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I don’t know anything about Cheryl Day but her name got positive reviews when I brought it up online. When I think about Southern food, I think comfort food, flavor and food that I normally want more of. There are some Southern dishes that I could do without but most of them, don’t give me a sliver, I want a full piece!
I noticed upon opening this cookbook that not all the recipes have pictures which is not good BUT this cookbook is packed FULL of recipes. I mean packed! So packed, that it does one of the things that I don’t like in a cookbook: the recipes flow across pages. I know that this is probably my own pet peeve but I don’t like it when a recipe flows over onto the next page and then, this behavior continues and continues …..page after page. It’s not that the recipe flows onto the back page but that a recipe flows onto the page beside it. Anyway, back to this cookbook.
There is plenty of variety in this cookbook and the illustrations are beautiful. Cheryl organized this book to include an introduction, Southern baking rules, baking tools and equipment, hot breads and crackers, coffee cakes, loafs and Bundt cakes, muffins and scones, slow breads (breads that need time to rise), gathering cakes, layer cakes and cupcakes, pies, cookies, brownies and bars, grits and grains, custards, puddings and cobblers, jams and preserves, and basics. This is baking, there is nothing but special goodies in here. This is one thick book to contain nothing but sweet goodness. I’m pretty excited to take this all in as I’m not much of a sweet baker.
I got to know Cheryl in the introduction and this book is amazing. I never even thought about making crackers, who makes crackers? There is a recipe for buttermilk crackers, benne crackers, sea salt crackers and crispy cheese crackers, I’ve never even thought about making crackers, for the Keebler Elves make them for me but after seeing this recipe, I think I could try it as they look really good and they keep in the freezer up to a month! There’s even a recipe for Red, White, and Blue Muffins, now doesn’t that sound like something fun to make. I’m not a fan of fruitcake but Boozy Fruitcake…..I think a few people might be willing to at least try that one. What about Strawberries and Cream Cake? Oh, yum! Now, there is Sweet Potato Pie but Peach Lattice Pie, Blueberry Icebox Pie, and Chocolate Chess Pie, I’m liking the sounds of them. There are recipes for making jams, marmalade, apple butter, salted caramel sauce, brown butter, and a variety of other butters too.
With each recipe, there is a paragraph about the recipe, how many the recipe will serve, an ingredients list, and step-by-step instructions. No nutritional information is given nor do you get how much the whole recipe yields. There are some pictures of the recipes included in this book but like I said, not every recipe. The ones that you do get, look fresh and authentic. There are some pictures where the food looks very realistic. Where everything isn’t all perfect, where there are crumbs lying next to the finished dish, where the nuts have fallen off the muffins, and the food hasn’t been polished to shine. These pictures tell me that this book has recipes that I can attempt. With so many recipes inside the pages of this book, I’m bound to find something I can create. What a gem!
