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Learn to COOK - Baking with Agave Nectar: Over 100 Recipes Using Nature's Ultimate Sweetener
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List Price: $15.95
Our Price: $10.85
Your Save: $ 5.10 ( 32% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Celestial Arts
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.815
EAN: 9781587613210
ISBN: 1587613212
Label: Celestial Arts
Manufacturer: Celestial Arts
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 134
Publication Date: 2008-03
Publisher: Celestial Arts
Studio: Celestial Arts
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Editorial Reviews:
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Even before its health benefits were being touted on Oprah's daytime show, agave nectar was finding fans among dessert lovers seeking to reduce or eliminate processed sugar in their diets. In BAKING WITH AGAVE NECTAR, natural foods chef Ania Catalano shows how to creatively integrate this up-and-coming natural sugar substitute into every sweet tooth's repertoire through a variety of delectable recipes. From breakfast goodies (Pumpkin Muffins, Stuffed French Toast) to cookies (Chewy Double Chocolate Meringue) to desserts (Bread Pudding Soufflés with Bourbon Sauce, Pear Frangipane Tart), Catalano makes agave nectar accessible and appealing to health-conscious bakers of all levels.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Disaster results
Comment: I was extremely excited to find this book. I use agave nectar in my coffee, in dressings and in sauces and I was thrilled at the possibility of being able to bake with it. I ordered the book and read it from cover to cover. I then set to spend over $150 on ingredients listed in the book. I ordered the sprouted flours from one store, the oat and barley flours and other items from an amazon seller, the essences and dried fruits from another store and I patiently waited for everything to arrive, giddy at the thought that I will bake these wonderful bars, cookies and cakes.
Well, I first tried the zucchini drops. Inedible. My four year old spit it out, my 10 year old said there were awful and my husband put it down after one bite. In retrospect I think it was the sprouted flour, which gives an unbearable vegetable taste to everything you put it in. It's the first desert that I had to throw away in 20 years of baking. I thought it was just bad luck and the next day I tried the coconut bars. How can something which includes coconut, chocolate and walnuts not turn out good? I'll spare you the details but this was the second desert of my life who ended up in the trash can. I didn't even dare to try it on my family anymore. Using the 9x13 pan that the author suggested the crust ended up being a 1mm deep crumbly, vegetable-tasting mess and the filling didn't taste any better.
In my house, we eat healthy and we love agave nectar. But something is seriously wrong with these recipes. I should have paid more attention to the fact that some of the 5 star reviewers did not yet try the book but some of the lower rating reviewers had experiences similar with mine. Oh well, I'm now turning to the other book I bought along with this one, "Sugar-free and fruit sweet" by Janice Feuer and hope to have better luck with it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: I wish the recipes came with nutritional and ingredient substitution information.
Comment: I'm glad this book has the "search inside" feature so you can see what you're buying before you order it. The front matter includes interesting information about Agave Nectar, which I've enjoyed for the past year or so. I wish Ania Catalano had included nutritional information (like the number of calories and carbohydrates per serving) with her recipes. While many of the recipes look great, it's hard to know whether they are really "healthy" for someone who is diabetic and needs to loose weight. Also, I'd like to know what I could use instead of some of the harder to locate ingredients. While she does provide places where at least some of the ingredients can be ordered, sometimes you want to be able to make something with what's readily available. (This is especially true when you live overseas.) As a whole, the price of the book seems reasonable.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Recipes look good
Comment: I am a French pastry chef and my mother, who lives with us, was recently diagnosed with diabetes. I just received this book and am looking forward to trying some of these recipes. I have never baked with some of the ingredients listed in this book....sprouted spelt flour, agave nectar, agar flakes, silken tofu, soy milk powder, and arrowroot powder are all new to me. I'd like to research these ingredients to better understand their properties....before I start baking. Overall the recipes look relatively simple and there are photographs throughout the book. I hope my attempts at these recipes will have better results than some of the other reviewers have noted.
Customer Rating:
Summary: I'm new to agave nectar ...
Comment: ...and I needed a book to help me use it when baking. The recipes are easy to follow. I've only made a few and I love this cookbook! My husband hasn't noticed a difference in the taste. He doesn't know I've stopped using sugar. Can't wait to try the brownies tonight! There are recipes for candies, frostings and ice creams, too! Definitely a great buy.
Customer Rating:
Summary: I'm head over heels!
Comment: In Baking with Agave Nectar Ania Catalano presents over 100 recipes for using this intense sweetener, many of which are designed to be healthy in other ways, too. These recipes use whole grains, for example---pie crusts often involve oat flour, barley flour, whole wheat pastry flour, etc. Fruit substitutes for butter in some recipes, providing moisture and structure to cupcakes and the like. While some recipes use dairy (such as a banana cream pie that has whipped cream folded into a custard), others are vegan, such as a coconut custard pie made with tofu, of all things.
Ms. Catalano makes the assumption that if you're switching to agave, you're doing it because you want to be healthier in general. What amazes me, however, is the fact that she manages to do this without compromising the deliciousness of her recipes. In fact, these recipes are so utterly amazing that I wouldn't hesitate to make something from this book instead of a similar recipe from a non-healthy book, even if I weren't trying to be healthy in my eating.
The directions in this book are easy to follow, and the recipes are clear and easy to read. he only problem I encountered at all is one that's tough to avoid when dealing with whole grains: some baked goods lack a certain amount of structural integrity. One pie crust we made tended to fall apart pretty easily. Similarly, the chocolate chip cookies we made from this book tended to fall apart. However, I can virtually guarantee that once you taste a bite of either, you simply won't care about structure!
The coconut custard pie was the dish that most amazed me. The idea of a coconut custard pie based on tofu instead of dairy seemed dubious at best. Yet it was SO delicious that I could hardly stop eating it.
The banana daiquiri cupcakes were a similar shock. We thought they came out so well that we risked bringing them to a friend's retirement-from-the-army picnic. The cupcakes were so good that I don't think a single person guessed they were healthy, and we got a ton of compliments on them. They disappeared VERY quickly.
If you're looking for a way to eat more healthfully but can't give up your sweets, I highly recommend Ania Catalano's Baking with Agave Nectar. You might not want to go back to regular desserts by the time you're done!
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