Cooking made easy! (Mary Berry's Complete Cook Book - Mary Berry)

Member Name: christinemc

Product:	Mary Berry's Complete Cook Book - Mary Berry
Date:	14/07/00 (285 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Photographs of every dish, wide range, comprehensive

Disadvantages: None

What a great cook book! A wide variety of recipes from traditional English to more exotic, from simple to more expert. This book includes all sorts of recipes – soups, main meals, desserts, cakes, breads. What I particularly like is that at the start of each chapter, there is a photo index. There is a photo of each dish with a brief description, and a guide to how long it takes to make. There is also a guide to the calories it contains, but I prefer to avoid that bit! I often refer to this book if I want to do something different with an ordinary dish. For example, pork chops. I was getting bored of grilling them with honey or barbecue sauce, so had a look in Mary Berry and found a lovely recipe, very simple, which involves oranges, wholegrain mustard and demerara sugar. For just a few minutes (literally) preparation, we now have a superb meal that is anything but boring. There is also a very simple recipe for Battenburg cake, which I can recommend, and the Coq au Vin recipe is delicious.

I also possess two Delia Smith books (Winter & Summer cook books) which I have never used. The main reason for this being that I have to make a special trip to the shops for ingredients in Delia’s recipes, whereas Mary Berry seems to use things that I tend to have in the house already. And having photographs of each dish really helps when you’re not sure if it’s turned out looking as it should – though it’s harder to choose which dish to cook next as they all look so mouthwatering!

This book also contains plenty of information on basic techniques, explanations of why certain methods are used to make certain things - like why you sometimes can blend all cake ingredients together and other times you have to add them in a certain order. It is easy to understand without being patronising, and gives the reader confidence to try new recipes.

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