Review: MUFFINS & SCONES are WONDERFUL!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 12 13, 2013
This book has all kinds of recipes from muffins and scones to breakfast casseroles. The muffins? Wow, a number of variations on much-loved flavors like pumpkin (with cranberries--good idea!) to savory muffins flavored with bacon and a Southwestern twist. The scones are equally inventive but appealing. Many good flavors, with glazes or homemade lemon curd or a fast "clotted cream" to go with. For these recipes alone, I'd recommend this book.I like to entertain with breakfast casseroles for brunch, but here, I was less impressed. A lot of the recipes rely on prepared ingredients such as mushroom soup and biscuit mix or canned biscuit dough. Unfortunately, these ingredients over the last number of years have gotten so synthetic and mediocre, I hesitate to use them anymore. (A friend remarked after one recipe using biscuit mix "You know, anything with this mix becomes just...averaged out." I think that's the problem. Something in commercially prepared baking mixes, crusts and soups just doesn't cut it anymore.)Having said that, it's still possible to use the ideas for the casseroles with adjustments if you object to canned soups. For the biscuit mix, sometimes I substitute a gluten free biscuit mix that is surprisingly tasty and gets around the "I don't eat wheat" trend happening, all in one swoop. The bottom line is, if you like what's in these recipes, you're good to go. For me, I simply edit them (turkey sausage I make myself for commercial breakfast sausage, for example. It's ground turkey dark meat with a seasoning mix for sausage. Lower fat and couldn't be easier. And I mentioned the gluten-free biscuit mix.)One recipe is really great however; that's the "sweet and savory breakfast casserole." It has apples, cheese and bacon. Yes, it uses biscuit mix, but the flavor of apples, cheese and bacon in an egg-biscuit casserole is delicious.I wouldn't diss this book just for the convenience foods--we all use some of them from time to time. And the muffins are really wonderful (raspberry lemon, another winner.)  And the scones are not just breakfasty--you could make some of these up for tea time or a light dinner, or gifts. They are really wonderful, too.