 "1001 Muffins etc. one of my most useful cookbooks" | 2009-06-08 |
| - Reviewed By James E. Harrison Jr. from Dayton, OH |
I borrow cookbooks from the library before I purchase them. That's how picky I am about which ones to own. I lost track of this one and was happy to find it again. I bought a copy right away. Very clear, easy directions, finished product pictures and literally 1001 recipes. There's something in here for all occasions. Plenty of room in the margins to write notes to yourself. You really need this book.
Jim Harrison
Dayton Ohio |
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| "Kitchen staple" | 2008-08-13 |
| - Reviewed By Goldielock |
| I'll never have to find another muffin recipe. I like baking muffins at least once a week. The few I have made from this book were very good. I like that some muffins have more than one recipe because people have different tastes, one is bound to satisfy. |
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 "A good resourse if you like making muffins" | 2007-04-23 |
| - Reviewed By H.M. Fonseca from Los Angeles |
I'm surprised this book gets such poor reviews. I've had it for years, and on weekend mornings when I'm in the mood for pancakes or muffins for breakfast this is the book I pull off the shelf for a recipe. A few of the recipes I've tried over the years include the "Sour cream and Cheese Pancakes", "Maine Pan Apple Cakes", "Oatmeal Muffins", and the "Blueberry Buttermilk muffins". These are all good. The apple pancakes and oatmeal muffins have become family favorites. This book is especially helpful when I have some ingredient on hand that I want to use up, or I don't have an important ingredient for one of my usual recipes. Included in the book are recipes for muffins (obviously), scones, coffee cakes, quick breads, pancakes, waffles, cobblers and doughnuts.
There are problems with this book though. First of all, the index is useless. It simply lists the page where a certain ingredient shows up, but no recipe title. So searching for a recipe takes time, sometimes way too much time. Also, in order to come up with 1001 the author put in some recipes that I can't possibly imagine anyone would ever want to make like "Lebanese Lamb Muffins", "Pizza Muffins", or "Avocado Bread". The author has also put in some unusual sauces and spreads serve with the muffins in the book. I've never tried any of them because they seem sort of weird.
In the end I recommend this book regardless of it's flaws. It is really helpul at times and most of the recipes I've made have been really good. |
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| "Excellent Addition to Your Collection" | 2006-01-08 |
| - Reviewed By M. Ritterpusch from Clear Lake, WI USA |
| This is an excellent book for a good variety of quick breads. Some of the recipes are similar in name and style (chocolate chip muffins versus chocolate bit muffins), but they are all distinctly different (plain flour versus oat flour, etc.). I have tried several recipes and have had great success, with both the adults and small children in my household loving them. There are a few problems such as "incomplete" recipes (sprinkle topping on batter, but there is no mention of a topping anywhere in the recipe) and my copy had some missing pages and 50 repeat pages, but all in all, this is an excellent recipe book to add to your collection with distinctive recipes and easy-to-follow directions. |
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 "Not As Awful As Some Say, Not as Great as You Might Hope" | 2005-09-28 |
| - Reviewed By C. B. Manges from Westsylvania, PA United States |
| There are certainly a lot of recipes here, but there is also a fair amount of repitition. It's an attractive book, and in that regard a beginning home baker might find it inspiring, if only as a means to see the many possibilities beyond the old "plain or blueberry" conumdrum. We tried a few, and found none of the choices particularly marvelous (but hey, maybe it was the baker, not the recipe....nah!). It's a good place to start, that's the best I can say for it. Perhaps the author would have been better served trying not to come up with 1,001 recipes. That's a lot of muffins, and a lot of potential selections. It's almost overwhelming. There may be some really wonderful recipes in here, but I may never discover them in a life that allows time for home baking once in a good week. |
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 "1001 - Oh, Forget It" | 2005-03-08 |
| - Reviewed By jerry i h from Berkeley, CA USA |
It is handy to have such a tremendous number of quick breads in one book; this one has more recipes for quick breads than all my other cookbooks put together. Just flip to the chapter you want and leaf through all the recipes until you find one that suits you. Unfortunately, I am not confident enough in the reliability of the recipes as a whole to recommend it. Interesting, but best avoided.
The author claims to have tested each recipe, but I doubt the veracity of this statement. It almost seems as if this book did not have an editor at the publisher. This is definitely a case where quantity trumps quality (I would be happier with fewer but higher quality recipes, but then you probably would not have a 1001 of them, either).
In the muffin section:
1) it is humorous to see basically the same recipe 500 times
2) the batter measurement and/or yield information is often wrong
3) each recipe has a picture, but many pictures are either wrong or next to the wrong recipe
4) textures ranged from pasty to dry to undercooked
5) few recipes worked correctly
6) sub-division of this long section would have been helpful: sweet vs. savory, flour vs. whole grain vs. biscuit mix, mix and dump vs. whipped egg whites, etc.
7) author uses 4 different muffin pan sizes, seemingly at random (the sizes are: 2.0, 2.25, 2.75, and 3.0 inches diameter).
8) many recipes are wrong: missing ingredients, missing recipe steps, incorrect ingredients.
9) the yields go all over the place, ranging from 3 muffins to 4 dozen; would it have been that much trouble to standardize all the recipes to yield 6 or 12 muffins using one size muffin tin?
10) the recipe names are not consistent: some muffins that use cocoa powder are called "chocolate muffins", while others are called "cocoa muffins".
11) the amount of baking powder seems to be excessive in many recipes.
12) some of the ingredients make no sense: "lecithin granules" (fyi: 1 teaspoon of lecithing is enough for 20 -40 pounds of product)? 2 T of "dried grated orange zest" for only a dozen muffins (perhaps the author is thinking of candied orange peels)?
13) muffins with egg and fat only, no liquid
14) a majority of the recipes have one or more whole grain ingredients, so if you want a muffin with just plain, old flour, your choices are limited (many of the recipes seem to be cribbed from cookbooks from the "health concious" 70's and early 80's).
I have similar complaints about the inconsistency and sloppiness of the other chapters in the book (here, I am referring to the editing and recipe quality, not the mess it makes in your kitchen). Consider, for example, mixing methods. The one used for muffins is perfect, the one for biscuits is wrong, and the one for coffee cakes is hopelessly confused. Page 295 has the ingredient "Whipped Cream Topping (see recipe page XXX)"; good luck trying to find it, because it is not listed in the index and I am not flipping through 480 pages of recipes to find it. Contrary to what the author states on page 307, the origin of what we know today as "quick bread" is English high tea, not holiday celebrations. Many of the quick bread recipes did not have enough liquid; they make adequate substitutes for gypsum board, but were not suitable for human consumption (I would love to make a joke about even the dog not wanting to eat them, but I do not have a dog). It is also the only cookbook I know of that calls for distilled spirits in generous quantities as a baking ingredient, from 1/2 to 1 cup of rum, brandy, kirsch, creme de cacao, etc. The quick breads come out of the oven looking and tasting like masonery bricks. Most of the scones I tried looked and tasted like hockey pucks.
It has chapters on muffins (236 pages), biscuits (18 pages), cobblers (6 pages), doughnuts (10pages), quick breads (118 pages), pancakes (10 pages), popovers (6 pages), scones (28 pages), and waffles (12 pages).
In general:
1) in each chapter, the recipes are arranged alphabetically by title
2) index is correlated by ingredient only
3) a master list of all recipes would have been helpful
4) index needs to be cross-referenced by recipe title, not just ingredients
5) does not specify how flour is measured (scoop and sweep, spoon and sweep, etc.)
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