TASTE OF HOME BAKING CLASSICS by Taste of Home

PUBLISHER: Reiman Media Group, 1/2008
GENRE: Cookbooks/Baking
PURCHASE: link
MY GRADE: A

FROM PUBLISHER: Featuring 655 tried and true recipes from the kitchens of the readers of Taste of Home magazine. Contents include: 10 Tips for Baking Success, Quick Breads, Yeast Breads, Coffee Cakes & Sweet Rolls, Pies, Cakes, Cupcakes, Desserts, Cookies, Brownies & Bars. Also includes 449 color photos with easy to follow instructions for your favorite recipes!

THINGS I'VE MADE

GERMAN CHOCOLATE PIE

I made half the recipe in a 7" diameter/2.5 c. capacity pie dish. It used 2 oz. Baker's German's Sweet Baking Chocolate* (it's slightly sweeter than semisweet chocolate), sugar, evaporated milk, salt, butter, egg, cornstarch, vanilla, and salt. I used more salt than specified, a scant 1/4 t., and doubled the vanilla to 1 teaspoon. Perfect. The mixture gets heated and poured into an unbaked pie shell. I didn't sprinkle the top of the unbaked pie with pecans and coconut.

This baked in 38 minutes. It took about three hours to cool down to room temperature. The pie is firm yet creamy and holds it shape when cut. I dolloped store bought thawed frozen whipped topping on each slice.

*German's Sweet Baking Chocolate has nothing at all to do with Germany. It was created by an American named Samuel German.

LEMON RASPBERRY JUMBO MUFFINS

I made half the recipe in a standard muffin pan and got seven, not eight like the recipe stated. It's no surprise to me that mine look absolutely nothing like the ones in the photo in the book and on their website. They're very good, moist, dense, and cakelike. They need a little more salt. I used slightly less lemon extract and added 1/2t. vanilla extract. Mine baked in 18 minutes.

This recipe is almost identical to a Better Homes and Gardens one in a cookbook called Jumbo Blueberry Muffins. On their site they're just called Blueberry Muffins.

ORANGE BLOSSOM CAKE

This couldn't have turned out better. It's incredibly moist and has a little applesauce in it, which you can't taste. The recipe calls for orange zest but I used orange extract instead and added 1/2 c. sweetened dried tart cherries. I omitted the dates and nuts. I made half but used the full amount of salt but it wasn't enough. I added vanilla extract too. I wish I hadn't made the orange juice simple syrup to pour over the top of the baked cake because all it did was make it a bit gummy since the cake was already so moist. I recommend you skip that step.

I made half in a 9" round pan and it baked in exactly 20 minutes.

WHITE CHOCOLATE NUT CRACKLES

These cookies are made with equal parts butter and shortening and uses cream of tartar. I divided the dough in half and added lemon extract to half and mini semisweet chocolate chips to the other half. I rolled the lemon doughballs in sugar but not the chocolate chip ones. I made this a few days before I wanted to bake them so I let my chilled dough come to room temperature for 20 minutes.

I prefer the lemon version over the chocolate version. The lemon cookies have that distinctive sugar cookie flavor where the edges browned. Oddly enough the chocolate ones don't have that same flavor.

Using a 1.5"/1 T. scoop I got 35 balls. I baked the first batch at a lower temperature for 9.5 minutes. They're crispy. The second batch got baked on 400 degrees F like the recipe stated

MOIST CAKE BROWNIES

These are bland and buttery and I wouldn't make these again. They're made with mostly butter and a small amount of vegetable oil. They aren't really like 'cake' like the recipe title states. I made half in an 8" square pan and they baked in 21 minutes. Nothing more to say about them.

MY THOUGHTS: Everything I made turned out great. This is a very heavy hardcover with no dust jacket. It's in full-color. There are one to three recipes per page and some of those pages have a photo for each recipe. Some photos are full-page. This book is a definite keeper.

I purchased this book myself.