Flour: Spectacular Recipes from Boston's Flour Bakery + Cafe Hardcover – Illustrated, October 6, 2010

Love love love this book. Best pastry chef ever. I plan on visiting one of Joanne's bakeries next week when in the Boston area. Sticky buns and cc cookies are a must!

Chang's Flour has a well-deserved high rating on Amazon reviews. This concurrence, therefore, was delayed, until it became obvious that this book is one of my main go-to cookbooks for a wide variety of baked goods, many of which are personal favorites.Here is a list of some of my favorites: cookies - oreos, oatmeal raisin (the best, but make sure to use at least 34 grams of dough per cookie), chocolate chip, rosemary shortbread, and cornmeal lime, brioche - basic brioche ( better than the many that I have made over the years), sugar+spice brioche buns, pain aux raisins, brioche au chocolat, sticky sticky buns, pop tarts (can use pasta roller for rolling out pastry dough), pies - apple, lemon marshmallow meringue, and pumpkin (my household winner in past two-year bake off for Thanksgiving day), bread (although for sourdough I would recommend Glezer's Artisan Baking), strawberry shortcake (wow), and finally lemon curd (superb with either eureka or meyer lemon). Although some recipes may seem to be old standards, she perfected them.The directions are clear and concise. The photographs are good. The chapters on techniques, equipment, ingredients and Joanne's Top 12 Baking Tips are well-written. The ingredient equivalencies from volume to weight are consistent from recipe to recipe. The stories before the recipes are always a nice short read. The baking times, as with all cookbooks, are to be used as a guideline. Please note that some reviewers had problems with baking time but timing depends not just on temperature as measured by a thermometer, but on individual characteristics of the oven, such as natural convection, radiation as affected by wall color, oven size, thermal mass, etc. For me, baking time was usually shorter than stated.Some reviewers state that the printing can be difficult to read. Agreed. The ingredient list is in a small grey font. The recipe instructions are in a thin san-serif typeface with too much leading. It would have been nice to see straightforward old-school black ink, white paper, and serif typefaces.I have made most of the recipes in the book. Not a single failure. There are a few recipes that I prefer from other cookbooks, such as Beranbaum's Lemon Poppy Seed Cake in Heavenly Cakes. There are some recipes that I have not tried because I have a great recipe from another cookbook, such as croissants from Prueitt's Tartine. There are other recipes that are on par with other cookbooks, such as Scherber's cornmeal-lime cookies and savory cheese and scallion scones in The Sweeter Side of Amy's Bread or Pate Brisee from Prueitt's Tartine or Lenotre's Desserts and Pastries. And, there are some recipes that I combined with a recipe from another cookbook and made into "my" own recipe. (This is what I did to get a very tasty, perfect popover. "My" recipe co-mingles Chang's brown sugar popovers with Cunningham's popover in The Breakfast Book. Am happy to share "my" popover recipe.)J. Chang's scientific mind shines in every aspect of how the cookbook and recipes are laid out. And, to top it off, her taste buds must be superb. She readily shares her recipes so more people will be able to enjoy her treats. How lucky for us.Highly recommend.

I've had this cookbook for over a year and a half now, and I can honestly say that I don't know where I would be without it! It is absolutely fantastic. I have made 'almost' everything in the book, except for a few cakes and the bread recipes at the end. When people ask me where I get the recipes I give them, or ask about the treats they have eaten from me, I always steer them to this cookbook. It is one of the Top 5 cookbooks that I consistently turn to for great recipes.In my opinion, the best section of the book is the pie section. The Coconut Cream Pie and Pumpkin Pie are the best recipes of their type that I have ever tried. My new favorite cookies are the Chunky Lolas, cookies made with shredded coconut, pecans, oats, and dark chocolate chips. I was never a fan of coconut before I bought this book- a testament to the wonderful recipes that I now eat it in baked goods on a regular basis. The Raspberry Shortbread Bars were also a hit with everyone that tried them. The pan was empty in less than an hour.As one person addressed in their negative review, the book features a few recipe instructions that can be overly verbose in a distracting/off-putting way. I love how the author's voice shines through in her notes before recipes, but the instructions themselves have several sentences that could have been cut. However, that does nothing to detract from the fact that the book is accessible enough for the intermediate baker (I'm not so sure I would recommend this for a beginning baker, as some of the recipes are complicated- her croissants in particular, as well as the sticky buns). I will say that two recipes I did not care for were the sticky buns and the Yellow Birthday Cake, which came out dry and lacking in that 'yellow' flavor we all love. My kids thought the chocolate icing for the cake was "adult food" since it wasn't very sweet, but I had no complaints about it from adult friends, and I thought it had a great flavor. I also made the Milky Way Tart and did not have a candy thermometer on hand for making the caramel. I followed her instructions on timing to a "T" and the caramel came out with the perfect consistency, even without a thermometer.Definitely recommend for bakers who know their way around a kitchen, and possibly the beginning baker who is up for a challenge. You will not be disappointed!Edited 2/2/2012 to add: I just got around to baking the Maple Oat Scones, and the cooking time listed is waaaaay off. The recipe calls for 40 minutes baking time, which I knew immediately was wrong, because other scones I have baked were done around the same time as biscuits- or approximately 15-18 minutes. I baked for 18 minutes and the scones came out perfect. The recipe is delicious, but the cooking time is wrong.Edited 3/7/2012 to add: Tried the Lemon Ginger Scones and found that the cooking time listed is also off. It cooked in relatively the same time that the Maple Oat Scones were done: 18 minutes.