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84 of 87 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
If it was worth the hassle, I'd return this!, July 1, 2010
This review is from: The Autism Cookbook: 101 Gluten-Free and Dairy-Free Recipes (Hardcover)
First of all, I've been baking gluten/casein/egg free for almost 3 years now so I'm pretty familiar with the process. I'm always excited to try new recipes and usually consider cookbooks like this one a great starting off point for developing new recipes. I'm usually a pretty good judge of whether or not a GF recipe will even work before I try it so I generally read through a book like this one before getting started.
Within minutes of browsing this cookbook I found myself with questions. The two biggest ones- Did anyone bother to proofread this at all? and Why are the pictures next to each recipe obviously NOT real pictures of the completed recipe? For example, the yummy looking chicken nuggets pictured obviously have gluten in them. And a quick google search for "chicken nuggets and fries" reveals that this picture is simply a stock picture available for purchase.
Almost every recipe in this cookbook has glaring errors. The brownie recipe does not list any flour, but instructions say "combine flour, cocoa, baking powder" etc. Several recipes say things like "bake for 30 minutes" but give no temp in the instructions. The turkey turnovers say to cut dough into "2 inch squares" but later you are supposed to put filling on those squares, fold over, and crimp edges. Let me be the first to tell you, that isn't going to happen with a 2 inch square. After you suffer through that frustration you are supposed to bake your itty bitty turnovers for 20-30 minutes at an unspecified temperature. All this is assuming that you even managed to turn out a gluten-free dough using only one flour (buckwheat) and kneading it for 5 minutes (no, I didn't try it, but I can tell you what will happen if you do).
I did try the cocoa cookies as all the ingredients appeared to be listed and an oven temp was given. They were not inedible, but not great either. And they look quite different from the picture given.
Even with the bad instructions, I am most angered by the misleading pictures. Some of them look quite good and I'd like to know how to make them, but when a soup shows celery and rice in it, but neither appears on the ingredient list, I have to question why the picture is even there in the first place.
My son was terribly excited by the big cupcake on the cover, but I guess that's just there as an example of food in general, because there's no recipe for chocolate cupcakes in this book.
This cookbook is almost impossible to use, and the pictures are at best a let-down and at worst a fraud. Save your money!
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28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not Impressed, August 3, 2010
This review is from: The Autism Cookbook: 101 Gluten-Free and Dairy-Free Recipes (Hardcover)
I agree with a previous poster that this book must have not been proof read. For example~
Brownie Bites~ Does not call for flour of any kind in the ingredients list but does in the instructions.
Hamburger Pie~ Has no oven temp.
Maple-Glazed Chicken Legs~ Has no oven temp
Meatballs with sweet glaze~ Has no oven temp
Pumpkin Seed &Apple Stuffed Chicken ~ No oven temp
Sweet Potato fries~ has no oven temp
Cardamom Zucchini bread~has no oven temp
Chocolate Chip scones~No oven temp
Crusty Apple Cake~ No oven temp+ The instructions leave out a lot and are all over the place.
Deep Dish Apple or Peach Crisp~ Calls for cinnamon in the crumb topping in the instructions but not in the Ingrediants list.
Old Fashioned Shortbread cookies~No oven temp
Rocky trail mix bars~ No oven temp
Velvet Pudding~ Recipe does not match instructions or ingredients. It's a recipe for cupcakes not pudding.
Several of the pictures do not match the recipes either.
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18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Very disappointing and very deceptive., July 16, 2010
This review is from: The Autism Cookbook: 101 Gluten-Free and Dairy-Free Recipes (Hardcover)
My son has autism and we've been GFCF for over 3 years. I am well educated in the area of nutrition for children with autism and am very good at creating new dishes and baked goods that fit the GFCF diet. I'm always excited to try new recipes but this book was a huge disappointment.
First of all, there are many typos, missing information such as oven temps or ingredients and there is even a recipe under the wrong title and picture. There appears to have been no editing done.
The pictures in the book are very clearly not pictures of the actual recipes. There is a picture of a cupcake with "blueberry" frosting that is supposed to have been coloured with fresh blueberries. But the picture is very obviously of frosting coloured with food dye, there is no way there is one blueberry in that frosting picture. And there is no way those Chocolate Chip Scones in the picture were made with buckwheat flour. The fact that the author is using gluten and dairy filled stock photos is very deceptive because what you create from the recipe won't even come to close to resembling the picture. It's offensive that she is deceiving parents into thinking their end product will look like the photos.
There are a few good recipes in the main dishes and side dishes but otherwise they're very disappointing. Not to mention there are many that aren't even close to healthy. Many recipes are very heavy on oil. 1/2 a cup of oil in a broccoli salad seems excessive. And 1 1/2 cups of oil in a cupcake recipe is ridiculous. I know cupcakes are a treat but that much oil is just wrong.
Ms. Delaine also uses agave in almost everything and as another poster pointed out, the benefits of agave are suspect. The other option she uses is evaporated cane juice. Although marginally better than regular sugar as far as processing goes, it's still sugar and it's expensive sugar at that. Why not use a good quality honey? It's still sugar but at least there are other health benefits to it.
I would not recommend this book to others and will be returning it. I'm beginning to wonder if the positive reviews are from Ms. Delaine's friends.
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