Honey & Oats: Everyday Favorites Baked with Whole Grains and Natural Sweeteners Hardcover – Bargain Price, April 29, 2014

This is a great cookbook if you want to reduce your processed carb (read: white flour/white sugar) intake or branch out to tap into the flavors inherent in wheat and natural sweeteners. The health merits of this kind of indulgence aside, here is what I like and don't like about this book:Pros:*Jennifer uses a real diversity of flours and sweeteners, most of which are available in the grocery or online (helpful for ordering bulk flours). She has a very accessible overview of different flours (wheat, barley, buckwheat, spelt, teff, and tapioca) and sweeteners (honey, maple syrup, coconut palm sugar, and sucanat), and also includes recipes using nut meal. Several of the recipes are even gluten free. There are no artificial sweeteners at all, which was really important to me.*I found it very easy to modify recipes to suit my particular taste. For example, she has a very easy recipe for maple-sweetened chocolate chips to use in many different recipes, and you can easily increase or decrease the amount of sweetener or even substitute honey for maple syrup. You can also bring out different notes in your treats by using different types of honey or maple syrup (orange blossom honey is a personal favorite).*The recipes are extremely easy to follow and quick to make - I can easily whip up a batch of scones or pancakes in the morning before I'm even fully awake!*Favorite recipes include several varieties of scones, pancakes, chocolate pecan cookies, granola bars, sweet potato skillet corn bread, and any of the pies. I actually found the french pastry dough extremely easy to work with.Cons*Several of the recipes just flopped for me. In particular, the brownies were very crumbly, and several of the cookies were quite cakey. This might just be a reality of branching out to other ingredients, but I think some of the recipes could use some work (I'll continue experimenting with them).*I like knowing not just what to do, but also why. Unfortunately, beyond the brief overviews of alternative flours and sweeteners, there is no guidance as to why kamut flour is used in a particular recipe in place of spelt or teff, or even guiding principles around how, say, gluten content affects cookies, cakes, or pancakes. In my opinion, a good cookbook should empower its readers to understand the theory so they are better equipped to make a recipe their own. I have some experimenting to do on some of these recipes, but it will more trial and error, and internet research, than it would if there were better explanations.*A few of the recipes call for light spelt flour, which involves sifting out some of the bran. This technically makes the flour not "whole grain" anymore, so I feel like this is cheating.In short, I give this book four stars because it really cuts free of white flour and processed sugar, even if it comes up short in two places. Notably, I looked at a variety of other books before purchasing this one, and most either offer only one half of the equation - alternative flours but processed sugar, or natural sweeteners but all-purpose flour. Hats off to Jennifer for taking up the challenge of embracing both sides!

Finally - a cookbook that uses all alternative flours! Ms. Katzinger has done an outstanding job of explaining the attributes and benefits of various alternative flours - einkorn, oats, kamut, barley, buckwheat, teff, tapioca and spelt flours. She has forged a new path in baking by using these flours 100% in the recipes - no partial substitutions alongside all purpose or whole wheat flours. The recipes also call for alternative sweeteners - honey, maple syrup, coconut palm sugar, date sugar and sucanat which work amazingly well in the recipes. I will never return to refined sugars!I have made 7 of the recipes so far and each and every one was delicious. The book is well written and formatted with a beginning section explaining the various flours and sweeteners. The recipes are concise with beautiful photos and annotated with interesting tidbits about the flour being used and what and why you could substitute for it. I am finally getting a handle to understanding these flours and their nutritional value and use in baking. Lastly, there are several gluten and/or vegan recipes which are a godsend as I have one child with celiac's disease, and another with a dairy allergy. Thank you Ms. Katzinger for your vision and willingness to explore alternative baking!

This is a fabulous cookbook for a wide range of recipes that use healthy sugar alternatives and healthier grains. I searched far and wide for it. Most of the others that I found actually only had a few recipes that used honey and the others were fairly typical recipes using sugar. I do a lot of baking and now that I have a granddaughter who has diet restrictions I was thrilled to find this beautiful book with lots and lots of great recipes. The Recipes use either honey, maple syrup, coconut palm sugar or sucanet. Many of these recipes do use milk and most use butter and or eggs, but in some cases she provides vegan alternatives. So far I have only made a couple of the recipes but they turned out really well , with great taste and texture and eye appeal.

This cookbook is AWESOME. So far all but one of the recipies i've made have turned out great. I have a feeling that the flop was user error. Great cookbook using ingredients i was able to find in one trip to Whole Foods. I missed baking so much since we went processed sugar free, love that i can still get my cake making fix in using un-processed ingredients!

It has delicious, easy to follow recipes using different whole grain flours and healthy sweetners. I think this book is much better than a similar book that just won the James Beard award: Flavor Flours by Alice Medrich. Medrich uses regular sugar in her recipes which is a real disappointment to me. Katzinger also includes simple delicious frosting recipes using maple syrup and fresh cream cheese for example. Delish! If you like the taste of different grain flours but don't like using all one grain for fear of a cake turning out too heavy, Katzinger adds an option to use Einkorn wheat flour in her recipes to make lighter fluffier cakes, muffins and scones. If you are a novice baker and you like healthy desserts, this cookbook is for you. More experienced bakers should enjoy this book as well.

I purchased this book for a friend as a birthday gift who is really into healthy baking. She has tried a couple of the recipes and said that they were easy to follow and turned out really well. She did not have a hard time finding the different types of flours that the recipes call for. She is very happy with this book.

I love the recipes, but she calls for vegetable oil a lot, which if you are trying to get away from processed ingredients that are not healthy for you, vegetable oil is one of the top ones.

Very interesting recipes, this book really provides and opportunity to try out different flours and sweeteners. I have made about 4 recipes from this book and 3 were a success with the animal cookies being a complete failure. I would definitely buy this book if you have access/ interest in trying different flours.

Easy recipes.