I know I'm entering this conversation rather late, but I just joined egullet. I have a few general comments about the book and will also comment on some of the recipes. First, this book completely energized me. The day I bought it, I broke out a small post-it pad to start marking recipes I wanted to try and quickly found it a useless strategy since I was marking about every third recipe. I love that there are so many recipes that are not overly sweet, that use ingredients I love like cornmeal, prunes, pears, nuts. The book serves as a lovely reminder that baked goods need not be giant productions. We've loved every recipe I've tried so far. Here are notes on a few: The Brown Sugar Bundt Cake--WOW!! I've made this four times I think. I make a slight change to it though, combining the main recipe with the nut recipe. Basically, I follow the nut recipe but I keep the pears in. The pears and the hazelnuts work wonderfully together. This cake has been a huge hit each time I made it. I think folks will likely start requesting it of me. I have been meaning to try some of the other bundt cakes but can't seem to get off of this page. Cornmeal Maple Drop Biscuits: This was the first of the breakfast recipes I made. They came together almost ridiculously easily, and everyone loved them. I served them with a maple butter. They made me realize that I could put together baked goods in the morning and still get off to work on time. That's a great gift, Dorie! Great Grains Muffins: WOW. These were incredible. I made them on Christmas Eve morning when my niece and nephew woke me up at 6:00 am because they wanted to bake. They picked out the recipe, and they did more than half of the work. This is yet another recipe that comes together easily. They tasted great, had a great crumb. My 8 year old quite healthy nephew ate 4 of them that morning. He reluctantly held two in reserve for his grandparents (this would have been a tougher sell if not for the pride he felt in having made them). Cornmeal and fruit loaf: Another quick one to put together. I used pears rather than apples. This was meant to go into the office but never made it out of the kitchen. Honey brownies: Wonderfully moist, great unique flavor, but next time I'll use a more distinct honey. Chunky PB and Oatmeal Chocolate chipsters: We made these late in the evening prior to the great grain muffins early morning wake-up. My nephew did a wonderful job forming the cookies. Everyone loved these when they came out of the oven. The next day I found them to be too crisp without a cup of hot tea to dunk them in. Others still liked them. I think we likely over cooked them a bit. I'll make them again (in fact, fighting the urge to bake them tonight). Chocolate oatmeal drops: My first sort of miss in the book. I had less chocolate than I thought, so used only 6 ounces. That didn't seem to be a problem. Instead, I found it to be a very thin "dough". Really, it seemed more a batter to me. There was no way to make drops from this. Instead, I dumped it all into a jellyroll pan and made bar cookies. They were good, though a little dry (possibly the lesser amt of chocolate, possibly overcooked). Recipes I can't believe I haven't made yet: Holiday bundt cake, any of the scone recipes, sweet potato biscuits, Swedish visiting cake... I want to thank Dorie for putting together such a motivating book. It so successfully encouraged this relatively novice baker. Also, thanks to all of you who have posted your photos and descriptions! Debbie
