Savory Baking

by Mary/ Barnhurst Noel (PHT) Cech

Offers recipes that feature unsweetened baked goods made with cheese, vegetables, herbs, and meat.
Savory Baking
Cech, Mary/ Barnhurst, Noel (PHT)
Chronicle Books Llc
Publication 2009/08/26
Number of 168
Binding PAPERBACK
Library of bl2010006009

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Food, Nonfiction, Reference

Paperback

First published August 26, 2009

Reviews

[CLM · Rating 3 out of 5]

"•Finally, a baking book for those without a sweet tooth. 'Savory Baking' by acclaimed pastry chef Mary Cech evokes the wonderful world of scones, tarts, biscuits, puff pastries and other salty, herby, cheesy delights too often passed over in the baking canon.

Peppered Pear and Goat Cheese Scones, Spicy Tomato Crumble, and Fingerling and Crispy Bacon Pizza exemplify the inventiveness of the book’s 75 recipes. A Cambozola and Pear Cream Tart highlights one of the world’s great cheese-fruit combinations, and an array of cookies — Thyme, Lemon and Sea-Salt Shortbread; Sour Cream Fig Spirals; Black-Rimmed Pistachio Wafers — would make elegant snacks for a wine tasting."

(from the Worcester Telegram)

Alas, the pear and goat cheese scones were a disaster! My sisters think it was me, not the cookbook. Hmmmmm.....

[Juli Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a beautiful, practical cookbook. As someone without much of a sweet tooth who loves baking, I was so excited to find this cookbook. There are at least fifteen recipes here that I look forward to making, and I was pleasantly surprised at how not meat-centric the focus is. A delightful surprise.

[Dray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very nice baking book, as the title suggests - on savory treats. I really liked this book, the recipes were fresh and exciting and covered a wide range of dilectables.

[Sarah Bunfill · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought I would love this book as I am not hugely into sweets. I did not find much I really wanted to try out. Just not my flavor profile. I was good inspiration at least.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

It feels dated somehow... yet I am likely to make a lot of these recipes. I am a big fan of savory baking.

[Honest Mabel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very poorly set up for kindle. So many unnecessary colors

[Ana Mardoll · Rating 5 out of 5]

Savory Baking / 978-0-8118-5906-6

"Savory Baking" is the perfect example of how to put together a high quality specialty cookbook. The beautiful cover picture is just one of 20 full page, glossy color photos accompanying the 70+ recipes inside. (This is still a ratio of less than 1:3 pictures to recipes, which I normally find frustrating, but I forgave easily this time.)

I love baked goods, but I've been trying to cut back on sugar, and this book could not have come at a more opportune time. The author notes that she has developed these savory recipes as a baking incentive to people who don't have sweet teeth, but I'm surprised that this isn't also marked as a diabetic friendly cookbook - although some of the recipes do still use a teaspoon full of sugar, the author notes that the sugar is purely optional and can be omitted without any major loss of flavor.

I really love this book for the clean, crisp layout; the useful and intuitive ingredient lists and instructions; and the innovative and exotic recipe ideas. I'm not usually one to enjoy strange recipes, but these are only "exotic" in that it just never occurred to me to use these flavor combinations before. Recipes included in the book are:

Quick Breads
- Peppered Pear and Goat Cheese Scones
- Scones stuffed with Caramelized Red Onions and Brie
- Sour Cream and Dill Muffins
- Sharp Cheddar and Cherry Muffins
- Ham-studded Drop Biscuits with Poached Eggs and Classic Hollandaise
- Potato and Scallion Butter Biscuits
- White Cheddar Zucchini Pancakes
- Buckwheat Blinis with Warm Bing Cherries and Crème Fraiche
- Hazelnut Waffles
- Pumpkin Hazelnut Spice Loaf
- Buttermilk Tarragon Loaf
- Smoked Salmon Crepe Torte
- Chili-Cheese Gratin Sandwiches

Flaky Pastries
- Baked Pomodoro Dumplings on an Olive Salad
- Caesar Tartlets with Sweet Garlic Butter Crusts
- Chili Grilled Eggplant and Sweet Roasted Pepper Tartlets in Poppy Seed Shells (cover photo)
- Cambozola Pear Cream Tart
- Onion and Sherry Cream Turnovers
- Sweet Potato, Golden Raisin, and Cranberry Strudel
- Seafood Strudel
- Fingerling Potato and Crispy Bacon Pizza
- Roasted Red Pepper Crème Fraiche Quiche
- Chevre Quiche with Red and Green Grapes
- Spinach and Feta Double Crust Pie
- Deep Dish Curried Vegetable Potpies with Dried Fruits
- Grilled Vegetable Galette

Rustic
- Spicy Tomato Crumble
- Creamy Sweet Corn and Prosciutto Crisp
- Mustard-Rubbed Mini Lamb Sandwiches on Mint Shortcakes
- Onion, Fennel, and Orange Upside-Down Shortcake
- Canadian Bacon Bread Pudding
- Chicken Dijon Brown Betty
- Yukon Gold Brown Betty
- Confetti Corn Bread Crusted Creole Shrimp
- Stilton Cheesecake on a Candied Walnut Crust
- New York Style Parmigiano-Reggiano Cheesecake
- Portobello Mushroom, Rosemary, and Shallot Cream Clafouti

Pastries with Puff
- Orange-Nutmeg Popovers
- Potato Cheese Fritters
- Coconut Shrimp Fritters with Tropical Fruit Relish
- Caprese Salad Filled Profiteroles
- Toasted Caraway and Gruyere Puffs
- Smoked Bacon Beignets
- Sesame Éclairs with Honey Soy Asparagus
- Cauliflower and Pancetta Puffed Crepes
- Shiitake Mushroom and Garlic Soufflés
- Winter Squash, Brown Butter, and Sage Soufflés
- Tomato Basil Soufflé

