This book won't be for everyone, but it was precisely the book I needed right now, and it might be a good choice for you, too. I would describe "Flavor Flours" as a "special occasion dessert" cookbook. It is important to know that this book USES ancient grain flours but is primarily a gluten-free version of a "traditional sweets & cakes" cookbook for baking sugary, often dairy-laden desserts.
It is not allergen free. It is not low carb. It does result in delicious desserts that TASTE JUST AS DELICIOUS as the old, glutenous cakes I used to eat. I really needed the emotional pick-me-up of feeling like delicious food was available to me at this time in my life, with a medically-required, limited diet.
In my case, I am not sensitive to BUTTER even though I must avoid all other dairy, so I still find many, many recipes available to me in "Flavor Flours." I bought the book, read it cover to cover, bookmarked many pages, but have tried only two recipes so far. (I need to buy more equipment as I used to purchase ready-made cakes instead of baking at home.)
After about 10 months of a major health crisis that was impacting every hour of every day of my life in a significant way, getting only moderate help from drugs and wishing to avoid ramping up to heavier duty medications with even more severe side effects, I undertook an "elimination diet" with my specialist's (rheumatologist) blessing, assistance from my primary care doctor (a referral) and an integrative medicine nutritionist helping me design my personalized program. Three months in, I've reduced my pain and some of the limitations on my activities while also reducing my need for pain medication (almost completely!) and halving my dose of maintenance medication. This is wonderful... but I've also been forced to cook, from scratch at home, almost every single bit of food I've eaten in this time. I'm proud of what I've accomplished, but I'm not an enthusiastic cook and I'm very, VERY tired of working so hard to produce food, most of which is only tolerable to my palate, not delicious.
This book isn't going to cure me of my boredom with this burden of cooking or revolutionize my daily meals. It isn't meant to. Simply reading it was enough to give me a mental pick-me-up, though. I loved the author's scientific approach to discovering the character of each featured flour. Baking the same type of cake with each strikes me as elegant investigation, not a waste of time. I may try each one myself so I can learn more myself.
After my first baking attempt (buckwheat pumpkin bread), my strong liking of the book climbed to a definite 5 star love. Even though I hate baking from a Kindle cookbook, the process was a triumph. The layout of the recipe was manageable on an iPad; the directions were thorough but not wordy, telling me PRECISELY what I needed to know but wasting none of my time. I feel empowered, by this book, to undertake more exotic baking processes than would normally appeal to me. This book made me very, very happy, and I also got a delicious dessert.
I feel compelled to offer a little more detail about my lack of interest in cooking. To be clear, I am not actually without cooking skills, or "bad at cooking"--I just don't like it. I have successfully baked bread, I am more likely to make food from scratch than from boxes, etc. What I don't typically have is enough interest in cooking to take extra steps where a simpler process results in an acceptable result. (For example, if browning meat before cooking stew in my crockpot makes excellent food, but skipping that step makes good food, I will often choose the simpler technique with the less sumptuous result.) On the other hand, I have an educated opinion on what constitutes healthy eating, for myself and for my family, and I choose high quality food regardless of expense. I very much enjoy fine dining and will pay for the privilege. I'm not unaware of what makes excellent food, but I'm not usually the SOURCE of said delicacies. That said, most of my forays into more complex cooking have been in the baking arena, because I love sweets and prefer the oven and "closed cooking environments" to anything on the stovetop.
I mention this to make clear that this cookbook is inspirational for someone like me--perhaps "well-read but functionally lazy" is a fair description of my culinary level?
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Reviews with images
Fantastic book.
Alice Medrich is my go-to baker, and when I decided to learn to bake cookies, she was the writer I turned to. She wrote this book during her exploration into different types of flours now easily available, not just for people with gluten intolerance or allergies. The Double Oatmeal cookie on Page 124 is my house cookie. You can make them crispy (as I do) or chewy if that’s your preference. They are delicious and don’t require a mixer. I refrigerate the dough overnight, measure it into 25 gram portions, roll them into a ball, and bake them 6 cookies to a Nordic half-sheet pan on parchment paper (which I reuse for a long time). I reduce the heat by 25 degrees F since I bake them on convection and let the oven reheat for 5 minutes before I put the next sheet of cookies in. My oven allows me to cook three sheets successfully at one time for 18 minutes, but the number of sheet pans of cookies you can bake at once and the amount of time you bake them for depends on your oven. I also make the Classic Ginger cookie on Page 125 during the holidays. I highly recommend Flavor Flours and any of her other books that strike your fancy.
Top reviews from other countries
Jean Schoenfelder
Everything turns out fantastic and no one ever knows it is gluten free
Reviewed in Canada on September 26, 2016Zwergenapfel
Tolle Ideen, leider viel zu viel Fett
Reviewed in Germany on July 21, 2015