Good to the Grain: Baking with Whole-Grain Flours
- ISBN13: 9781584798309
- Condition: New
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Baking with whole-grain flours used to be about making food that was good for you, not food that necessarily tasted good, too. But Kim Boyce truly has reinvented the wheel with this collection of 75 recipes that feature 12 different kinds of whole-grain flours, from amaranth to teff, proving that whole-grain baking is more about incredible flavors and textures than anything else. When Boyce, a former pastry chef at Spago and Campanile, left the kitchen to raise a family, she was determined to
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(out of 10 reviews)
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Review by Alicia for Good to the Grain: Baking with Whole-Grain Flours
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This book is gorgeous, and a great choice for those who are trying to add variety to their baking and sneak in some whole grain goodness. I admit to being disappointed though when I got it and realized that the majority of recipes call for a significant amount of all-purpose white flour. After all the glowing reviews I had hoped that somehow (miraculously!) someone had finally figured out how to make these delicious treats without it. She addresses this head-on at the start of the book and talks about the compromises she’s had to make to retain the texture and loft of the baked goods, but I hadn’t seen it mentioned in any reviews so I wasn’t aware of it when I purchased it online. I’ll still enjoy it, and look forward to happily making many of these delicious recipes. I’ll just make them less frequently than if they were “of” whole grain rather than “with” whole grain.
Review by M. Curnutt for Good to the Grain: Baking with Whole-Grain Flours
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I am so impressed with this cookbook. I’ve posted pics of some of the things I’ve tried out of it so far — the whole wheat chocolate chip cookies, the Spelt Flour Currant scones and the Sweet Potato Muffins (with buttermilk, yogurt and medjool dates). All 3 recipes I followed pretty much to the T, and all 3 came out just fantastic. Really, really good stuff. I can’t wait to try more of these recipes. It is so fun to work with the different flours, and apparently Kim put a whole lot of care and precision into making sure that each of these recipes works just right. I’m very, very happy with this purchase and can wholeheartedly recommend this cookbook to anyone interested in trying out baking with new types of flour. A+
Review by Cottage Wood Hill for Good to the Grain: Baking with Whole-Grain Flours
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I love this book! I just know it’s going to change my life. I’ve never been confident about baking, er, I should say I never was, but I am now. I heard Kim interviewed on the radio and when she was talking about all the different flours it really opened up the whole idea of baking to me. I had no idea there were so many interesting possibilities with all these different grain flours.
I bought two copies of her book and gave one to a baker friend. I’ve had it two weeks and have made five things: cast-iron flatbread, corn gruyère muffins, cheddar biscuits, sand cookies, and tonight the olive oil bread. All of them have been fantastic. I made the flatbread and asked my boyfriend to make some kind of fajitas with it, and he did and we were in heaven. We took Kim’s suggestion on the muffins and he made chili to go with them. A couple of nights ago I made the sand cookies at midnight and making them without a bowl or utensils was like a meditation. Only your hands and it really looked and felt like sand. Was a wonderful experience and would be fun for kids learning how to bake.
Tonight I made the olive oil cake with rosemary and bittersweet chocolate. Was crazy good, like a cross between bread and cake. I really can’t stand super sweet things so this was perfect. My housemate, who has tried all of them, said it was the best so far, and she has been raving the whole time. She gave me notice she was moving out before I got the book but said I was making it really hard to leave with all this baking I’m doing! Oh, and I forgot to mention that before I started on the first recipe, I went out and bought all the flours she uses in the book, so I would be prepared. I’m just so excited to keep baking, and to try the next recipe. She is really creative and has clearly put a lot of thought into this book.
I have so much anticipation for each recipe because they are all consistently wonderful. As soon as I finish one, in my mind I say, “Ok, which one will I make next?” I’m possessed with the new desire to bake, and all my friends love it. My only criticism would be that she doesn’t mention how many each recipe will serve, but I do love the way she clearly puts out the ingredients and separates them into “wet mix” and “dry mix”. I’m totally hooked and can’t wait to make ALL the recipes, and then buy her next book!
