I bought Alice's Tea Cup's cookbook quite a while ago. As I said when I first reviewed it, the book is glitchy. The recipes are obviously scaled down from restaurant quantities to make reasonable quantities for a home cook--such as a dozen scones. The problem is, I don't think they are all scaled down properly. For example, I love Alice's granola and recently got around to making it at home. The recipe for a single batch come out well, but much crumblier than I would have liked; having eaten their granola in the restaurant I know it shouldn't be musli-like but that's what my batch was bordering on. It was still delicious so I didn't mind. The next time I made it, I was more careful flipping it half way through and I added a little more honey at that point. It helped, but I still wasn't getting something approximating the texture of the restaurant's granola. My mom, not having eaten it at the restaurant, was oblivious to the fact that it wasn't perfect and continued to demand more. I was happy to oblige and made a double recipe. I wasn't expecting better results, I just figured a double batch would keep my mom happy a bit longer! Then the oddest thing happened: even though I was using the same small baking sheets (and therefore baking off the same size batches) the granola came out better. I don't entirely know why it happens when you double the quantity of everything in the recipe, but everything holds together better. My only thought is that, in the process of scaling it down, they scaled it down so far that their just wasn't enough honey and butter to hold the dry oats, nuts and fruit together even allowing for the smaller amount of dry ingredients. That scaling issue, I'm guessing, is the problem with many of the recipes.
Happily, it isn't a problem with the pumpkin scone recipe. A side note for those of you who have never been to Alice's Tea Cup: their pumpkin scones are the only scones that are available any day you go (the other flavors rotate daily) as they are so delicious that they are constantly in demand. I bought the cookbook for two recipes; this was one of them. (The other was the slightly disappointing recipe for Jean's not-yet-but-soon-to-be-famous mocha chocolate chip cake, photo here.) This recipe did not disappoint. The scones came out just right!
A quirk of this cookbook (and the restaurant for that matter) is that almost everything is flavored with tea--the granola has ground vanilla tea in it, the chicken salad uses llapsang souchong, and there is a lavender earl grey scone, to name a few. This isn't bad, it just is. So if you aren't a tea fan, this may not be the book for you (but I bet you got that from the title, Alice's Tea Cup Cookbook, didn't you?)
In case you were wondering, the book has a number of scone recipes, a good sized breakfast section, some sandwiches and soups, a few cocktails (including mar-tea-nis), and a handful of non-scone sweets. I haven't tried any of their savory recipes (I don't think granola counts as savory) but they look nice and I can't imagine scaling down can mess up a BLT recipe. By the way, the BLT at the restaurant is delicious, so I have high hopes for the recipe.
All in all, I'm happy with the book and I will definitely keep making that granola (even if it never ends up quite right).
My recommendation: If you are a lover of Alice's pumpkin scones then go buy this immediately. If not, I recommend this but with the caution that not every recipe is perfect. You shouldn't end up with a total disaster, but you may want to try out a recipe before you make it as the only dessert for guests you are trying to impress.
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Saturday, January 5, 2013
Nigella Kitchen
I love Nigella Lawson; she is a domestic goddess! I have never found a recipe in any of her cookbooks (and between me and my mom, we've got them all) that hasn't worked. Of course this review isn't about all her cookbooks, though I do plan to review more of them soon, it's just about Nigella Kitchen.
Technically Nigella Kitchen isn't part of my cookbook collection. As I mentioned my mom owns some of our Nigella cookbook collection (and this was a gift for her) but since I currently reside at home, I have 24hr a day access to it. I really quite like it. It's a bit of a back to basics type book (I've noticed a lot of well-known chefs with multiple books to their name have been putting out this type of book recently.) What I mean by this back to basics generalization is that she has recipes for staples like chocolate chip cookies and almost plain bread pudding (and of course many basics in the savory department.)
Unlike many of my cookbooks, this is not exclusively baking related. In fact, I'd venture to say that it is a little cooking heavy. That isn't a bad thing. Actually it is probably good! I find Nigella's recipes simple and easy to follow, so I quite like her cooking recipes.
She has included a lovely version of Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic and a really excellent section on cocktails. There's a nice variety to the recipes. Obviously they all have the homey quality that I expect from Nigella--and love about her recipes, by the way--but there are Mexican fajitas, a Tomato Curry with Coconut Rice that surprisingly calls for 1 1/2 cups of peas, and African Drumsticks. There is also a fair smattering of Italian inspired dishes--especially pasta based ones, yum--and a good helping of English dishes--lamb with mint sauce, fried fish with tartar sauce, etc. As I mentioned above, the desserts are good staple desserts like Everyday Brownies--it's a great weeknight brownie recipe, by the way. But even these have a nice diversity with dishes such as Swedish Summer Cake and Lemon Polenta Cake making appearances.
As with all Nigella's cookbooks, this book is easy to read with a nice size font--who wants to squint at a cookbook?--and lovely full color pictures. I believe there is at least one picture per recipe, so you never have to guess at what something should look like.
