Sweet Sicily : The Story of an Island and Her Pastries

Rating:
Summary: Not Very Impressive
Review: Great history IF you want a cook book that gives you history VS RECIPES. Too much history....

Just the fact that there are ingredients missing....is amazing. I noticed the pistachio chewey cookies....NO FLOUR!!!! Yet, the picture clearly depicts that those cookies have flour in them....

Recommending margarine instead of butter where margarine is much more watery than butter....causing very runny batters (cream puffs)....

I think it needs review if ingredients are missing. I can't stand typos either.

Rating:
Summary: Sweet Sicily:The Story of an Island & Her Pastries
Review: The book starts with a very interesting and well-written part on the history of sweets/deserts in Sicily...but goes downhill from there. In a very short amount of time I found at least two very significant typos. One was in a recipe for a pistachio cookie. In that recipe the flour ingredient was completely left out. Another was a recipe for a cherry pastry which did not call for any cherries. Those were just two typos I found on one Sunday of cooking.

Rating:
Summary: Not so Sweet
Review: The history in this book is wonderful. However, the recipes are very inconsistent. Missing ingredients, etc. make it impossible to use this cookbook. I tried twice to make the Little Tea Cookies (pg.70) with no success. The dough would never come together (obviously some ingredient is missing).

Rating:
Summary: Sweet Sicily: The Story of an Island and Her Pastries
Review: This book contains authenticity throughout--the photographs, the history, and the recipes. Beautifully written and photographed, the book will warm the heart of Sicilians and non-Sicilians alike. Every recipe I attempted resulted in a delicious pastry reminding me of my childhood surrounded by Sicilian family and friends. The writing is eloquent and heartwarming, and the history is fascinating and authentic. I would wholeheartedly recommend Sweet Sicily: The Story of an Island and Her Pastries.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful book
Review: This is a fantastic book! The recipes are great and the photography is really beautiful. The history of the island is so fascinating and is covered well in this book. It is a nice set up to the recipes... its wonderful to get some background on why Sicilian pastries are the way they are. I also enjoyed learning which pastries are associated with religious observences. This book also brought back great memories. The Ricotta Turnovers in the book are very similar to the "Cassateddi" that my Sicilian grandmother loves. The author does an excellent job of providing mail order resources for some hard to get ingredients and provides infomation on how to make a reasonable approximation of other components yourself. (like Fresh Ricotta) I would also like to clear up a misconception. Two previous reviewers indicated that there was a typo on the Chewy Pistachio cookie recipe just because flour was not listed. It is NOT an ingredient in the cookie. If you read further and pay attention to the instructions, flour is not called for. Not every cookie has flour and not every cookie is made like Americans make things. As for the person who said that the picture showed flour... rest assured, the cookie is dusted with powdered sugar which is in the recipe (and much tastier than dusting it with flour). No typo there, just a different (and delicious)type of cookie.

Rating:
Summary: A beautiful book
Review: This is a wonderful book to enjoy and to give as a gift. This pictures are lovely. The history included makes it all that much more interesting.