The Complete Muffin Cookbook: The Ultimate Guide to Making Great Muffins

Review of The Complete Muffin Cookbook by Gloria AmbrosiaBased on my experiences baking four muffin recipes from this cookbook, I recommend it highly, for the following reasons: Easy to follow format. This cookbook takes advantage of modern computer graphics capabilities to present each recipe in the form of a table, with each different category of information enclosed in its own box and that box assigned to a particular space on the page. Each category of information also comes to us in its own font and typeface to make it stand out further. Specifically, in the upper left hand corner, printed in bold block letters, we are given the muffin yield, e.g. “12 muffins.” Underneath the yield, the ingredients are listed in a small sans serif typeface. They have been subdivided into up to four categories for us, each with its own box: “Dry Ingredients,” “Wet Ingredients,” “Goodies,” and “Toppings.” In contrast to the sans serif letters used on the left-hand side of the page, all the information on the right-hand side of the page is presented in serif letters. To the right of the muffin yield box, at the top of the page, a large box is devoted entirely to the recipe title which is presented in large white letters against a lt. brown background. In a box directly underneath the title are to be found comments from the cookbook author in brown italics. Underneath the comments section in another box, we find the instructions. Each instruction is numbered using big brown Arabic numerals and clearly separated by line spaces from the one that comes before it and the one that comes after it. This layout makes this cookbook much easier to use than most. A baker is of necessity always going back and forth between the cookbook he/she is using and his/her work table. With most cookbooks, the different types of information tend to be presented in big blocks of text using the same font and typeface, making it difficult for the cook to find the place in the recipe where he/she last left off whenever the cook consults the cookbook. In contrast, with each category of information clearly delineated and assigned its own space in Gloria Ambrosia’s muffin cookbook, the cook can quickly access any part of the recipe. I wish that all cookbooks were this easy to use. Healthier ingredients. Whole grains. The author Ambrosia combines whole grain flours (e.g., whole wheat, buckwheat, barley) with white flour to create tastier, more nutritious muffins. Alternative sweeteners. Ambrosia tends to shy away from using white sugar as a sweetener, replacing it with brown sugar, for example, or maple sugar, or honey, or the sugar contained in fruit, all of which are better for us. A case in point, I made her “Blue Morning Muffins,” and they were the best blueberry muffins that I have ever tasted, although they contained no sugar or other formal sweetener at all. They were sweetened instead by applesauce, all-fruit blueberry jam, fresh blueberries, and coconut. Since I have to watch my carbs, the applesauce and coconut that I used were unsweetened varieties, and the muffins were still more than sweet enough for my taste. I computed the carbs and they came to about 32 grams per muffin, which is not unreasonable. More fiber. It is now generally understood that we need more fiber in our diets, and the use of whole grains and fruit in these recipes increases the fiber count. I computed the fibers for the recipe just described and they came to about 6 grams of fiber per muffin, which is extremely good. Unique recipes. Many of these recipes use ingredients that I have not seen used in muffins before, and I am left with the impression that Ambrosia developed these recipes herself, and did not simply copy them from existing recipe books as is so often the case. The Taste. I have used four of these muffin recipes so far, and in each case, the resulting muffins were “to die for.” What more can you ask for in a muffin? Moreover, the muffins stayed moist and did not lose their flavor over time. Minor Downside. There is one minor “fly in the batter,” so to speak. Most of these muffin recipes are supposed to yield 12 muffins, but with the “Blue Morning Muffins,” filling my muffin cups to the brim, I got 16, and with another recipe 18. I checked and Ambrosia states that her recipes call for 3” muffin cups. I measured mine and found out that they come to only 2.5” in diameter. I consulted a home economist and found out that 2.5” is still the standard size; I then went to Amazon and discovered that 3” muffin cups are not easy to come by and do not plan on purchasing any at this time. Luckily, I have a 6-cup muffin tin that I can use for any “overflow” batter when baking from this cookbook, and will set that up alongside my 12-cup muffin tin each time, just in case I need it. I do not mind this inconvenience and smaller muffins are actually better for me because that means fewer carbs per muffin. However, prospective buyers of this cookbook should be made aware of this discrepancy.