Review by An honest cook for Good to the Grain: Baking with Whole-Grain Flours
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I’m a longtime, avid baker, but have only recently begun to explore the vast world of baking with whole grains. I own King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking: Delicious Recipes Using Nutritious Whole Grains and have had great results from that and have been looking to expand my repertoire. I looked at “Good to the Grain” and liked how each chapter focused on a single kind of whole grain, a format that makes exploring your way through the whole grain universe a more doable task.
The book is beautifully designed and photographed, with a clarity that reflects the author’s encouraging voice as well as the mission of understanding each of the grains and how to use them. No showy, architectural baked goods here: most fall more toward the homey, rustic end of the spectrum, and thus the book is ideal for the beginning baker as well as the experienced.
The two recipes I’ve made so far have both been easy and delicious: buckwheat-pear pancakes and wholewheat chocolate chip cookies (the latter remained chewy for three days on my counter; they’re so good they may replace my longtime favorite recipe).
As good as the book is, I’m docking it a star because the author has chosen to eschew weight measurements. I know my aversion to volume-measuring-only baking is a pet peeve, but I find it incomprehensible that people spend years of their lives writing a baking book and testing the recipes to make sure they are reliable – and then they don’t reveal how much a cup of the flour they use in their recipes weighs. And as experienced bakers know, a cup of flour can vary tremendously depending on the volume method you use to measure it (dip-and-sweep versus spoon-and sweep versus sifting, and so on). And such variances can mean the difference between, say, a dry cake and a perfectly moist one. And not only is accuracy gained by weighing ingredients, it is extremely more efficient – you can place one bowl on the scale and add numerous ingredients directly to it rather than juggling various measuring cups and spoons.
The author offers this veiled apology in the introduction for not weighing the ingredients: “A note on scales. They are the most accurate way to bake, as they yield precise measurements each time. However, since many people don’t own scales, myself included, in this book you will find measurements using cups and spoons.” In other words, she is dumbing down her recipes because there is a perceived notion (probably her editor’s) that most people don’t use scales. (And seriously? A former Spago pastry chef doesn’t own a food scale? Pastry chefs’ lives depend on weighing food.) I know that more and more baking books are including at least the weights of flour in their recipes (see Rustic Fruit Desserts: Crumbles, Buckles, Cobblers, Pandowdies, and More), and the plethora of digital scales in cooking catalogues is also another sign that Americans are finally coming to their senses on this issue. In any event, if she or her editor did not wish to include a weight for ingredients in every recipe, how difficult would it have been to include a half-page chart in the back of the book listing the various weights for buckwheat, teff, spelt, whole wheat, brown sugar, and so on? (As it turns out, the King Arthur whole-grains book does have a lengthy list of such weights, and so I have been using that as a reference; but of course the King Arthur weights do not necessarily reflect how this author would arrive at a cup of this or that.)
That issue aside, I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to explore whole-grain baking.
Review by Pamela Robinson for Good to the Grain: Baking with Whole-Grain Flours
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Ex-Spago pastry chef Kim Boyce has turned her talents to creating great foods using healthy, tasty ingredients in “Good to the Grain: Baking with Whole-Grain Flours.”
Beautifully photographed by Quentin Bacon, the 75 recipes range from cookies to scones to porridges, all using one or more of 12 kinds of whole-grain flours, including rye, buckwheat, amaranth and teff.
Included is a chapter on cooking with fruit to make jams, fruit butters and compote, resulting in such flavorful ideas as rhubarb hibiscus compote, three-citrus marmalade and apple butter.
Some of the recipes are unusual but all promise great taste: quinoa and beet pancakes, chocolate babka, rhubarb tarts and honey hazelnut cookies are among her offerings. The advice is practical and clearly written, making the recipes well within the range of even a relatively new baker.
A conversion chart for measuring weights and sources for the flour and other specialty items are also included.