Flavor Flours: A New Way to Bake with Teff, Buckwheat, Sorghum, Other Whole & Ancient Grains, Nuts & Non-Wheat Flours Hardcover – October 28, 2014

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?

Quickly:The good - a few basic recipes to experiment with, a sponge cake recipe for every flour presented, good overview of each flour at chapter start, nice photos and appealing recipes, thorough guidance in introduction and within each recipe, doesn't require all-purpose flour mixThe bad - larger emphasis than some might prefer on nuts and cream cheese, not all oat brands are gluten-free, no index in kindle version, does not give details on problem-solving performed by author for specific flours, weight measurements are only for (most) dry ingredientsLonger:I have a few friends who are gluten-free, so I am always looking for new recipes to try that everyone can enjoy instead of having to bake them something "special" that doesn't turn out as well as the wheat-full item I make. All these recipes are gluten-free (assuming you use gluten-free oats), but many are not nut-free. In case that's something you worry about, a rough estimate is that about 60 of these recipes contain nuts, which is roughly half of all the recipes. Also, cream cheese is used as a glue for quite a few recipes, serving a purpose similar to xantham gum, which could be a problem for dairy-free or cream-cheese-disliking people.Alice Medrich's recipe for Flourless Chocolate Cake is my go-to recipe for delicious, gluten-free chocolate dessert, so I figured she would have some good ideas. I absolutely love the fact that her first step in creating these recipes was to bake a génoise with every single flour independently, and observe how each flour behaved differently, and we get the perfected recipes here. I do wish that she had not chosen to leave out the details of testing and problem-solving for each of the flours. I feel like that could have made this book exceptional and the foremost source for baking with a single grain. While it's unfortunate that I will have to muddle through without knowing the details of what she's already tried and failed, I am reasonably happy with what is presented here. I really like not having to make an all-purpose gluten-free flour mix, so I am happy to follow Alice's lead in using just one or two flours in one recipe. It's exciting to learn more about the individual flavor of each grain.This book is laid out by flours, rather than by baked-good type. I am not sure why, but there does not appear to be an index in the kindle version. There should be a general and flour-based index (there is in the print version) that comes after the acknowledgements, but my kindle version just has conversion charts and an about the author. Across all the flours, there are 3 biscuit recipes, 3 cobbler recipes, 4 brownie recipes, ~51 cake recipes (in part because there is a génoise recipe for each flour), 11 frosting/glaze recipes, 39 cookie recipes, 11 tart recipes, 7 pudding recipes, 3 cracker recipes, a "general guideline" recipe for pancakes, waffles and crepes, as well as some other miscellaneous recipes (scones, soufflé, beignets). There is no recipe list at the beginning of each chapter, so it might be a bit hard to find what you are looking for in the kindle version.At the beginning of each chapter, Alice tells us what the flavor affinities are for each flour, how to obtain it, and gives a brief history and description - plus a photo. One thing that I've noticed in reading through these recipes is that a substantial proportion of these recipes (especially the cookies, scones, tarts, and biscuits) require either a longish (but unattended) wait time, either prior to baking or after baking but before eating. There is roughly one photo to go along with every two or three recipes. Each recipe gives the volume measurements; only the flours, sugar, butter, and nuts/dry fruit also have a weight measurement. This is a bit odd since such an emphasis is placed on having exactly the perfect level of hydration in the batter, yet all liquid ingredients and also spices, yeast, salt, and fruit are left to be measured out with potentially lower precision than the flour.The reason I still like this book, despite my misgivings, is that there are some really standout recipes with beautiful photos and there do not appear to be any obvious problems with recipe editing or measurements (none that I've caught anyways). I'm excited to try the lemon tart (corn flour), butterscotch pudding (rice flour), poppy seed pound cake (oat/rice flour), and sorghum layer cake with walnut praline buttercream (sorghum/rice). Alice writes her recipes and guidance very carefully here and I've never made a flop from any of her cookbooks, so I expect the trend will continue, now with gluten-free deliciousness.

I like this book so much I have bought several copies now for my friends who are celiac or just avoid gluten.

I ordered a cookbook that was $21.83, but AMAZON delivery brought a book, same title, but costing over $57.00. I noticed the difference, and when the book arrived that I had originally ordered for $21.83, I returned the $57.00+ book immediately, as it was intended as a gift. Both books were exactly alike.

