I feel like my life has really been missing out, mainly because just last week did I discover the awesomeness that is Blogging For Books. The idea is you get free books for a honest review. I thought maybe there was a catch, or maybe they were books that were 10 years old, but NO. The book I am about to share with you was JUST released 2 days ago! There were plenty of great books to chose from in all different categories, so why did I chose a cookbook? Well... I feel like the hours in my day disappear. I never really know where they go and I haven't sat down to read a chapter book since I had my son 20 months ago. The most reading I get is when I get 15 minutes here and there reading my bajillion magazines that continue to pile up waiting to be read. No joke, there are probably 200 sitting. It's becoming an epidemic. Anyways.. onto the book...Selecting this book, I had no idea who Francine Bryson was. I selected it because I love to bake and along with my other neglected hobby, my drive to bake has disappeared just like the minutes in the day. Plus, along with baking, I like to eat baked goods. So, I'm probably an expert...;)...Anyways, back to Francine. Francine was a finalist in CBS's The American Baking Competition - a show i never watched, but probably should have. She's from South Carolina and has won more than 200 local and national baking competitions, and now she has a new cookbook with a forward by Jeff Foxworthy. Neat!
The book has your typical baking goodness - pies, cookies, biscuits and candy. I really wanted to go outside my box and bake something that had a fun name, like Redneck Cracklin' Corn Bread, or her World Famous Chocolate Bacon Peanut Butter Pie, but when I stumbled upon the Chocolate Chip-Peanut Butter Pan Cake recipe and was pretty much astounded that I had all the ingredients in my house, I got to baking.
It turned out great, and let me tell you how proud I felt after completing it! Along with my disappearing time, I have had no baking inspiration and have relied on cake mixes (nothing wrong with that) to fill some sort of baking void, but this time I had actually made something from scratch, it's been so long!
Sadly, I wasn't a huge fan (although I did have seconds) with the taste. I can't really pinpoint why either. Something was lacking. I'm going to try it again tomorrow and see if maybe my taste buds were just off. It's happened before...
As far as the book, it's pretty plain. There aren't that many pictures and I LOVE pictures in cookbooks, the more the merrier. I am a visual person and often select recipes based on the how they look in the cookbook. It's your typical cookbook, simple recipe names, very simple look to it. Some interesting recipes sprinkled throughout, but pretty typical. Still happy to have it in my collection and maybe I will one day have ingredients in the house for something more Redneck.
