The Best Quick Breads: 150 Recipes for Muffins, Scones, Shortcakes, Gingerbreads, Cornbreads, Coffeecakes, and More [Paperback]

In her no-fuss, straightforward style, Hensperger (The Bread Bible, etc.) expertly lays out the basics for making quick breads in this exhaustive, offbeat book. She offers 150 recipes in all: 100 from her now out-of-print The Art of Quick Breads and 50 brand new. Classic loaves, such as Lemon-Poppy Seed Bread, appear alongside innovative items like Fresh Orange-Oatmeal Bread and Amaretto Nut Bead. Standout muffins include Rye Muffins with Orange and Fennel, Zucchini-Basil Baby Cakes and Orange Chocolate Chip Muffins. Gingerbreads are redolent with spices and unusual ingredients such as stout and peaches. This is not to imply that all of Hensperger's recipes rely on wacky ingredient combinations. She includes plenty of staid recipes like Fresh Apple Coffee Cake and Chicken-and-Mushroom-Filled Cr?pes with b?chamel. But just as Hensperger expands the definition of quick breads to include pancakes, cr?pes, dumplings and even latkes, she also enlarges the pool of potential quick bread ingredients to incorporate some new tastes: Autumn Persimmon Pancakes, Graham Popovers, and Soda Bread with Caraway and Drambuie. The entries sometimes border on the unorthodox (Chinatown Green Onion Cakes; Butternut Squash Gnocchi with Sage Butter), but with recipes this concise and inviting, readers are unlikely to complain. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Hensperger's smaller quick breads book includes 100 recipes from her earlier Art of Quick Breads, now out of print, as well as 50 new ones. In addition to quick loaves, both sweet and savory, there are waffles, dumplings, biscuits, popovers, and a variety of other easy baked goods, along with some tasty accompaniments, such as the Fruit Salsa for her Hopi Blue Corn Hotcakes. For most collections.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

“Once again, Beth Hensperger brings us a collection of delightfully simple quick breads.  Here, among the muffins and biscuits, beaten and stirred, dropped and cut, pancakes and waffles, old-fashioned and a la mode, cornbreads, berry shortcakes, and buttery shortbreads, spicy gingerbreads and even popovers, are scores of recipes, both sweet and savory, easy enough to make on a weekday and delicious enough to serve at any meal, from a casual family breakfast to a have-friends-in Sunday supper.  The Best Quick Breads is the kind of book that earns a permanent place on the kitchen bookshelf and becomes dog-eared with use in almost as little time as it takes to flip a stack of Beth’s Buckwheat Pancakes on the griddle.“

(Dorie Greenspan, author, Baking with Julia and Desserts by Pierre Hermé )

“A truly wonderful collection of quick and easy recipes. Breads and muffins and cakes—yes. But also a great variety of pancakes (potato-spinach, red pepper, black beans, etc.). Yummy! These recipes will keep you happy for a long time.“

(Maida Heatter, author of Maida Heatter’s Book of Great Desserts )

“Typical Beth Hensperger! Just when you thought it had all been said and done, she comes along with a collection of quick breads that looks utterly enticing, fresh, and new, yet happily familiar. I knowThe Best Quick Breads will get a good workout in my kitchen.“

(Deborah Madison, author,Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone )

Take the 100 best recipes from the author's much-loved The Art of Quick Breads, stir in 50 scrumptiously brand-new creations, and you have enough terrific quick breads to last a lifetime.

Beth Hensperger is a passionate professional and home baker and cook who has been educating, writing, and lecturing about the art of baking for more than 30 years. She is the best-selling author of 12 cookbooks, including The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook and Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker. She lives in Mountain View, California.