I do have a bone to pick about the format though; I dislike the way the recipes are organized. As anyone who knows me will tell you, I like things to be well categorized and then placed in the proper order. I almost never like how that is done in Nigella's cookbooks and this is one of my least favorites. I like a book where I can flip through a section titled salads or meat or breakfast or--well you get the point--and see everything from the book that fits in that category. Nigella's books tend to organize things in unusual ways--by cuisine or speed of preparation or sometimes a bit of both--and it almost always annoys me--it does work for Feast, which is organized by type of feast (Passover, Christmas, etc) for the most part. This is, unfortunately, one of the more annoying ones. Chapters are titled "What's for supper?," "Cook it better," "A dream of hearth and home," and "Off the cuff," for example. That's cute in a quirky sort of way, but even the subtitles don't exactly help clarify what makes a dish from "Easy does it, How it's possible to feed friends when you're frantic without losing your temper or sanity" different from one found in "At my table, Or how I found culinary contentment by banishing the dinner party from my life so that I could enjoy both the company and the cooking." Both seem to be chapters on entertaining, but what exactly makes them different? These chapters have nearly 200 pages separating them, which makes the process of flipping through chapters relevant to my current recipe needs harder--plus I have to admit I'm not sure why these specific recipes are more suited to entertaining than many of the other ones in the book. Additionally there is a chapter on dessert half way through. I bet you are thinking I'm about to say it should go at the end--this is a horribly picky point and one I stick to, but it is not actually the issue here. The issue is that other chapters also desserts thrown in. I like having all recipes of one type together and the fact that these are so scattered annoys me even more than the randomness of two entertaining chapters.
Happily this book does have a good index, so if you are looking to make something specific or use a specific ingredient, you shouldn't have a problem finding the relevant recipe. I suppose this helps to make up for rather nonsensical order of the recipes.
Regardless of my issues with the organization, I really like this book and when I eventually move out I'll be buying myself a copy (or stealing my mom's--shhh don't tell!)
To get an idea of the recipes, here are links to a few of the desserts I've tried out and discussed on my other blog.
Technically Nigella Kitchen isn't part of my cookbook collection. As I mentioned my mom owns some of our Nigella cookbook collection (and this was a gift for her) but since I currently reside at home, I have 24hr a day access to it. I really quite like it. It's a bit of a back to basics type book (I've noticed a lot of well-known chefs with multiple books to their name have been putting out this type of book recently.) What I mean by this back to basics generalization is that she has recipes for staples like chocolate chip cookies and almost plain bread pudding (and of course many basics in the savory department.)
Unlike many of my cookbooks, this is not exclusively baking related. In fact, I'd venture to say that it is a little cooking heavy. That isn't a bad thing. Actually it is probably good! I find Nigella's recipes simple and easy to follow, so I quite like her cooking recipes.
She has included a lovely version of Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic and a really excellent section on cocktails. There's a nice variety to the recipes. Obviously they all have the homey quality that I expect from Nigella--and love about her recipes, by the way--but there are Mexican fajitas, a Tomato Curry with Coconut Rice that surprisingly calls for 1 1/2 cups of peas, and African Drumsticks. There is also a fair smattering of Italian inspired dishes--especially pasta based ones, yum--and a good helping of English dishes--lamb with mint sauce, fried fish with tartar sauce, etc. As I mentioned above, the desserts are good staple desserts like Everyday Brownies--it's a great weeknight brownie recipe, by the way. But even these have a nice diversity with dishes such as Swedish Summer Cake and Lemon Polenta Cake making appearances.
As with all Nigella's cookbooks, this book is easy to read with a nice size font--who wants to squint at a cookbook?--and lovely full color pictures. I believe there is at least one picture per recipe, so you never have to guess at what something should look like.
I do have a bone to pick about the format though; I dislike the way the recipes are organized. As anyone who knows me will tell you, I like things to be well categorized and then placed in the proper order. I almost never like how that is done in Nigella's cookbooks and this is one of my least favorites. I like a book where I can flip through a section titled salads or meat or breakfast or--well you get the point--and see everything from the book that fits in that category. Nigella's books tend to organize things in unusual ways--by cuisine or speed of preparation or sometimes a bit of both--and it almost always annoys me--it does work for Feast, which is organized by type of feast (Passover, Christmas, etc) for the most part. This is, unfortunately, one of the more annoying ones. Chapters are titled "What's for supper?," "Cook it better," "A dream of hearth and home," and "Off the cuff," for example. That's cute in a quirky sort of way, but even the subtitles don't exactly help clarify what makes a dish from "Easy does it, How it's possible to feed friends when you're frantic without losing your temper or sanity" different from one found in "At my table, Or how I found culinary contentment by banishing the dinner party from my life so that I could enjoy both the company and the cooking." Both seem to be chapters on entertaining, but what exactly makes them different? These chapters have nearly 200 pages separating them, which makes the process of flipping through chapters relevant to my current recipe needs harder--plus I have to admit I'm not sure why these specific recipes are more suited to entertaining than many of the other ones in the book. Additionally there is a chapter on dessert half way through. I bet you are thinking I'm about to say it should go at the end--this is a horribly picky point and one I stick to, but it is not actually the issue here. The issue is that other chapters also desserts thrown in. I like having all recipes of one type together and the fact that these are so scattered annoys me even more than the randomness of two entertaining chapters.
Happily this book does have a good index, so if you are looking to make something specific or use a specific ingredient, you shouldn't have a problem finding the relevant recipe. I suppose this helps to make up for rather nonsensical order of the recipes.
Regardless of my issues with the organization, I really like this book and when I eventually move out I'll be buying myself a copy (or stealing my mom's--shhh don't tell!)
To get an idea of the recipes, here are links to a few of the desserts I've tried out and discussed on my other blog.
- Chocolate Chip Bread Pudding, description here, photo here.
- Chocolate Chunk Brownies, description here, photo here.
- Guinness Gingerbread
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