Small-Batch Baking for Chocolate Lovers [Paperback]

Debby Maugans (Author)

Book Description

Release date: February 15, 2011

“In this age of singles, couples and otherwise smaller households, Small-Batch Baking is an idea that’s in step with the times.”—The Dallas Morning News

No one can resist the allure of home-made chocolate desserts—but when recipes yield a full dozen or more, we often eat more than our serving size. In Small-Batch Baking for Chocolate Lovers, acclaimed food writer Debby Maugans solves the problem by crafting irresistible chocolate recipes perfectly suited for two.

Featuring more than 120 cookie, cake, pie, tart, muffin, and scone recipes, over-the-top and lavishly loaded with chocolate of all kinds, nuts, candy bars, and flavors. Ideal for the single guy or gal, small family, retiree, or bride-to-be.

There’s a dessert in this book for every occasion: a fool-proof birthday chocolate cake recipe, a chocolate orange tart for Valentine’s Day, or when you’re in the mood for a little self-indulgence, a chocolate soufflé sized for one. Your sweetheart (and your waistline) will thank you!

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Scones for two? A batch of eight cookies? Three brownies hot out of the oven? These tiny yields are the norm for recipes in Maugans's second Small-Batch Baking title. "Scaled back to manageable proportions," recipes produce handfuls of baked goods, ideal for the single person, those counting calories, or must-eat-fresh-out-of-the-oven die-hard bakers. The self-proclaimed "chocoholic" uses the cacao bean in various forms including unsweetened cocoa powder, milk chocolate bars, bittersweet chocolate chips, and even chocolate milk in her recipes for cakes, pies and tarts, and more. Clever ideas include baking "baby-layer" cakes in cans and making soufflés in eight-inch ramekins. Classic desserts such as red velvet cake and chocolate chip cookies are alongside less-than-traditional combinations including chocolate lime bread and java choco-banana muffins. A lack of photography may prevent gift buyers scanning the shelves from noticing, but chocolate lovers and those who want small yields will appreciate this straightforward title. (Feb.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

With more and more American households consisting of just one or two people, it�s often difficult to find recipes that don�t end up wasting food with quantities that are meant to fill four, six, or more mouths. Maugans comes to the rescue of such challenged bakers with a collection of chocolate desserts that serve just two. Pastry dough can be cut back to yield bases for just a couple of tarts. She suggests a number of cookie recipes, such as a dark chocolate pistachio shortbread or oatmeal chocolate raisin cookies. Desserts can be simple or as elaborate as layered turtle cheesecake. Even bread pudding can be reduced to a pair of small portions. In some cases, special small pans are required, but often it�s a matter of using just a couple of the holes in a standard muffin tin or improvising with some recycled tin cans. --Mark Knoblauch

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin (February 15, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312612249
• ISBN-13: 978-0312612245
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 0.9 x 9.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #180,944 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #39 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Baking > Chocolate

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars It is like an easy bake oven only better!!! March 21, 2011

By PattyLouise VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I love this book!!! It manages to help you create amazing yummy desserts but not in huge quantities. Sometimes I only want a baby chocolate cake or a few cookies...not an enormous quantity. The chocolate cake on the cover can be made in washed out clean as a whistle tuna cans...or soup cans!!! The best thing about this book for me is that my mom saved all of my toy bakeware and I am using them for some of these recipes. It is a wonderful book for a small family or when you just want a teeny little taste of something!!!

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Chocolate Things Come In Small Packages April 24, 2011

By Charles G. Thompson

Format:Paperback

The best things come in small packages. In the case of "Small-Batch Baking for Chocolate Lovers," the best chocolate things come in small packages. Author Debby Maugans perfected the art of baking for one or two people in her first book, "Small Batch Baking." Realizing that the average recipe produced a larger quantity of the end product than a single person, or couple may want to eat, or be able to finish she revised recipes so that the serving sizes were more appropriate for one or two people. A pretty smart idea in and of itself.

Being the professed chocoholic she is, Maugans saw a need for a small-batch cookbook for chocolate lovers. And thank goodness she did! In the introduction to the book she explains that her go-to dessert choice is always something with chocolate. I couldn't agree more. Out at a restaurant I always go for chocolate desserts over any others. Often I won't have a dessert if there is nothing with chocolate in it. I, too, love chocolate and I know that I'm not alone. This is a book I'll use often.

Smartly so, Maugans begins the book with a chapter called "Small-Batch Chocolate Baking Know-How" which explains everything you need to know to start small-batch baking. From the equipment needed, to ingredients and measuring techniques, to storage of ingredients, it's all spelled out. Then the fun really begins. The chapters unfold from cakes and cupcakes; to pies, tarts, and cheesecakes; to puddings and soufflés; to muffins, scones, shortcakes, and loaves; to desserts that are "better with chocolate"; to holiday desserts, and finally liquid pleasures. I'd say the gamut of possibilities is well-covered. I knew Maugans was a serious chocolate lover in the chapter titled "Better with Chocolate" in which she takes desserts that are normally not made with chocolate and adds it. Cinnamon rolls with chocolate rolled up with the nuts and cinnamon sugar. Baklava with chocolate in the nut filling.

A good chocolate chip cookie recipe is worth its weight in gold -- I mean, chocolate. Maugans' recipe for "Simply the Best Small-Batch Chocolate Chip Cookies" is so good it might be the best small or large batch recipe around. Soft, gooey, super-chocolatey deliciousness, (yield 8 cookies). Other recipes I tried and loved were Classic Chocolate Cake, (yield 2 cakes, or 4 cupcakes); Chocolate Decadence Cheesecakes (yield 2 cheesecakes); Ultimate Brownies (yield 3 brownies), and Whole Wheat Chocolate Banana Bread (Maugans is right, chocolate added to banana bread is a revelation) (yield 1 loaf, 4 or 5 slices). There are plenty more I want to try including several recipes for ice cream cakes. One comment re the yields, Maugans uses recycled tin cans such as 8 oz., 14.5 oz., and 15 oz. tomato sauce, or bean cans in the cakes recipes hence the yield of 2 small, single-serving sized cakes. She has a few other tricks like this to make small-batch baking work.

If you live alone, or are a couple, and don't want to make desserts that yield enough for a family of six -- and you love chocolate -- then "Small-Batch Baking for Chocolate Lovers" is for you. Actually, I'd say it's for anyone who wants to reduce the size of their desserts, or dessert intake. With only eight chocolate chip cookies there will be none leftover to tempt a middle-of-the-night craving.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Clearer than the first one! March 15, 2011

By A. Chow

Format:Paperback

I have the original Small-Batch Baking by this author, and I must admit the original was a little more complex and laid out in a slightly more confusing way. This time around, the pages are single-column, not double-column, and the "makes X cookies" or "makes X cakes" is easy to see at one glance.

The original Small-Batch Baking also had a lot of recipes I wasn't particularly fond of for various reasons having to do with me being a picky eater. A chocolate-focused small-batch baking book? Absolutely perfect. It's just me eating them, after all; my husband doesn't like cakes and isn't all that particularly fond of most cookies either, and we don't have any children (yet). Small batches of chocolate treats for me to eat over a weekend make this book absolutely perfect.