Best Quick Breads

November 6, 2000
In her no-fuss, straightforward style, Hensperger (The Bread Bible, etc.) expertly lays out the basics for making quick breads in this exhaustive, offbeat book. She offers 150 recipes in all: 100 from her now out-of-print The Art of Quick Breads and 50 brand new. Classic loaves, such as Lemon-Poppy Seed Bread, appear alongside innovative items like Fresh Orange-Oatmeal Bread and Amaretto Nut Bead. Standout muffins include Rye Muffins with Orange and Fennel, Zucchini-Basil Baby Cakes and Orange Chocolate Chip Muffins. Gingerbreads are redolent with spices and unusual ingredients such as stout and peaches. This is not to imply that all of Hensperger's recipes rely on wacky ingredient combinations. She includes plenty of staid recipes like Fresh Apple Coffee Cake and Chicken-and-Mushroom-Filled Cr pes with b chamel. But just as Hensperger expands the definition of quick breads to include pancakes, cr pes, dumplings and even latkes, she also enlarges the pool of potential quick bread ingredients to incorporate some new tastes: Autumn Persimmon Pancakes, Graham Popovers, and Soda Bread with Caraway and Drambuie. The entries sometimes border on the unorthodox (Chinatown Green Onion Cakes; Butternut Squash Gnocchi with Sage Butter), but with recipes this concise and inviting, readers are unlikely to complain.

August 9, 2000
Hensperger's smaller quick breads book includes 100 recipes from her earlier Art of Quick Breads, now out of print, as well as 50 new ones. In addition to quick loaves, both sweet and savory, there are waffles, dumplings, biscuits, popovers, and a variety of other easy baked goods, along with some tasty accompaniments, such as the Fruit Salsa for her Hopi Blue Corn Hotcakes. For most collections.

Copyright 2000 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2000
Electronically controlled bread machines made a big splash when first introduced, and they seemed destined to be as ubiquitous as the Cuisinart. But many home bakers lost interest quickly when they tired of the same loaves popping out of the machines each day. Hensperger isn't so quick to dismiss these kitchen devices, and she insists that with a thoughtful, professional approach, bread machines can both save labor and provide more bread varieties than expected. Hensperger analyzes these machines and explains how different models work. Most important, she shows how to vary the machine's processes to take greatest advantage of its labor savings and yet produce loaves of varying shape, flavor, and texture. In many cases, recipes call for removing the kneaded dough from the machine for some manual shaping and for baking in a conventional oven. Anyone who loves bread but has let one of these machines gather dust will find rejuvenated inspiration from the possibilities this book offers. ((Reviewed August 2000))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2000, American Library Association.)