In September, internet baker Sally McKenney released her cookbook titled “Sally’s Baking 101: Foolproof Recipes From Easy to Advanced.” After making a few of the recipes in this book, I can report: The book is close to “foolproof” but not quite.
Let me start by saying I am not the average reviewer. My name is Wyatt, and I’m 14.
I’m not an amateur in the kitchen. However, when it comes to baking, that’s when my experience dips. My mom is a much better baker than me. [Editor’s note: Wyatt’s mother is Cassie Walker Burke, the arts and culture editor for WBEZ and the Sun-Times.] Baking is more challenging since it requires the baker to be incredibly precise. Add too much flour to your cake, and it becomes a brick. I prefer cooking for that reason, since you can afford to be more slapdash with whatever you’re making.
The recipes I chose to test were the Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins and the Key Lime Cheesecake Bars. Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins are easily my favorite muffins, and I chose the Key Lime Cheesecake Bars because Key lime is my favorite pie, and I’ve never had Key lime in a cheesecake.
First, the Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins. The recipe says, “beat 1 stick of butter, ½ cup granulated sugar, ¼ cup brown sugar until smooth and creamy.” I ended up with a crumbly mixture that I had to add a splash of water to turn it creamy. I later realized that the butter was supposed to be “softened” before being whipped with sugar and brown sugar, which probably led to the crumbly result that I had to fix.
At the grocery store, we couldn’t find a small thing of poppy seeds, so we got a big one. It was a giant jug. That made it a bit hard to control the amount of poppy seeds when I measured, and some extra spilled out into the batter. Not a lot went in, but some did. But I felt like the poppy seeds were perfect. A slight complaint I had was that the lemon flavor in the muffins was very mild, almost hard to taste. So, if you make these, just know, you might need to add some more lemon juice and zest. But the muffins didn’t last 24 hours and were gone by midday after making them.
Next, the Key Lime Cheesecake Bars. The first step is to make the graham cracker crust, and for that, you need to brown some butter. Helpfully, the recipe tells you which page in the book to figure out how to brown butter. I couldn’t find real Key limes, but the recipe said you could use normal limes, so I did.
The cheesecake batter was pretty easy since I’ve made a cheesecake before — you just mix butter, cream cheese and sugar together in a stand mixer.
But I ran into trouble when making the whipped topping. The recipe didn’t specify the texture or really what the result should look like, so mine was a little runny. The book could use a help section for beginners for more complex steps and situations like this one.
Then, I doubled the whipped cream recipe because I was making two batches. But I put all of the whipped cream on the first batch. That didn’t register with me until I was making the second batch and began making more whipped cream. And then I ended up doing the same thing on the second batch.
However, no one has ever said that they wanted less whipped cream on their desserts, and my siblings love an excessive amount of whipped cream on their desserts or pancakes.
This book is good for bakers around my skill level and under. I’d recommend it to people just getting into baking or who have some experience baking, but not a lot. There are also a few recipes that require more skill for people with more experience. But, for the most part, a lot of these recipes are simple and offer great detail to the baker. At the beginning of the book, there are also a few tips and tricks.
I will definitely be making the muffins and cheesecake bars again. My grandparents are coming to visit soon, so I might make a batch of Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins for them. That other batch of Key Lime Cheesecake Bars will be long gone.