I had high hopes for this cookbook. There's a great variety to the recipes and some wonderfully creative flavor combinations. And, to the author's credit, she places a heavy emphasis on whole grains and low-fat ingredients. However, I found most of the recipes impractical to use. My biggest problem was the author's penchant for using uncommon flours. I'm a fairly experienced baker, and at any time I have around a dozen different kinds of flour in my pantry. Nevertheless, I was rarely able to make a recipe in this book without either buying a new (and usually expensive) bag of flour or making a substitution. There is a guide to different flours at the front of the book which makes substitution a little easier, but the descriptions are a bit vague, and there are few solid conversion tools to help the reader figure out, say, how much whole wheat four to substitute for 2/3 of a cup of brown rice flour. I even understand the author's rationale here--a variety of whole grain flours make for a healthier diet overall. But the sheer range of them used throughout the book seems out of touch with the realities of the average home pantry.There are also conspicuous editing flaws in the book. For example, the Apricot Sesame recipe simply doesn't include a cooking time. This isn't a real problem if you've made enough muffins to guess how long they should stay in the oven, but errors like these make one wonder if there are more serious and harder to spot mistakes in the ingredients or proportions.None of this would be a problem if the muffins were particularly good, but I made at least 10 recipes out of this book, and they were all rather bland. Again, I don't expect muffins designed to be healthy to taste like bakery muffins with a ton of fat and sugar, but I've found much tastier low-fat and whole grain recipes elsewhere. Overall, I'll give the author points for her creativity and nutritional ethos, but the execution falls flat.

Before purchasing, I borrowed this from my library. Half-way through the book, I had at least ten recipes flagged to try. That's when I ordered it. Gloria's recipes are made with a combination of tasty and nutritious flours - wheat pastry, barley, brown rice, buckwheat, oat, corn... She sweetens a lot of her muffins with honey, molasses and fruit purees, instead of sugar. I have made the Better Banana Nut Bran Muffins and Blueberry Blintz Muffins (baked them for half the recommend time in a mini-muffin tin). Both types were moist and delicious. My two-year old toddlers devoured the muffins within two days of baking (so much for freezing left-over muffins). I already started recommending this book to friends and family. I'm looking forward to baking my next batch of muffins, I just need to decide which ones (they all sound amazing).If you are looking for a white flour and sugar standard muffin book, then this one is definitely not for you. But, if you try one of the above muffins, I'm sure you will switch to using the whole wheat flours and delicate combinations of ingredients that is in this book.

Just got this muffin cookbook in the mail and I love the way it's arranged. Easy to read recipes, all annotated, clear instructions, and lots of variety in the ingredients. They all look so doable with ingredients I have right in my kitchen. None appear greasy or hugely fattening, yet they look tempting and make me want to head for the kitchen. Muffins sometimes just fill the bill for something sweet (but not too), filling and just enough for a healthy snack like in the middle of the afternoon with a glass of milk. I like to keep 'em in the freezer and zap for 30 seconds in the microwave. Perfect. This book looks like a winner. Thanks!

I bought 2. The family bakerslike the books a lot.

Nothing in book description was said about using whole wheat flour in almost all the recipes.For health reasons, I don’t bake with whole wheat flour. I was very disappointed. I’ve already given the book away

I tried 3 recipes from this book, all 3 were terrible in my opinion and I'm not a novice baker, followed the recipes to a "T" and had high hopes considering the reviews but.... here are the 3 I tried:Lyman's Chocolate Cheesecake Muffins (dry, no cheesecake flavour or creaminess, excessive cocoa flavour)Crazy Raisin Muffins ( way too many raisins, dough gooey)Cinnamon Sticky Muffins ( oily, butter drips out, little flavour)

I was a gift and the person liked it so ...

The recipes are not that good. Not what I really wanted. Wasn't clear prior to ordering that the recipes were in American measurements and not imperial or metric.

i love this book

Good book