34 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Awesome muffin/quick breads cookbook, December 15, 1999
This review is from: 1001 Muffins, Biscuits, Doughnuts, Pancakes, Waffles, Popovers, Fritters, Scones and Other Quick Breads (Hardcover)
I have many cookbooks, but this is by far the most well done cookbook I've seen in years (no pun intended.) This large book contains recipes and a substitution chart--not detailed chapters on how to bake quick breads, etc.
Over 494 color pages of recipes for quick breads grace this book. There are a staggering 273 pages for muffin recipes alone; two recipes per page. The remainder of the book contains various recipes for biscuits, doughnuts, pancakes, waffles, popovers, fritters, scones, and other quick breads.
Each recipe is accompanied by a full color picture of the final product and well-written steps. Also included in this book are recipes for sauces and spreads to accompany the muffins. It's almost worth buying the book just for these additional recipes.
There arn't any funky ingredients. Most are common ingredients normally found in a well-stocked kitchen.
Buy one of these books for a baker friend, she/he will appreciate the gift and never need another quick bread recipe book again.
Awesome book! :)
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35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
1001 - Oh, Forget It, March 7, 2005
This review is from: 1001 Muffins, Biscuits, Doughnuts, Pancakes, Waffles, Popovers, Fritters, Scones and Other Quick Breads (Hardcover)
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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26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great collection of easy quick breads and muffin recipes., October 17, 1998
By A Customer
This review is from: 1001 Muffins, Biscuits, Doughnuts, Pancakes, Waffles, Popovers, Fritters, Scones and Other Quick Breads (Hardcover)
As I write this, a batch of Orange Marmalade Muffins (page 213), are finishing in my oven. I have searched for a very long time for a comprehensive collection of muffin recipes. This collection is a real treat. With recipes ranging from 100 Year Old Muffins to Zucchini-And-Sweet-Rye Muffins with Olives, there truly are recipes in the book for everyone.
One of the many features of this book that is delightful, is the addition of sauces, spreads and toppings to enhance many of the final products. For instance, the Chicken-Rice Muffins with Vegtables (page 91), offers an easy Cucmber Dill Sauce recipe to enhance the flavors of these unusual taste treats.
Along with the easy to make muffin recipes are recipes for scones, cobblers (just like Grandma's), biscuits (try the Patriotic Biscuits with cranberries and blueberries - page 268), waffles, coffes cakes, doughnuts, fritters, traditional quick breads, pancakes and popovers. Quite a piece of work, this!
Each recipe has a color photograph of the finished product to assist you in the very difficult task of actually making a choice of which recipe to bake. Each page contains only two recipes that are easily read, due mainly to the no-nonsense instructional style of the recipes. Anyone can do these recipes.
By the way, the Orange Marmalade muffins have finished and are now cooling on racks - they look and taste fantastic!
Thank you Mr. Gillespie and Ms. Young for this baking treasure.
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