This is one of the small gifts I bought for myself at Christmas time.
We're a family of two adults and one child. We love our salty snacks and treats, but we have a hard time eating our way through a full-sized cake or pie and we never eat all of a batch of cornbread. We have better luck with cookies, but sometimes even they go stale before we eat them all.
I've tried freezing baked goods, but they end up forgotten for months, then finally thrown out or composted.
I guess it's a good problem to have, as far as problems go, but we do like a baked treat once in a while and I hate wasting food. That's why I thought I'd try small batch baking.
This is a nicely designed book. The recipes are categorized by type and are simple to make in most cases. Any special pans needed -- such as small pie pans or cake rings -- are described near the front of the book. The recipes range from simple cornbread muffins and buttermilk biscuits to more elaborate cheesecakes, souffles and pavlovas. Most recipes make 2 or 3 servings.
The only bad thing I can say about the book is that there are no photographs. In order to keep myself from going wild with cookbooks, I usually insist they have photos before I buy them. I made an exception in this case because I knew the book would be so useful to us.
So far, I've tried the recipes for "Old Fashioned Cornbread" (a wonderful flour-less version with molasses that I will post tomorrow), "Chocolate Raspberry Oatmeal Squares" and "Blueberry Upside Down Cake". All were very good and I'm looking forward to trying more recipes. With more than 450 pages in the book, there are plenty of them to try.
If you're like us and have a small family, or a small appetite for sweets, this is the book for you. If you have a larger family or one that loves sweets, this is still the book for you. After all, who says you can't sample more than one small batch recipe at a time?
Disclaimer: I was not paid or compensated for this review. It's just my own opinion of a book I recently purchased for myself.
