would recommend the book as a gift to a novice but if you are expecting the grandeur of Cocolat you will be disappointed. It is cute and even the common recipes have some kind of flare. For $18.00 it is a nice book, I do not think I would pay the full $26.00 for it.



2. Again, Alice Medrich offers a catchy concept, meticulously researched recipes, informative tips and techniques, and eye-catching visuals... but this former devotee is left with my appetite unsatisfied. Just as with her last book "Cookies and Brownies", Alice seems tight-fisted with the number of recipes offered (some seem recycled from her previous books). Also, while the photography and food styling are lavish as always, the design goes over the top with soft-focus artsy-ness that's more fitting to a coffee-table artbook than a cookbook. I can't always make out what the photos are intended to show. Finally, it's odd that the bookjacket identifies Alice as a columnist for the San Francisco Examiner when (as far as I know) she hasn't published there for nearly a year. (I look for Alice's contributions to foodie magazines, etc., but haven't seen much at all in the last few years.) All told, this book is another attractive if not brilliant effort. Let's hope there's more fulfilling inspirational juice in the future!



3. Alice Medrich is one of my favourite chocolate cookbook authors, and this one is another winner. Her recipes are all very carefully tested and if you follow her instructions you will be very pleased with the results. There is a range of simple to complex recipes, and all of the ones I've tried taste wonderful. The Breakfast Valentines are unassuming looking, but taste great! The Winter Solstice Cookies look and taste spectacular. I'm making them as my contribution to a Christmas cookie exchange. The Chocolate Cranberry Bread Pudding is wonderful "comfort food" and would be perfect for a holiday brunch. The Mocha Marjolaine looks very complicated, but is relatively simple to make, a nut meringue cake and a ganache. The ganache is divided, with part whipped for the filling and the rest used as a glaze. You will really impress company! These recipes are all in the winter section - I'm looking forward to spring, summer and fall to keep trying more of the recipes.



4. Chocolate cookbook maven Alice Medrich's premise in A YEAR IN CHOCOLATE: FOUR SEASONS OF UNFORGETTABLE DESSERTS is that we should cook and eat different chocolate desserts at different times of the year. In the fall, where this collection of 54 recipes begins, the author suggests adding chocolate to the classic pecan pie-- but not too much-- and gingerbread and cranberry bread pudding. Winter is "a grand excuse to abandon restraint in favor of the richest, deepest, and darkest chocolate of all." I couldn't agree more. Chocolate truffles, chocolate souffles, very rich hot chocolate and "The Ultimate Flourless Chocolate Cake" make appearances. A word about that recipe. I have baked it twice. It falls into my quick and easy category. If you can melt semi-sweet butter in a double boiler, you are pretty much home free. You do not even have to separate the eight (8) eggs required to make this baby rise. The finished product has the beautiful, delicious consistency somewhere between a mousse and a brownie and is one of the best chocolate desserts I've ever baked. Ms. Medrich maintains that she lightens up in springtime, adding Passover and Easter goodies as well as a white chocolate-lemon cheesecake if you find white chocolate light. I do not. In sultry summer she includes recipes that are cold or frozen, along with fruit, and a chocolate pound cake. I suppose you might get a cool breeze from the ocean, should you take that heavy dessert to the beach.
   
   Ms. Medrich discusses how to measure both dry and liquid ingredients, how to measure flour, how to melt chocolate, along with other tips to make sure that you get perfect results every time. Set out and measure all your ingredients before you start the recipe, for example.
   
   After all is said and done, I was not convinced that you can put chocolate recipes nicely into the seasons of the year.I suspect that Ms. Medrich just wanted an excuse to write another chocolate dessert cookbook. That works for me.



5. I was given this chocolate cookbook for my birthday and love it! I have only made a few recipes, but my favorite is the fastest fudge cake and frosting. I've made this particular recipe at all times of the year and it is the best! Other recipes have come out equally tasty. I purchased a copy for my daughter-in-law. If you love chocolate, you should love this cookbook.