Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2216745 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

Customer Reviews

Beautiful to look at, but has a fatal flaw.
I was delighted to receive this book, but completely frustrated by it. The pictures were terrific (and plentiful), many of the recipes sound delicious, but the author has made a horrendous mistake. For some inexplicable reason, all the recipes that call for chocolate (and there are many, many of these) refer to the chocolate measurements only in "cups." Any experienced baker knows that a "cup" of chocolate can vary by several ounces depending how how the chocolate is chopped prior to measuring, and this book gives no clue as to what is meant. In some cases, a recipe will say, "take 1 cup of chocolate and chop it," or "take 1 cup of chocolate and chop it finely" (both of which would lead one to believe that the chocolate is not supposed to be chopped BEFORE it is measured).

Any cook who's worked in a professional kitchen -- or any experienced amateur -- knows that chocolate is one of those ingredients that should be WEIGHED, and recipes should call for a specific weight of chocolate for consistent results.

I can only assume that this author is not interested in helping her readers achieve consistent results, since she does not explain her peculiarly unhelpful measuring system.

Tempting & Tasty
Purchased the book with reservations after reading the previous reviews. However, the book is delightful in every way with wonderful pictures and recipes that turn out looking just like they are depicted. So far have made several of the desserts including the "Rich Chocolate and Whiskey Mud Cake with Crystallized Violets" and "Trifle". Plan on making many more of the desserts, especially the "Custard Tarts with Rhubarb". Very happy with the book's layout, photographs, easy to follow recipes, and results - not to mention the compliments every cook appreciates : )

Chocolate Flaw- Remedy
This book was actually published in the UK. As a result they use the metric system. So the publisher, NOT the author, converted all the measurements from grams and ounces to cups, because cups is what Americans are familiar with. The flaw of the publisher was not knowing where to stop with this conversion. They should have left the chocolate measurement in ounces. So when using the recipes that call for chocolate in cups, one must convert the cups back to oucnes or grams. One should NOT fill their measuring cup with chocolate. Converting cups to ounces can be done an any online measurement conversation website. 1 cup of chocolate is likely 8 oz of chocolate.

For example one recipe calls for 1 1/3 cups good-Quality bittersweet chocolate, chopped.
Here you simply weight out 10.5 oz good-Quality bittersweet chocolate and then you chop it.

Lastly because this book is from the UK there may be difficulty in finding some ingredients in certain markets. Such as passionfruits and recipes calling for a friand pan, which is simply a muffin pan that is oval in shape. But you can just use a regular muffin tin without problem.

So if you are looking for recipes with a UK Flare (blueberry semolina cakes) and can handle converting cups to oucnes, this is a good selection.