Customer Reviews

Breakfasts & Brunches (Culinary Institute of America)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

`Breakfasts & Brunches' is another book of cooking recipes and advice for the amateur / home cook prepared by the Culinary Institute of America (CIA). Like those before it on `Cooking at Home', `Book of Soups', and `Gourmet Meals in Minutes', but unlike their more professional volumes such as `Baking and Pastry', this volume is very good for the home cook, but it has a few lapses here and there which make it less than perfect as a manual for teaching the very best cooking technique.

The first thing which surprises me about the book is the subtitle which proclaims that the volume contains `Over 175 New Recipes...'. If I am to buy just one book on cooking breakfast dishes, I don't want novelty; I want the very best standard recipes and techniques. On looking at the specific recipes, I find that there is novelty, but the book does cover the expected bases of breakfast cookery. I can only find one breakfast dish missing, and this is scrapple, which is pretty specialized to the Pennsylvania Dutch / Southeastern Pennsylvania / Greater Philadelphia area.

The primary chapters are:

Breakfast & Brunch Mise en Place - I find this chapter just a bit unnecessary or incomplete. It is unnecessary in that much of its contents are repeated in more detail in later chapters on various dishes. It is incomplete in that it gives pantry shelf-lives of a large variety of foodstuffs, but in a narrative form. It would have been much better to focus this chapter on neat, tabular information, and leave all the narrative to the detailed recipes. I also think the term `mise en place' is misused here. `Pantry Stocking' would have been a better name.

Breakfast & Brunch Drinks - Very nice collection of recipes and advice on making coffee, tea, chai, eggnog, cocktails and smoothies.

Muffins, Quick Breads & Coffee Cakes - Six muffin recipes, eight breakfast cake recipes, eight quickbreads (biscuits, scones, soda bread), plus funnel cake, lemon curd, and cornbread.

Sweet and Savory Breads & Pastries - The sticky stuff and recipes with yeast. A very nice variety of recipes which tend to be more complicated than the quickbreads, and the authors tell you when the recipe may be difficult.

Pancakes, Waffles, & Crepes. Of course, you expect this chapter. It includes several different flavors of pancakes; including blinis and many different fruit fillings for crepes. I am surprised that there is but one recipe for French toast, as this is a dish with many variations. I'm also surprised there is not more exposition on tips for making waffles.

Eggs. Another obvious category with all the usual suspects, such as fried eggs, scrambled eggs, egg and sausage sandwiches, omelets, frittatas, poached eggs, quiches, egg salads, and soft boiled eggs.

Grains & Legumes. Grits, polenta, and cold cereals, oh my! The usual characters include oatmeal, cream of wheat, kasha, rice, couscous, muesli, granola, bean salads and spreads.

Meats, Fish & Potatoes. This may seem like an odd combination with potatoes in the same chapter as meats, but both types of dishes often play second banana to the eggs, pancakes, and cereals. Ham, sausage, and breakfast steaks are here, with several chicken dishes, hash browns, O'Brien Potatoes, Potato pancakes, Lyonnaise Potatoes, Rosti potatoes, and corned beef hash.

Soups, Salads, & Small Bites. These items are more appropriate for brunch than for breakfast, especially as they are mostly cold soups and salads, plus `tea sandwiches' great for brunch buffets.

The appeal of this book depends a lot on how big your cookbook library is now. If you are just starting out, filling your shelves exclusively with CIA books would not be a bad idea, just as you could accomplish the same result by concentrating exclusively on `Martha Stewart Living', `Cooks Illustrated', or `Better Homes and Gardens' books. And, a CIA collection is likely to be more focused than what you get from magazine collections.

On the other hand, if you already have one or more `comprehensive' cookbooks such as the `Joy of Cooking' or `James Beard's American Cookery', and you are not into collecting cookbooks, this volume may be less useful. This is certainly less valuable if you have a breakfast cookbook such as Marian Cunningham's `The Breakfast Book' or `Mollie Katzen's Sunlight Café' or even a good bread or biscuit book such as James Villas' `Biscuit Bliss'.

I would recommend this book even if you already owned all these titles IF this book were more highly focused on breakfast dishes, with more variety within egg and cereal dishes and less attention to soups, sandwiches, and drinks. I also found some odd lapses in this book. The most unusual is their treatment of scrambled eggs and omelets. To a person, every authority I read on the subject says these are two different dishes, yet this book from an authoritative source simply says that an omelet is scrambled eggs left to solidify in a circle rather than smushed up into mounds of eggy goodness. I also find sections on several other central recipes such as granola and French toast to be much too simple. Nothing is said about the details of how long one should soak the bread in the batter for French toast. Nothing is also said about baking your granola mix. On the other hand, the biscuit recipe is half again more complicated than you need for simple buttermilk biscuits. My favorite Nick Malgieri biscuit can be done in half the time.

This is a good book which has lots of useful recipes, but you may not need it unless you happen to do a lot of breakfast and brunch entertaining, and don't have a good source for basic recipes. Contrary to the CIA source, it is NOT an authoritative text on how to do important breakfast dishes.

I have plenty of cookbooks, but this was my main standby in the first year of our bed and breakfast. The sausage gravy, waffles and granola never fail to please our guests. And none of the recipes are too complicated to make in a hurry in the morning. I wish the book were totally focused on breakfast, because we don't serve brunch. But if we did, this book would be perfect and cover all the angles.

The beautiful pictures in the book sometimes do not coincide with the recipes. The sticky buns have pecans on top, but in the recipe the pecans are only in the center. Make sure you use at least a 12" skillet for the 16 egg frittata, the book only says large and the picture is deceiving. Have extra grated cheese (actually grate don't use a microplane) on hand for the gougeres and the paillettes. The book is really wonderful as a gift for a friend or for yourself.

The Waffle recipe on Page 136 is worth the price of the whole book. It is just PERFECT!. Great for any meal--not just brunch or breakfast.

I bought this for my sister for her birthday. I also own this, just a version that was published a different year. I have had RAVE reviews every time I make something from this book. My sister loves it as well. I am a frequent baker/cook, and I find that the recipes range from easy (just mix and put in the oven) to very difficult (plan for dough rising time, etc.). Each recipe also comes with tips for more effective preparation, which I really appreciate. I would recommend this to any brunch lover.

I opened the package and wondered if I have gotten the right book, or even wondering if I had ordered this book at all...
Turns out that yes, I had ordered this book, only that Amazon doesn't have the right cover online. I was attracted by the dishes I see on the cover, and I don't think I would have even considered buying the book had I seen the cover of the one I got in the mail.
I don't know if mine, or the one pictured on Amazon's page is newer.
Anyway, I still haven't gotten the chance to make anything from the book, but it seems nice, and I can only expect high quality from the Culinary Institute of America. I don't give it 5 stars because I think it could use more pictures.

Great book for breakfast and brunch dishes with great recipes (try the dutch pancake with spiced peaches).

This cookbook is easy to follow, offers a variety of breakfast and brunch items. The pictures are a plus! I highly recommend this book for those of you who love Sunday morning feasts.

This is a great book for making wonderful, and delicious breakfast. This book includes all types of breakfast recipes. I recommend this book to those who enjoy cooking, especially breakfast!!

My son was looking to purchase a restaurant and wanted some cookbooks. We started him off with breakfast cookbooks and he loves it. I would recommend this book to anyone and it definitely was sent to us in a very timely manner.

Thank you.