Beautiful Breads and Fabulous Fillings: The Best Sandwiches in America [Hardcover]

Margaux Sky (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 18, 2006

Take your bread and sandwich-making to the next level. Margaux Sky, whose Art Café and Bakery in San Luis Obispo has drawn major media attention for her wonderful fare, now shares the secrets of her success. Beginning with basic white, wheat, and sweet bread dough, Sky shows you how to make the best breads and sandwiches in America.

Just browsing through the titles and the ingredients provides a feast for the senses, yet from her list of ingredients to directions for preparation, readers will think, "I can do this!" Her daring combinations produce these tempting dishes and more:

• Avacoado and Melted Swiss on Salsa Bread
• Roasted Rumble Bumble with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce on Honey Nut Wheat Bread
• TBLT on Horseradish Parmesan Bread
• And the "O" Special-Curried Chicken on Spicy Pepper Jack Bread

In Beautiful Breads and Fabulous Fillings, you'll find over 150 full-color photographs and over 140 recipes for these simply divine loaves, sandwiches, fillings, and accompaniments. Margaux's stunning combinations of flavors and textures will have your friends and family clamoring for more.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

While Sky's first book is centered on the sandwich, it certainly goes beyond the humble expectations that might imply; dedicated to elevating the sandwich to an art form, Sky has filled her book with fun facts and nutritional advice along with tasty recipes for sandwich-centered meals that aren't necessarily fit for the novice cook. Sandwiches are built from the ground up-starting with appealing and unusual recipes for bread which might leave beginners frustrated.Sky doesn't waste time on the basics before presenting her unabashedly refined recipe for white bread-calling for half and half as well as powdered sugar-and a range of whole grain breads that cover wheat, rye and oat. Then she adds combinations of sauces and fillings. Sky divides her time between the adventuresome (Roasted Rumble Bumble with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce on Honey-Nut Wheat Bread) and the traditional (Reuben with Reuben Sauce on Herbed Rye Bread), with a number of intriguing combinations that split the difference (Red Deviled Egg Salad Sandwich on Spicy White Pepper-Jack Bread). Rounded out by sections on salads, soups and sides, and complemented by beautiful portraits of finished foods, this is a wonderful multi-purpose cookbook for those who like even their sandwiches prepared with thought and care-no Dagwoods need apply.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Margaux Sky was called by Oprah Winfrey as "the best sandwich maker in America." Featured in several magazines including O, People, and InTouch, she has become a media darling and her Art Café is more popular than ever.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 280 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson; First Edition edition (July 18, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1401602509
• ISBN-13: 978-1401602505
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 0.8 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #819,886 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Good recipes August 14, 2007

By Stuart L. Claggett

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is a great little book with lots of tasty recipes. The two ton chocolate cake is incredible for any chocoholic. The breads are not to hard to make and have interesting to complex flavors. I think the instructions could be a little better for some and that is the reason for 4 stars. For example putting 16 cups of flour and 8 cups of milk in a stand mixer is only going to work if you have an industrial size mixer. Cut that in two and your Kitchen aid will knead it wonderfully. Also I suggest you cut the filling recipes in half until you bake a loaf or two and see if you like it.

26 of 32 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best American Cuisine/Sandwiches and More... July 14, 2006

By Barbara Wilde

Format:Hardcover

American Cuisine at it's Best

I originally decided to buy this cookbook because of the Oprah sandwich and all that I heard about it. And then the other day I also saw another recipe from this book in the Washington Post. Oprah AND WA PO - pretty high recommendations in my opinion. Well, I did the O sandwich recipe and my family loved it - I mean loved it. Even my daughter who doesn't usually like chicken thought it was "awesome!".

What I love about about Beautiful Breads /Fabulous Fillings is that everything I've made so far is easy, unique, and most importantly, delicious. And those I haven't yet tried also appear to be just as easy and tasty. (Also you don't have to go to Chinatown looking for some herb or ingredient you've never heard of. You should have most ingredients already stocked in your kitchen.)

I was also delightfully surprised to find that there were a variety of recipes in BB and FF, not just sandwiches. In fact I made the Lamb dish (Lamb with Real Mint Sauce) last night - we had friends for dinner and it was a hit - everyone raved about it. I thought her brief food facts and and tips at the end of many of the recipes were fun, interesting, and useful.

