Swedish Cookies, Tarts, and Pies

Very nice book for those who like European flavors. A lot of the recipes are in other books, yes, but I am always looking for the ones I don't have and my rule is if there are three or four new ones that I really want, it's worth it.It is a book for bakers with some experience . some recipes are complicated.This book has beautiful pictures and each picture has the name of the recipe next to the item , which makes it easy to identify. None of this left to right stuff.... It has tutorials for almost everything, with pictures I love that.Few of the ingredients are perhaps puzzling. One of them is "wheat flour". which leads you to think of whole wheat flour . But if you examine the recipes and notice that all say the same then you realize that it has to be what we know as plain AP flour . Europeans have all kinds of flours , and their AP flour is not the same as ours either . I believe that we can approximate by mixing cake flour and AP flour. Have to experiment .I have used Swiss recipes with our flour and White Lilly flour with success. (available on line for those of us in the north) also on America's test kitchens they comment on mixing flours . I have baked some cakes with AP flour and found them to be just a little more dense.The other ingredient is " ammonium carbonate " . In other recipes they use baking powder and baking soda. Well, further down in the book they remembered to explain (page 222 , in cinnamon loaves ) it is " bakers ammonia " , another baking powder.I should have guessed it. I noticed that most everything uses almond paste and there is a recipe on how to make it which I think is unrealistic for us. I shall use the store bought one. And also Jan recommends few other ingredients that are hard to get, like a certain brand chocolate and nuts but, the worst thing that can happen is that it won't taste as good as his...

This book have everything you can think of, and yes, this is the products I had as a kid, and some have been improved.If you are an avid baker this is the book for you, if not, and want to be, this is a good book to start reading the recipes and understand the process. To make a great pastry is not mixing all the ingredients together it is a process and it has steps. Next time you go to a bakery understand that you pay for a trade that has nearly diminished due to the supermarkets short cuts in this field and dumped the prices because everything is machine made and full of preservatives you can't pronounce. As I have always said, if you can't pronounce it, you should probably not eat it.

Love everything about this authors books

Jan Hedh is an exquisite, perfectionist baking artist who trained as a master pastry chef all over Europe. The recipes are impressive and easy to follow, with personal intros to each. The photography is absolutely extraordinary! This book could be easily intimidating, even to the experienced baker. But I suggest that everybody settle down a little, and give his books a second look. Yeah, some of the translation is a bit rough, but I wouldn't characterize anything as rough enough to be "absurd", as one customer review I read. Many recipe's even in this country now call for 2 or 2-1/2 tablespoons of something or other to be added to a full cup or more. He relates most of the recipes to Sweden, or to a variety of other countries in addition, usually clarifying the "foreign" names. But because he was trained also in France, Germany, Switzerland and Austria, as well as Denmark and Sweden, it shouldn't be a surprise, and certainly not a deal breaker, if some of the recipes are from or influenced by those other countries' cuisines. If you look at a map of Europe, it is very easy to understand how "gastronomic fusion" takes place. Besides, the Swedes are some of the most gregarious, fun-loving and accepting people on earth, and they don't easily get into a snit, arguing over where a recipe originated. My only regret is that the Swedish names for the recipes are not always clarified, just translated. This is my third book by Jan Hedh, with three more on the way! I wholeheartedly recommend Jan Hedh's books to anyone interested in moving up, up, up in their baking skills. You won't be sorry, I promise!

Jan Hedh a truly great treasure when it comes to all apects of baking. His other books are as great as this one. Does require one knows about basic ingredients usage.

Granted I was all in mostly for the cookies (top billing in title), and that’s all I’ve attempted, I’d recommend this book for bakers with a good sense of humor and low expectations. A close reading of the recipes reveals frequent omissions and perilous typos, making this a great gift for the puzzle lover in your life. Don’t mind having a good laugh when your carefully measured ingredients yield a loose pile of damp sand you somehow are expected to roll out? Love guessing how long to leave it in the freezer, or what to do with those ingredients that aren’t included in the steps? OK, to be fair, when the recipes do work or you figure out what the editors missed, the results are good. But yeah, if you’re the literal recipe follower the editing and testing this book got guarantees some fun tricks and traps.

so glad I made this purchase, it brought back lots of old familiar baking. Good for beginners to experienced cooks.