Customer Reviews

One Smart Cookie

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The good: I have made about 15 recipes from this book so far. All ranged from "good" to "excellent", a very respectable turnout. Not a single one was unpleasantly tough, dry, or otherwise failed. They compare VERY favorably with other lowfat cookies I have tried. I will definitely be making some again, and trying others. My personal favorites were apricot almond streusel squares, `gourmet' variation of the chocolate chip cookies, pecan pie squares, crunchy peanut cookies, and cornmeal maple pecan twists.

In general, the recipes in this book are reliable, tasty and have significantly reduced fat (especially saturated fat) as compared with comparable `regular' cookies. E.g., in a typical ~ 2 cup flour recipe, there is usually ~4 T butter here as opposed to 1-2 sticks, and egg yolks are usually reduced or eliminated. The changes do reduce overall dough volume and yield a smaller batch size, which in my opinion is all to the good. (If you're buying a reduced-fat cookie cookbook, chances are you don't want 5 dozen extra cookies lying around every time you head to the kitchen to try a new recipe).

Other pluses: these recipes use familiar, inexpensive and natural ingredients that you already have on hand or can easily find: no weird or artificial diet substitutes. Unlike most low-fat recipes, these cookies are portioned normally and even generously; there is no artificial lowering of the fat content by instructing you to fashion micro-cookies of which you would have to eat 10 to equal one normal cookie. In fact, in several recipes I ended up with more cookies than the listed yield, which almost never happens to me.

This book also seems like a labor of love-- the recipes are unusually well-tested and fine tuned. The instructions are clear, careful and include useful details, like tips on how to reduce the number of dishes you dirty in the preparation. The book belies its small size with lots of helpful or interesting marginal notes and voluminous recipe variations, many of which yield genuinely different recipes (not just something obvious like substitute one variety of raisin for another). You'll find a wonderful diversity of cookie flavors, textures and styles and familar standbys as well as unique recipes of the author's own creation.

The bad: First, I found a few baking times to be off, in particular, too long (my only general `recipe testing' complaint). The author is good about providing other done-ness cues, but I'd recommend you start checking cookies much earlier than indicated.

Second, although these recipes are very good, there were some clear `consequences' of reducing the fat. Several cookies had telltale textural issues such as being soft and cakey instead of tender-chewy, or being hard-crunchy instead of tender-crunchy. Also, almost all became stale frustratingly quickly, in several cases, within a few hours. Some took well to refreshing, freezing, storing unbaked dough to bake off as needed, etc., but I had to figure this out on my own. Given the pervasiveness of the premature staling problem, I would really have appreciated more attention to storage advice and/or strategies - no one wants to end up throwing out most of one's labors away.

Finally, the philosophy of this book is very much of a mid-nineties `reduce fat and who cares about anything else' style, and that philosophy, as most people would now acknowledge, suffered from some major nutritional flaws. Again, the recipes do succeed, and admirably, on satisfying the criteria they set out to satisfy (they are lower fat, and they taste good-- no mean feat). However, if you flip through the nutritional information handily accompanying each recipe, you may notice that many of these cookies are very high in refined carbohydrates and calories. Many of the bars, especially, hover around the mark of 200 calories EACH (and some even more)-- that's a lot. And of course you're not going to eat just one. Morever, many recipe variations are rather decadent (calling for additions of things like nuts, chocolate chips and caramel), with added fat but no added calorie information. I find all this to be off-putting in a book that promises `healthy alternatives that can be eaten without guilt.'

In fact, a number of these recipes seem to have nearly the same total calories as the `standard' version whose fat has not been assiduously reduced. In such cases, you're not so much saving calories as you are exchanging them--by and large, fats for simple carbohydrates. Arguably, this is a trade for the worse, as it increases the "empty calorie" count of your treat and decreases the satiety that fats provide. Then there are the losses that come along with the fat for simple-carb trade--e.g., lower-fat cookies go stale much faster and without the fat, they can taste too sweet. In many cases the new cookies, while still very good, are obviously missing elements of the old standbys. If you slash the amount of chocolate chips in a chocolate chip cookie or the amount of nuts in a Russian tea cake, you can tell that those elements are missing, however appealing the new versions may be on their own terms. This, in combination with a belief that the new cookies are `healthier' (and are going to be stale tomorrow) can lead us to eat an extra cookie or two and thus end up with more calories than if we'd just stuck with the family recipe from the 50's.

