One Girl Cookies: Recipes for Cakes, Cupcakes, Whoopie Pies, and Cookies from Brooklyn's Beloved Bakery [Format Kindle]

Expect good results from this pretty book with many charming and quaint photographs. The recipes are straightforward with simple instructions and readily available ingredients.

The book contains intriguing and special recipes, i.e. Buttermilk Tea Cookies, Sicilian Frozen Trifle, etc., as well as American recipes both "common" (apple pie) and "uncommon" (whoopie pies), and also Italian desserts like a delightful Lemon Olive Oil cake (quick and easy to make). The book does not contain some of the more complex and laborious French recipes such as brioche and croissants, but there are other good bakery cookbooks (Flour and Tartine) for those recipes. I was skeptical about the claim of "the best" chocolate cupcake but it really is the best. The crumb is moist and delicate. The taste is divine. (Used Valhrona Dutch cocoa powder with Trader Joes's chocolate chips and Fage Greek yogurt.) Both the chocolate lover and non-chocolate lover thought the cupcakes were superb. And, the cupcakes were all eaten before any got frosted.

My one complaint concerns ingredient measurements. No weights are given for ingredients, and the method for flour measurement (lightly spooned or dip and sweep) is not specified, so one cannot convert cups to weight. At first, I used the dip and sweep method but my biscuits came out extremely dry. (1 cup bleached all-purpose flour equals 145 grams for dip and sweep vs 121 grams for lightly spooned. This 20% extra flour makes quite a difference in the final product.) Later, I converted my weight to the spoon and sweep method and had consistently good results for the Vanilla Cupcakes, Chocolate Cupcakes, Lemon Oil Cake, Chocolate Chip Pistachio Cake, Pineapple Upside-Down Cake and Apple Pie. The author, David Crofton, confirmed via telephone message that the spoon and sweep method should be used.

I did modify one recipe. Pre-baked the bottom crust for the apple pie, and added some flour to the apple filling to avoid soggy bottom for the second day. And although side by side, the apple pie made from the recipe in Flour won, it was a very close call. Still, the One Girl apple pie recipe was top-notch.

This is a lovely book with good tasting (along with the fantastic Chocolate Cupcakes) home baked recipes accompanied with many photographs. The book even shows and encourages you to prettily package and present the final product.

You will be happy with this book.

Recommendation: For everyone, but especially for non-bakers, hesitant bakers, and occasional bakers. A good no-fuss, go-to book.

PS. Have made the crust for the pumpkin pie and will write up the results.

Update: 6 June 2012

The Pumpkin Pie was a good variation, where the pepitas added a nice crunch, but the pie was just as tasty without them.

Have also made the Buttermilk Tea Cookies, Chocolate Whoopie Pies with Peppermint Filling, and the Rich Chocolate Cake. Again, everything was delicious and easy to make. Instead of making the Chocolate Cake in a 10 inch cake pan, divided it into two 7 inch cake pans. Cut both cakes in half horizontally and filled them with apricot jam and coffee buttercream (Chang's Flour cookbook) on the first and third layer and espresso ganache (Desaulniers's Death by Chocolate cookbook) on the second layer. Then, coated the top and sides with the espresso ganache, refrigerated for  hour and then covered the sides with buttercream and piped stars along the top and bottom edges. The cake, as with most layered and filled cakes, tasted the best the day after assembly. A big hit. (See picture above.) Would absolutely use this chocolate cake with other fillings and frostings.

Without hesitation, would still recommend this book.

Update: 10 June 2012

Tried the Strawberry Rhubarb Pie with Spice Oat Crumble. Although, my household really likes ginger in both sweet and savory dishes, the ginger in the Spice Oat Crumble met with strong disapproval. In fact, ended up taking the crumble off the pie. Would make the pie again but without the ground ginger and crystallized ginger.

I bought this cookbook after checking it out from the library, so I knew what I was getting. However, I hadn't actually baked any of the recipes. After now making two, I am rather disappointed. First, I made the Lemon Olive Oil cake, which sounded lovely. She has you sprinkle turbinado sugar on top, but this burnt, so it ended up looking like there were black specs on it. The second recipe I tried was the graham crackers. The recipe was a bit confusing, but even so, mine ended up looking nothing like the picture. She shows a picture of a very dark cracker that looks like it has molasses in it. I even used dark brown sugar, instead of the light it called for, and mine still came out very pale. The dough was impossible to roll out (between parchment paper) and stuck to the paper. It ended up being a messy, frustrating experience. And then, they tasted very boring -- worse than store bought! So I won't give up, but so far, the recipes do not live up to the pictures.

This is a really fun cookbook. I've enjoy baking several of the recipes and all have been wonderful. I especially love the raspberry oatmeal bars. The recipes are super easy to follow and remind me of the old fashioned cooking my mother used to do when I was a kid.