Cookery book club - August - Short and Sweet by Dan Lepard and Every Grain of Rice by Fuchsia Dunlop

[Wearytiger]

Welcome to the Mumsnet cookery bookclub! Each month we choose two cookery books. We cook a minimum of two recipes each - you choose the recipe, they just have to be ones you have never cooked before- which works out at four new recipes each month.Then we chat about them!

For July our books were:

• Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall Veg Every Day
• Madhur Jaffrey Ultimate Curry Bible AND / OR madhur Jaffrey's Curry Easy AND / OR Hairy Bikers' Great Curries

And we posted here.

For August, our books are:

• Fuchsia Dunlop Every Grain of Rice
• Dan Lepard Short and Sweet

For September our books will be:

• Tessa Kiros Falling Cloudberries
• any book from the River Cafe books

We will always try to pick at least one book with recipes available on the Internet, and local libraries are great for cookbooks if you can order in advance. We pick books three months ahead so will be choosing October's books this month.

[HuevosRancheros]

Marking my place!
Such pretty pretty books

[pregnantpause]

Er- wasn't it the river cafe books? I have the river cottage books too, but just to be sure, which is it ?

[Nolda]

Short & Sweet has arrived and DD and I have been looking through it together. Yummy, can't wait for August!

[HuevosRancheros]

Pregnant, you are so on the ball
Completely missed that!

[Wearytiger]

Nooooo! I was typing while fending off a three year old! It is river cafe. I will see if mumsnet can change it for me...

[OliviaIsOffTheGinMumsnet]

@Wearytiger

Nooooo! I was typing while fending off a three year old! It is river cafe. I will see if mumsnet can change it for me...

Done. Shh. Don't shout about it.
Happy cooking everyone.

[Wearytiger]

Ok everyone nothing to see here, move along thank you Olivia!

[PeteCampbellsRecedingHairline]

Mmmmmmm.... Cake.....

Nice name change Tiger.

[Wearytiger]

Thank you Pete. See earlier comment re three year old!

[PeteCampbellsRecedingHairline]

It does get better.

when they start school.

[Pantah630]

Signing in, well caught pregnant easily done tiger HFW worked at River Cafe

[ELR]

Marking place and hoping for a better effort from myself in August!

[Wearytiger]

Pete, my mum says it gets better when they leave school

[Forgetfulmog]

Ooh can I join please? Love baking & cooking & I already have the Tessa Kiros book ready for next month. I think her books are amazing & her recipes always work.

Ill have to check out my library for this months cookbooks.

Exciting!!

[ScienceRocks]

Thanks tiger (nice name change btw).

I have already started on dan Lepard, with vanilla cupcakes last week and walnut bread at the weekend. Both lovely. I used rose wine instead of red for the bread so it was a rather fetching pink hue instead of purple. I also used walnut oil instead of olive oil and cut down on the walnut quantity slightly due to a shortage at chez science.

[Parsnipcake]

Just made the chocolate mint cookies from Dan. My autistic 12 year old weighed every one to the 15g suggestion which was painful. The biscuits and filling are delicious. I dyed the filling green to make it mintier :)

Every grain of rice looks very daunting. Pretty but haven't found much that the family will go for.

[Wearytiger]

I made the carrot pistachio and tahini cake on the weekend. To be honest I didn't love the taste and my dd plaintively asked for 'another cake Mummy. Not that one.' But my four friends absolutely loved it and ate two large slices each. Technique wise I have to give it ten out of ten as well, I followed the instructions pretty strictly and it produced a beautiful high rise cake with lovely buttercream. The only change I made was to divide the cake into two cake tins not three as I don't have three 20cm cake tins (really, I don't think many people do, I thought that was a bit silly). I cooked it for five minutes more to compensate.

So overall I think it's a love it or hate it kind of cake and worth a try if you want a change from traditional carrot cake. Although I wouldn't personally make it again it made me really hopeful for the rest of the book.

[Wearytiger]

Hi forgetfulmog!

[glorious]

Hello all, excited about August books. I'll flick through Every Grain and make some recommendations.

[bakerofcakes]

Hi, I'd love to join in this month. I have been lurking for weeks, but haven't had the right books. I managed to get Dan Lepard's Short and Sweet from the library, and have two weeks off work, so hopefully will have chance to try a few things.

[HuevosRancheros]

Can I just say I love Fuchsia Dunlop already, purely for introducing me to the word 'mouthfeel'. Fab! :)
Will go through both books tomorrow and give you all my valuable opinion of what I have made
I would say that I think Dan's use of salt is quite high, even for my taste. And it's not possible to add salt at the end of a bread recipe :(

[OneDayWhenIGrowUp]

Hello!!! Can I join in???

I have been an intermittent MN lurker, but have just settled into a new flat so finally having my own kitchen and able to build up a storecupboard for the first time in years, am very excited to get cooking!

I ordered Fuschia Dunlop but got it delivered to work and then stupidly left it there, doh, so I'll pick it up on Thursday. I can't do Dan Lepard as I'm both gluten-free and on a health kick at the moment but I will happily drool over everyone else's descriptions!!!

[Forgetfulmog]

Oneday - there are gluten-free & healthy recipes in the Dan Lepard book if you do want to give it a go

Got Short & Sweet out of the library today & omg have just been drooling over the recipes! I love his writing style too, in particular the description of Brioche

[Wearytiger]

Hi one day, glad that you're joining us!

[slightlysoupstained]

Ooh, got Short & Sweet already (used to read his forum/website which seems to have disappeared now ).

I like it because I am an inveterate tweaker of recipes and he positively encourages this, giving you enough info about what various ingredients contribute to be able to modify amounts or substitute.

Agree with the poster who said he uses a lot of salt though - I made one of the rye bread recipes which asked for 3 tsp - seemed like a lot but as am not familiar with rye dough & know it's different from wheat dough didn't want to change stuff first time around. It was nice, but noticeably salty. I reduce all the salt amounts now and am happy.