Things were going so well with this cookbook. The chocolate chip cookie recipe is my go to, as is the apple crumble. Numerous recipes in this book are perfect and taste amazing.But then something happened. I made the chocolate cake (actually, to be honest, my 12 year old tried to make me the chocolate cake) and disaster struck. The cake sunk in the middle. I thought something must have gone wrong, was something missed? Was the oven not hot enough? What could it be?! I tried the recipe again (for real this time, it was me) and it sunk again! I took a deep breath and a good nights rest, woke up the next day and tried for the third time and again! It sunk! So, I’m taking one star off, because for as great as this book is, everyone needs chocolate cake (and to be fair, the taste was fine, we made it into a trifle and moved on with our sugar filled lives).

I think I was spoiled by reading some wonderful other books on using alternative flours first, namely My Paleo Patisserie, Sweet Laurel, Alternative Baker, The Natural Baker, Clean Cakes.This book felt so basic and uninspired. The recipes are very much back to basics: plain sponges, chocolate sheet cakes, shortbread, etc, with not much inspiration provided for flavouring, filling, or topping. Perhaps the author expects the recipes to just serve as templates, I don’t know. The photos aren’t all very inviting either: the Date-Nut cake on page 244 (on the kindle edition) is positively repellent. I’m also disappointed that, a) the majority of the cakes use xanthum gum (which doesn’t appear in any of the before mentioned books), and b) are either baked in bundt tins or layer cake tins, which leads me to believe that they won’t rise very well. Again, this is not something I encountered in the other books, all of which present beautifully lofty cakes in their recipes (so it must be possible!). I’m also put off by the fact that butter is only used when in the form of clarified butter or ghee, which is explained as being necessary because the water content in regular butter can interfere with the cake’s rise. Yet another thing not mentioned in any other book or blog!!!Really, I suppose I expected more from such a prestigious pastry chef. I expected to be excited, wowed, inspired. Instead, there’s barely a couple of recipes that I have half-heartedly bookmarked (and probably won’t make). The author is not gluten free herself, and she presents this as a plus, that she didn’t come to the project trying to create gluten free bakes, but just wanted to highlight the various flour flavours. But I think it works against her; she’s not used to gluten free baking, and so perhaps lacks the experience that some of the other gluten free pastry chefs have acquired.

My first impression after looking through this book was, "wow, this author has thought of everything." I read each page, getting more excited as I went through the book. If, like me, you like to use different flours and like making things from scratch, this is the book for you. The author has painstakingly done the work to bring us stunning desserts and treats, all using alternative flours. I can't wait to try the recipes. They look clearly written, and I love how the author describes each treat, bringing them to life for the reader. I really appreciate all the extra information in the book, such as tips and knowledge that help in executing the recipe. The photos are gorgeous and very inspiring. My only problem is what recipe to try first! I will come back to this review once I've made a few recipes, but for now, I'm going to check out the author's other books; I haven't been this excited about a cookbook ever, and I probably own over 100 cookbooks.

Very intereresting book which arrived quite promptly. I am looking forward to trying out the recipes as I am trying to eliminate modern wheat flour from my diet. I have bought some buckwheat and some coconut flour and already use "cornflour" (we would call it cornmeal/polenta and what we know as cornflour Americans call cornstarch). Once you become familiar with American terminology this book presents some innovative solutions to wheat free baking. Bonus - although the author is American she believes in using weight rather than cup volume measurements so there's no confusion for us on this side of the Pond in using her recipes. I have her biscuit(cookies) book, "Chewy, Gooey, Crispy, Crunchy" as well and everything I've made from that has tasted delicious.

I adore the recipes in this, the brownies are as good as any I've had. It's not exactly what I was expecting as the different flours are really for flavor, rice flour makes up the bulk. Still would be a top recommendation for anyone looking for delicious gluten free recipes.

Stellar recipes without wheat created by an experienced pastry chef. My family loved the Yoghurt tart, the oat genoise was so good I made two, it outclasses any wheat sponge I have eaten. I would say some of the recipes can be a bit fiddly, but well worth it. The textures and flavours you can achieve will surprise you!This is a utility book with basic recipes and techniques for you to create any kind of dessert you fancy.