Cookbook Review

My lengthy and unending progression through last year's fall cookbook,...trying Every. Single. Recipe. (Except a few that I really didn't want to make, but you'll never know which ones because you don't have the cookbook!)

Sweet Potato Gratin

Ingredients:
Sweet potatoes
Butter
Brown sugar
Eggs
Orange juice
Cinnamon
Salt
Nutmeg
Flour
Oats
Chopped nuts

Bake sweet potatoes whole until cooked through, then scoop the pulp into a large bowl. Mix in butter, brown sugar, eggs, orange juice, and spices and dump into casserole. Make topping by cutting oats and flour into butter, sugar, and cinnamon until it makes coarse crumbs. Stir in nuts, sprinkle on sweet potato mixture, and bake for 30 minutes or so.

Review:
I liked this recipe with some provisions. I liked the crumb topping; that was kind of a unique preparation. The dish itself was an odd cross between salty and sweet; not quite a sweet dish and not quite a salty dish. I think if I make it again I will make it sweeter (but not by much) and leave out the eggs. They gave it a fluffy texture, which some people may like, but I'm not used to "fluffy" sweet potatoes. All in all, not too bad, and a great dish for my grandpa---high fiber, high calorie (once you add on lots of butter), and easy to eat.

Butterscotch Malt Zucchini Cake

Ingredients::
Brown sugar
Butter
Oil
Eggs
Buttermilk
Vanilla
Flour
Malted milk powder
Baking soda
Salt
Baking pwd.
Nutmeg
Grated zucchini
White chocolate chips
Butterscotch chips
Chopped nuts

The preparation for this recipe is fairly standard cake fare; mix the wet ingredients and the dry ingredients separately, then mix together. You don't beat the cake to make it fluffy; believe me, there's no making this mix fluffy! Because so much of the moisture is in the zucchini, the batter is very dense. Then you pop it into a greased and floured bundt cake pan and bake it for an hour at 350. When the cake is cooled melt white chocolate chips and butterscotch chips and drizzle over cake.

Review:
I really liked this recipe and would definitely make it as an alternative to zucchini bread during that awkward part of the summer when one is buried under a mountain of unwanted squash. I didn't really taste the malt and I'm not sure I'd put in the white chocolate chips---neither one seemed to add much to the flavor and no sense in having empty calories. Otherwise, it tasted great, had a good texture, and an attractive presentation. I do have to say that there was no "drizzling" the melted chocolate. It stayed on the spoon, so I had to put it in a plastic bag with a corner cut out and squeeze it onto the cake.