Alice Medrich

This is a spectacular book. Alice Medrich is a pastry chef, and she has made each recipe in this book over and over until it has been perfected. EACH AND EVERY RECIPE IS A TREASURE AND WILL WORK.

I am reviewing this book after having only baked two of the recipes, but this is my fourth cookbook from Medrich and I find that her approach to flavors and baking really matches what I am trying to do as a cook. My interest in the last couple of years is to explore ingredients and to try and make the most of their inherent flavors to produce healthy (mostly), simple (mostly), good food that doesn't rely on artificial ingredients or large amounts of fat, salt and sugar.
I first made the show more buckwheat nibby butter cookies using Buerre d'isigny unsalted butter. Even though I think these cookies were moderate in their fat content the taste of the butter really came through. I am looking forward to trying the different variations. I enjoyed the simple rich taste with the contrast of the nibs, but others might not find them sweet enough.
The second recipe was the chocolate wafers 3.0. First I discovered that my food processor wasn't large enough ( it is small), and so I had to improvise, the resulting dough was counterintuitive as it looked like sand. But when I compacted it it did come together. On the first day I wasn't overly impressed, but day after day the flavor continued to improve. I think this would be a perfect recipe for working with specialty cocoas, or just to taste different cocoas.
I really love that Medrich reduces fat and sugar to punch up flavor. As a result several of her recipes that I have tried have become 'go tos' in my kitchen. show less

This cookbook is so good my sister and I bought it for each other for Christmas one year. I've had very good luck with the recipes in here, and the detailed information about types of chocolate (and how to substitute them for each other) is immensely helpful. There is also quite a lot of talk about chocolate and about the author's experiments with chocolate. It's great if you like wordy cookbooks (which I do).

About fifteen years ago I saw this book and knew that I had to own it. It was the first time I had spent so much money on a cookbook. I still love it to bits. It has been the inspiration for countless birthday cakes and other special occasion cakes and desserts ever since. In my view, it's a must for anyone who is serious about baking.