I bought Alice's Tea Cup's cookbook quite a while ago. As I said when I first reviewed it, the book is glitchy. The recipes are obviously scaled down from restaurant quantities to make reasonable quantities for a home cook--such as a dozen scones. The problem is, I don't think they are all scaled down properly. For example, I love Alice's granola and recently got around to making it at home. The recipe for a single batch come out well, but much crumblier than I would have liked; having eaten their granola in the restaurant I know it shouldn't be musli-like but that's what my batch was bordering on. It was still delicious so I didn't mind. The next time I made it, I was more careful flipping it half way through and I added a little more honey at that point. It helped, but I still wasn't getting something approximating the texture of the restaurant's granola. My mom, not having eaten it at the restaurant, was oblivious to the fact that it wasn't perfect and continued to demand more. I was happy to oblige and made a double recipe. I wasn't expecting better results, I just figured a double batch would keep my mom happy a bit longer! Then the oddest thing happened: even though I was using the same small baking sheets (and therefore baking off the same size batches) the granola came out better. I don't entirely know why it happens when you double the quantity of everything in the recipe, but everything holds together better. My only thought is that, in the process of scaling it down, they scaled it down so far that their just wasn't enough honey and butter to hold the dry oats, nuts and fruit together even allowing for the smaller amount of dry ingredients. That scaling issue, I'm guessing, is the problem with many of the recipes.
Happily, it isn't a problem with the pumpkin scone recipe. A side note for those of you who have never been to Alice's Tea Cup: their pumpkin scones are the only scones that are available any day you go (the other flavors rotate daily) as they are so delicious that they are constantly in demand. I bought the cookbook for two recipes; this was one of them. (The other was the slightly disappointing recipe for Jean's not-yet-but-soon-to-be-famous mocha chocolate chip cake, photo here.) This recipe did not disappoint. The scones came out just right!
A quirk of this cookbook (and the restaurant for that matter) is that almost everything is flavored with tea--the granola has ground vanilla tea in it, the chicken salad uses llapsang souchong, and there is a lavender earl grey scone, to name a few. This isn't bad, it just is. So if you aren't a tea fan, this may not be the book for you (but I bet you got that from the title, Alice's Tea Cup Cookbook, didn't you?)
In case you were wondering, the book has a number of scone recipes, a good sized breakfast section, some sandwiches and soups, a few cocktails (including mar-tea-nis), and a handful of non-scone sweets. I haven't tried any of their savory recipes (I don't think granola counts as savory) but they look nice and I can't imagine scaling down can mess up a BLT recipe. By the way, the BLT at the restaurant is delicious, so I have high hopes for the recipe.
All in all, I'm happy with the book and I will definitely keep making that granola (even if it never ends up quite right).
My recommendation: If you are a lover of Alice's pumpkin scones then go buy this immediately. If not, I recommend this but with the caution that not every recipe is perfect. You shouldn't end up with a total disaster, but you may want to try out a recipe before you make it as the only dessert for guests you are trying to impress.
No comments:
Post a Comment