Honey: A Connoisseur's Guide With Recipes

Rating:
Summary: Very nice cookbook, but better for the background info
Review: I have a sweet tooth and am a dedicated chocoholic, but I have low tolerance to refined sugar. As a result, I tend to cook with natural sweeteners: honey and maple syrup in particular. This book caught my eye, because few cookbooks use honey as a primary sweetener (except for some health food cookbooks, which can still lean precariously towards the carrot-loaf crowd). Using honey adds liquid to recipes as well as throwing off the amount that recipes call for, so often it's not simply a matter of substitution.

This book is better at the "connoisseur's guide" than at the recipes, though I have no complaint with the latter. It's just that the introductory section has a thoroughly enjoyable section on the flavors of honey (lavendar, buckwheat, chestnut) which I haven't seen anywhere else, and a list of sources for those of us who don't live near a great gourmet store.

I *have* seen most of the recipes elsewhere, though these appear to be very nice versions, and the breadth of topics is admirable. The recipe chapters include bread and muffins; fruits and vegetables; main dishes; cookies and cakes; pies and tarts; other desserts; and syrups and toppings. Much of these are "sweets" (well DUH), and anyone looking for a natually-sweetened version of crispy walnut cookies or fresh gingerbread will be pleased to find them here. The book does fine with main courses too, from spiced honeyed carrots (your basic Thanksgiving side dish) to a recipe for pork loin roasted with orange and ginger that I'm itching to try.

This is far from an exhaustive tome, but then it's an inexpensive book. It's quite an enjoyable cookbook, even if it doesn't blow my socks off.

Rating:
Summary: A "must" for all honey enthusiasts!
Review: More than eighty recipes using honey accompanies a reflective appreciation of honey, sans photos. From fruits and vegetables to meats marinated in honey, Honey is a cookbook recommended for any fan of honey.

Rating:
Summary: A "must" for all honey enthusiasts!
Review: More than eighty recipes using honey accompanies a reflective appreciation of honey, sans photos. From fruits and vegetables to meats marinated in honey, Honey is a cookbook recommended for any fan of honey.