By the way, the desserts are also noteworthy. I made the Lemon Meringue Pie. If you're having guests this pie is refreshing, light, and mouthwatering. It not only tastes fabulous, it also looks impressive!

I think this cookbook should be a staple in every American kitchen. It's American Cuisine at it's best.

BTW - The only criticism I have of this book is that the title is so long! Beautiful Breads and Fabulous Fillings: The Best sandwiches In America...so now I just call it BB and FF, and my pals know what I mean.

(I did read B.... Marold's review which I thought was bogus. Marold obviously didn't actually "make" or even try any of the recipes and had this scholarly snobby POV which has nothing to do with passion for food and eating well. Reviewing really should involve actually making and tasting the recipes in my opinion - but I actually USE cookbooks, I don't just read them.) Read more ›

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The dishes are surprisingly easy to put together - even the fresh bread. November 7, 2006

By Midwest Book Review

Format:Hardcover

If this were called 'The Sandwich Book' it wouldn't receive nearly as much attention - but Sky's productions are so much more, and naming it BEAUTIFUL BREADS & FABULOUS FILLINGS is a masterpiece of strategy that more aptly highlights her unique productions. Bright color photos on every page accompany such recipes as Chicken Salad in Minty Yogurt Sauce on Brown Harvest Bread or Reuben with Reuben Sauce on Herbed Rye Bread. And, the dishes are surprisingly easy to put together - even the fresh bread.

Diane C. Donovan

California Bookwatch

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Excellent flavor, but written by a dyslexic March 7, 2011

By Dillon_907

Format:Hardcover

I've been using a number of the recipes in Sky's book for a long time. I love them. Especially the honey whole wheat. I definitely recommend this book for anyone.

A few points to note though: the portion sizes and the amount of ingredients required for some are ridiculous. For example, one soup calls for over four cans of materials... but only yields two cups worth of servings? Many of the bread recipes are numbered to produce more than four loafs. Theres also a sandwich that gives two servings and calls for two pounds of salmon. Tonight I made cinnamon raisin bread. The filling called for over six cups of sugar and brown sugar for only two loafs. It leaks out of the bread and boils over in the oven and causes a great mess. I've concluded that the recipe for the filling should be cut down to 1/4 of what it calls for.

I understand that her recipes are used in her restaurant but when writing this book she needed to realize that not everyone is cooking for dozens.

So, punchline: buy the book, and cut the recipes into either halves or quarters.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Good Springboard for Creating Your Own Recipes, (but not great on its own) April 11, 2010

By Sarah H.

Format:Hardcover

I bought this book used, but I'm still annoyed that I spent that much on it. I ilke that the recipes inspire the cook to make sandwich combinations that they might otherwise not dream up. But, as other reviewers have stated, the portion sizes are way off. In addition, everything is way too sweet. I made the "O" sandwich, thinking that somehow the insane amount of honey inside would end up being okay. Luckily I didn't stir everything in before just trying it with just a little bit. The curry sauce is 3 cups of honey and 1 1/2 cups of mustard, plus spices. So, two sandwiches are supposed to have 2 cups of this sauce, which means that one sandwich has 3/4 cups of honey (plus what is in the bread) which is just crazy. Can you imagine eating 2 cups of chicken and 3/4 cups of honey just on one sandwich? Anyway, I will be getting rid of this book- I like that the recipes are fresh and original, but I feel that an average or better-than-average cook can come up with better stuff on their own.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Not really for beginners July 10, 2009

By Ronni C

Format:Hardcover

As I see it this book is a great tool for the more experienced cook, not for beginners. It has some wonderful and tasty recipes and ideas, but the sheer amounts she suggests you make are a little ridiculous (18 cups of flour??). Now I say its for a more experienced cook because basically if you know your way around a kitchen and have done a lot of recipes you can pretty much figure out how to properly cut the amounts in half and "tweak" some of ingredients so it works for you (I like to omit the Lawry's Lemon Pepper that is in almost every recipe)and I know how to store breads properly even though she does not go into detail about that. So I would say it is lacking in proper instruction and the amounts are far too great for the average home cook, but if you can work around those things, it is a handy little book.