Cookies
- Thyme, Lemon, and Sea-Salt Shortbread
- Crispy Potato Haystacks
- Pecan Thumbprints
- Tarragon-Tomato Stripes
- Rosemary Fruit Biscotti
- Sour Cream Fig Spirals
- Italian Scented Madeleines
- Five-Spice Black-and-White Sesame Wafers
- Black-Rimmed Pistachio Wafers
- Apricot-Flecked Goat Cheese Straws
- Walnut Rugalach

The Side Show
- Apple, Pear, and Ginger Chutney
- Fig and Rosemary Spread
- Tapenade Cream
- Tropical Fruit Relish
- Ricotta Filling and Dip
- Warm Bing Cherries
- Crème Fraiche
- Apricot-Mint Relish
- Smoky Tomato Sauce
- Chili-Eggplant and Sweet Roasted Peppers
- Arugula Salad with Feta-Corn Vinaigrette
- Caprese Salad

Although this isn't really a "baking for dummies" book, I really appreciate how accessible all the sections and instructions are. The author has put a lot of work into explaining how to bake successfully, and uses a light touch with her writing that makes the effort of diving into these recipes seem like a fun adventure, not a frightening chore. I also really appreciate the Glossary at the back, for those of us who honestly didn't know what "rugalach" was - nor how to pronounce it.

NOTE: This review is based on a free Advance Review Copy of this book provided through Amazon Vine.

~ Ana Mardoll

[Rama Rao · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good Baking

This book is filled with great recipes for baking for all seasons. These recipes are described in six sections; quick bread, flaky pastries, rustic food (cobblers, puddings, etc.,) puff pastries, cookies, sauces and chutneys.

The quick bread is my favorite recipe section as it has recipes that does not take too much of your time to prepare. The peppered pear and Goat cheese scone is delicious and my kids loved it. It is soft, sweet and cheesy. The fingerling potato and crispy bacon pizza is a kind of original. The highlight of this pizza is the recipe uses Phylo dough, Asiago cheese and fingerling potato as one of the toppings. This pizza is very crispy and delicious which works as a great appetizer. The rustic section has one original recipe which I thought was terrific: This is confetti corn bread-crusted Creole shrimp. The Creole shrimp is used as a filling inside the tasty, buttery corn bread. This is one of my favorite recipes from the entire book. You may want to serve this as a side dish for the main course or even as an appetizer. This is really a yummy recipe.

The orange nutmeg popover looks more like muffins, Caprese salad-filled profiteroles is another great recipe to try. This serves as a great appetizer and also as a side dish in the main course. Serving profiteroles with Caprese salad is splendid idea. This section also has some great recipes for soufflés.

I didn't find anything exciting in the cookies and sauces/chutney section. The market is flooded with numerous books on cookies and sauces. I thought these two sections were totally unnecessary. The authors could have expanded on quick bread and perhaps puff pastry sections.

[Catherine Woodman]

I loved this--a great eclectic collection of savory baked goods--I wrote down several of the scone and muffin recipes in my journal to keep. I would also consider giving this to a vegetarian who did fancy entertaining, because a majority of the recipes are vegetarian and the few that aren't, about 1/2 of them can be adapted to be vegetarian.

[Caro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book filled with original, delicious recipes. One of the recipes that specially caught my eye and I plan on making soon is the Confetti corn bread - crusted creole shrimp. My only complaint is that I wished it had more pictures as some of the recipes are complex and without a photo is hard to visualize the end product.

[Emily Von pfahl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very complete directions are given for all of the recipes in this book, along with notes for variations that are also complete, and introductory material that goes over equipment and food products. While some of the recipes are ones I will never fix because of some of the ingredients, the majority of them sound wonderful. I plan on making something for this book this weekend.

[Tamara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Drool. Here are the recipes I will dream about but will probably be too lazy to make: Peppered Pear and Goat Cheese Scones, Sharp Cheddar and Cherry Muffins, Baked Pomodoro Dumplings on an Olive Salad and Thyme Lemon & Sea-Salt Shortbread.

[Greg McClay · Rating 4 out of 5]

The potato pizza was very good, there are a couple recipes I'll make copies of and try when I get the chance. Pictures were good but not with every recipes. As one review mentioned this isn't about the sweet tooth which is a plus, there were atypical recipes here, but good!

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like to bake, but I'm more of a savory gall, so this book has many recipes I'm looking forward to trying. The Lemon and Thyme Shortbread was very good, as were the Cheddar and Dried Cherry muffins.

[Beka · Rating 4 out of 5]

This goes beyond an awesome cookbook and made it on the "I need to own this" list. So many yummy ideas, so little time. So many awesome calories to consume!! Great pictures. Great looking recipes.

[Valerie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cooking from this will require some serious adaptation, as many of the items are filled with dairy. I look forward to some experimentation.

[Niki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Delicious recipes. Sorry to the library for getting butter on the curry pot pie page. Ordered my own copy to mess up.

[Mandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven't been so excited about a cook book in a long time....yum!

[Evelyn Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Um...yeah...definitely my new favorite cookbook. Yum!

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fancy and schmancy. They all sound like great recipes, but all would entail a trip to the grocery store for stuff I don't normally have.

[Moniker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! I love this cookbook!!

[Cheery · Rating 4 out of 5]

The recipes drew me in. I savored them!

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Got this from the library, and will be adding it to my own library. Some very nice recipes.

[Wendy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Turns out I really prefer my baking to involve chocolate :)

[Mrs. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of creative and unusual recipes.

[Ruth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice book, but it did not meet my tastes