I'll now remove my party-pooper hat and reiterate that the author has succeeded in producing a book of wonderful-tasting, diverse and easy cookies with less fat. The book is absolutely in the top tier of the low-fat dessert cookbook family. If you are selective, you can also find many tasty choices that are not JUST reduced fat, but also sport an impressive nutritional profile for dessert. And the book is generally a pleasure to cook and read from. So, I give it 4 stars because it mostly delivers on what it promises. Just don't expect the recipes be nutritional miracles.

I don't know about you, but I can never just have one brownie or one cookie. Anyone who thinks they can is 1% of the population. This cookbook not only was inspirational (you MUST read about the author!) but it gave me things to snack on that didn't taste like cardboard! I have bought low fat cookies and treats from the store before and not only have they tasted like the sole of my shoe, the ingredient list was mostly things I've never heard of. Now I get to make low fat treats and I know EXACTLY what went into them. And I can have a second one if I want and know that I'm not setting myself back! The biscotti is unreal. I served it to someone who hates low fat anything and they argued with me for an hour that they could not be low fat. I have to be careful with my wheat intake so the peanut butter cookies are a god-sent! Wheat free! So many other, blondies...double chocolate goodness..too many to name. I'm impressed.

This is a wonderful cookbook. I've tried almost half the recipes and they've all turned out perfect. I can't believe they are lower in fat and calories - they are even more delicious and decadent than the full fat recipes I used to use! The Inside Out Chocolate Chunk are to die for, and the Peanut Butter (yes peanut butter!) cookies and Lemon Bars are the best I've ever had. I get raves when I make them! I used the tips to trim the fat from my own recipes, which is tricky when it comes to baking. I'm always trying to eat healthier and this is the first time I've felt better about enjoying cookies and other goodies. I recommend this book to anyone!

Finally a low-fat cookbook that actually comes through with great tasting goodies. The recipes are clearly written and easy to follow, with terrific little tips on every page (did you know that using dental floss to cut refrigerated cookie dough logs into cookies prevents them from getting flattened? or that spooning 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder into a glass of warm water to see if it foams is a good way to test its effectiveness?) I love the Chocolava cookies, and the Old-Fashioned sour cream cookies are better than any of the traditional high-fat recipes I've tried. Definitely a good buy.

My sister and I are health addicts-we are majoring in nutrition. We love to bake and cook healthy. Her cookies are as good as the high fat ones. My favorite so far is the Aaron's melt in your mouth peanut butter cookies. It is like eating rich, fudgy peanut butter. Her fruit bars are good as well. The instructions are written perfectly-I hardly make any adjustments. It comes out just like she says. The book is like my long lost friend that I have discovered. It is a miracle that she came up with these recipes. She must have tested them out and experimented many times. I give Julie 1000 thumbs up. I'll keep making cookies and sweet tasty desserts without feeling the guilt!

Ooh I just love this book. Every recipe sounds realy good and there's so little fat that it makes you feel less guilty indulging in the cookies. I've only just purchased the book and have tried one recipe so far the Chocolava cookie and it turned out great. This is a good book to have even if you are just trying to use up egg whites like I was after makng ice cream. A real contradiction I know. But I give this book 2 thumbs up.

I made her brownies recipe, and it tasted like dried-out, mediocre, store-bought brownies. They didn't keep well because of the lack of fat, and at the end of 3 days, I tossed them out. After going to all the trouble of baking from scratch, I had hoped for more. It's not really her fault, I guess, because what can you expect from cookie recipes that use only 2 to 4 tablespoons of fat? Strangely enough, although the fat content is lower, the cookies are not that much lower in calories than higher-fat cookies that actually taste good. I would prefer to bake higher-fat cookies and eat just one.

I bake a lot, and this is one of my favourite cookbooks. The recipes are straightforward, there's lots of variety, and every one I've tried has turned out wonderfully (and I have tried probably 30 or 40 of them!)

I always get requests for the recipe when I make things from this book, and people never guess that they're less-fattening versions. I have given a couple of copies of this book as gifts and they've been much appreciated.

This is my go-to cookbook whenever my family is in the mood for cookies or squares. We use it every week.

I bought this recipe book when I really did not have the money to invest in recipe books. Now that I can buy the pricier books I find myself constantly returning to this old favorite. Very very good recipes. Lowfat goodies made with easy variations. I highly recommend it.

My best friend from college bought this book as a joke. But it really has produced a few great cookie results. I especially enjoy that the recipes contain ingredients that are common to most households--and that I didn't have to go out and buy anything that I wouldn't normally have on hand.

As one poster mentioned, sometimes she does trade fat grams for carbohydrates, which I don't love, but for some, lower fat is all we need. I have made the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (GREAT), the sugar cookies (excellent), but the best ones I've made were the linzer tarts. They really didn't taste low-fat at all!