Review: Perfect recipes for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and other holidays
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 09 29, 2013
A great recipe book for anyone who wants to impress their family, friends, co-workers  (or themselves!) with delicious desserts. There's a lot to like about it. Here are my five reasons for giving it five stars:1) An excellent introduction to the whole process of cooking caramel for those who are new to this delicious endeavor. Dennis Waller describes all the necessary equipment and provides helpful tips in his easy-to-read and easy-to-follow introduction.2) All recipes follow the same format - and that's excellent because it helps those of us who have not done much with caramel before figure out what the main steps are in ALL caramel recipes. The same format makes these recipes easy to follow, thus, there's less likelihood of messing up.3) I love the idea of adding some variety to the recipes, and Dennis Waller provides suggestions and options of what to change and how to change it. Love the idea of using spiced rum and Kahlua instead of vanilla! I'll just have to make sure I don't test-taste too much of either while cooking.4) An excellent variety of recipes for different occasions, from more traditional to experimental.  Pumpkin Spice Caramel (and its Apple Spice version) and Spiced Pumpkin Fudge sound perfect for fall celebrations. Pecan Praline Caramel and Grandma Stella's Caramel would be great for the holiday season. The ones I'd like to try first are Spicy Chocolate Caramel made with Cayenne and Paprika peppers, Amaretto Almond Caramel, Bourbon Chocolate Pecan Caramel, and Chocolate Mint Fudge.5) Pecan Pralines made with dried fruit deserve their own star!  Who wouldn't want to have dried mango, papaya, dates,  shredded coconut, or pineapple in their dessert. That will make it healthy, too. The five food groups, lots of fruit, and all that, right?