Book Review: The Earth to Table Cookbook (The Recipes)

I've decided that I'm going to include book reviews each month about the different books I'm reading or using. This month it's the cookbook Earth to Table by Jeff Crump and Bettina Schormann. My sister has discussed some of the recipes from this book in her blog, but I feel that bringing them up again is the only way I can give an accurate review of the book.


One of the first recipes that Jennifer and I decided to try was the pizza dough. There's no doubt that it worked as it was supposed to; the crust was yeast-based, and rose to be slightly puffy and dense. Unfortunately, I found that it was too dry, which was further extenuated by the fact that we chose to use the squash, sage, and pancetta toppings shown in the book; there was no sauce included in the recipe. Luckily, we also made up our own toppings for the dough that same night, which included tomato sauce, cheese, mushrooms, red peppers, and basil. The tomato sauce gave the dough a much nicer, softer texture. I think the dough is worthwhile to make, but you have to have something saucy on it. For myself, I'm going to stick to a different recipe that has a softer crust; that's just my preference.

As I've mentioned before, my sister also made the Oatmeal Molasses bread from the book. This recipe was a definite success. Up until this point, we hadn't made much bread so I was impressed that it even rose to begin with. It had a nice, sandwich-bread texture, basically a good slicing bread. Before it gets baked, you're supposed to top it with some oats. I found the bread was at its best as a breakfast bread; we ate it with apple butter or strawberry jam in the morning which was very delicious!


The recipes of the book are divided up by seasons, so a recipe I tried recently was the Double Crispy Onion Rings, which are part of the winter section of the book. I know it's not winter yet, but I think fall and winter kind of go hand in hand for seasonality sometimes.

The onion rings were incredibly easy to make, and they turned out crispy, golden, and delicious. The recipe consisted of mixing flour, cornmeal, cayenne, and salt and pepper in a bowl. Then you have to soak the onion rings in the buttermilk. Once that's done, you cover the rings in the flour mixture, dip them back into the buttermilk, and then coat them again in the flour mixture. I think it's the process of repeating those steps that actually helps the onion rings get crispy. Once that process is done, you fry them.

The only confusion I had with the recipe was that three sweet onions are supposed to serve six people. I found that as a side dish, I only needed one sweet onion for four people; it would've been nice if it had been specified whether that serving was for an appetizer or a side dish. I had already cut up a lot of onions, so I let the rest of the rings sit in the buttermilk in the fridge and we made them again later in the week, but some of the cut onions did go to waste because we just didn't need them all.


One of the real winners of the book was the blueberry upside-down cake. The picture shown is one that my sister made on her own, but it was easy and tasty! The recipe begins with prepping a glaze consisting of butter and brown sugar on the stove. Then the glaze is poured into your cake pan and the blueberries are distributed over top. Once that's done, the cake batter gets poured over top. I found the base of the cake was nice and fluffy, and the blueberry topping stayed together well, and it slid out of the pan easily without being damaged (which was my real worry).

I have to say, though, that the only real danger of this recipe is that you absolutely have to be sure it's baked through. I tried baking the cake myself once, but in our oven I found it required more time than the recipe called for. I took the cake out too early (and I had checked the base by sticking  a knife in to make sure it was baked and found the knife came out clean), and it turns out the point where the blueberries and cake met wasn't baked enough and the cake fell apart when I released it from the pan. I was able to rescue the cake, but it didn't look as pretty. My mistake was certainly not the cookbooks fault; you just need to have a bit of common sense.


Last but not least, Jennifer and I gave the strawberry shortcakes a try. You have to make the actual shortcakes, macerated strawberries, and Chantilly cream. The hardest part of the recipe was making the cake, but it really wasn't that difficult. Then we had to mix up the Chantilly cream, which consists of whipping cream, icing sugar, and vanilla extract. The strawberries had to be mixed with a bit of sugar, and a vanilla bean or vanilla extract. Assembling the cakes was easy once all the preparation was done, and they looked really pretty dusted with a bit of icing sugar. It's definitely a great way to show off freshly picked strawberries in the summer, which is what the recipe intends.

So, to conclude, overall the recipes of the Earth to Table cookbook are generally accurate and easy for the home cook to make. Further, the ingredients aren't difficult to find if you choose to cook seasonally, which is what the book is promoting. The only real flaw that I found in the recipes was that the onion rings recipe didn't indicate whether the serving amounts given were for an appetizer or a side dish, so I ended up with more onions than I needed. All other issues I had are related to personal preference (in a pizza dough) or personal error on my part. I'm sure Jennifer and I will be making all of these recipes again, except for the pizza dough.