Kim Boyce (1)Critiques

I haven't made any of the recipes but there were a couple of dozen that I marked as being interesting enough to try and the book was a good and interesting read about baking with unusual grains like amaranth, quinoa, and teff, among others.

Have made many great recipes from this (http://icydaylight.wordpress.com/?s=good+to+the+grain), including olive oil cake and chocolate chip cookies, but the scone recipes have not turned out well.

Okay, raise your hand if you have a supply of teff flour in your pantry. Anyone? Anyone? Could you identify a bag of kamut flour if it smacked you on the back of the head? Yeah, I didn't think so. Enough said.

The olive oil cake with rosemary and chocolate is amazing. This book is well written, well organized and a joy to bake out of.

I first checked this cookbook out from the library, but my husband insisted that I buy it after he saw me poring over it for the third time--"It's like you're reading a novel," he said in awe. So I bought it, and am still reading it with delight. The recipe for Five-Grain Cream Waffles is worth the price of the book, even though I've altered it to my tastes. I've also tried the Oatmeal Pancakes (excellent), the whole wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies (way too salty but otherwise good), Strawberry Barley Scones (a little heavy--recipe needs tweaking), Cornmeal Blueberry Cookies (great for breakfast or a snack--not quite a dessert), Oatmeal Sandwich Bread (good bread, but I need to work with the recipe a few more times), Currant Scones (also needed a bit of tweaking), and the Focaccia (a hit with the whole family). I want to try almost every recipe in the book, but mostly I have just really enjoyed experimenting with different flours.

I would highly recommend this book to an experienced baker who's interested in trying new and different tasty recipes. It is not a book for beginners. I hope Kim Boyce has the chance to revise a second edition, adding clearer directions and more photographs. I was also a little disappointed to find that nearly every recipe uses wheat flour. It would have been nice to see a few more gluten-free recipes.

It's so much fun to actually find a cookbook that offers something new. This book provides a variety of baking recipes using several different types of whole grains. It is not a "healthy" cookbook -- she uses cream, butter, sugar, honey, and white flour when necessary—but really strives to introduce the different grains based on their ability to provide special flavors and textures. If you're a baker and a curious cook, this will truly inspire you. (Try the 100% whole wheat chocolate chip cookies). However, you shouldn't tackle this book unless you have some experience baking. She doesn't include weights as well as volume measurements with a rather weak excuse that most kitchens don't have a scale --once you've purchased a simple kitchen scale, baking is so much improved and easier, that any serious baking book should include both types of measurements. Further, there's no reason both can't be presented. Also, some the recipes are poorly edited -- ingredients are not listed in their correct order, amounts are vague (such as the amount of sweet potatoes in the muffin recipe) and there should be two criteria to judge doneness in all cases.

For my complete review, see: http://comfortcontent.com/2011/01/book-review-good-to-the-grain-baking-with-whol....

The book has beautiful photos and the recipes have an unusual use of ingredients (Quinoa and Beet Pancakes, Figgy Buckwheat Scones). I tasted that particular scone at Ristretto Coffee in Portland and it is delicious. I'm not sure anything could not be delicious with figs in it. I haven't tried the recipes but plan to once the holidays are over. Perhaps Sam and Oscar would like an olive oil cake for their birthdays in mid-January?

The book is divided by grain, with a list of recipe by grain at the beginning of it's section, along with a description of the grain's origin, it's flavor and how it bakes. The ingredients are readily available and the fruits used are all grown in the Pacific Northwest.