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Baking with Agave Nectar: Over 100 Recipes Using Nature's Ultimate Sweetener | 
| Author: Ania Catalano
Creator: Lara Hata
Publisher: Celestial Arts
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
Buy New: $9.81
You Save: $6.14 (38%)
New (30) Used (7) from $9.81
Avg. Customer Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 13039
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 134
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 6.9 x 0.6
ISBN: 1587613212
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.815
EAN: 9781587613210
ASIN: 1587613212
Publication Date: March 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.
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Book Description
Even before its health benefits were being touted on Oprah's daytime show, agave nectar was finding fans among dessert lovers seeking to reduce or eliminate processed sugar in their diets. In BAKING WITH AGAVE NECTAR, natural foods chef Ania Catalano shows how to creatively integrate this up-and-coming natural sugar substitute into every sweet tooth's repertoire through a variety of delectable recipes. From breakfast goodies (Pumpkin Muffins, Stuffed French Toast) to cookies (Chewy Double Chocolate Meringue) to desserts (Bread Pudding Souffles with Bourbon Sauce, Pear Frangipane Tart), Catalano makes agave nectar accessible and appealing to health-conscious bakers of all levels.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
 I'm new to agave nectar ... June 24, 2008
...and I needed a book to help me use it when baking. The recipes are easy to follow. I've only made a few and I love this cookbook! My husband hasn't noticed a difference in the taste. He doesn't know I've stopped using sugar. Can't wait to try the brownies tonight! There are recipes for candies, frostings and ice creams, too! Definitely a great buy.
I'm head over heels! May 20, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
In Baking with Agave Nectar Ania Catalano presents over 100 recipes for using this intense sweetener, many of which are designed to be healthy in other ways, too. These recipes use whole grains, for example---pie crusts often involve oat flour, barley flour, whole wheat pastry flour, etc. Fruit substitutes for butter in some recipes, providing moisture and structure to cupcakes and the like. While some recipes use dairy (such as a banana cream pie that has whipped cream folded into a custard), others are vegan, such as a coconut custard pie made with tofu, of all things.
Ms. Catalano makes the assumption that if you're switching to agave, you're doing it because you want to be healthier in general. What amazes me, however, is the fact that she manages to do this without compromising the deliciousness of her recipes. In fact, these recipes are so utterly amazing that I wouldn't hesitate to make something from this book instead of a similar recipe from a non-healthy book, even if I weren't trying to be healthy in my eating.
The directions in this book are easy to follow, and the recipes are clear and easy to read. he only problem I encountered at all is one that's tough to avoid when dealing with whole grains: some baked goods lack a certain amount of structural integrity. One pie crust we made tended to fall apart pretty easily. Similarly, the chocolate chip cookies we made from this book tended to fall apart. However, I can virtually guarantee that once you taste a bite of either, you simply won't care about structure!
The coconut custard pie was the dish that most amazed me. The idea of a coconut custard pie based on tofu instead of dairy seemed dubious at best. Yet it was SO delicious that I could hardly stop eating it.
The banana daiquiri cupcakes were a similar shock. We thought they came out so well that we risked bringing them to a friend's retirement-from-the-army picnic. The cupcakes were so good that I don't think a single person guessed they were healthy, and we got a ton of compliments on them. They disappeared VERY quickly.
If you're looking for a way to eat more healthfully but can't give up your sweets, I highly recommend Ania Catalano's Baking with Agave Nectar. You might not want to go back to regular desserts by the time you're done!
Great book to go with The 30-Day Diabetes Miracle! April 26, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
This cookbook goes along great with The 30-Day Diabetes Miracle, which also has recipes using agave nectar.
The 30-Day Diabetes Miracle: Lifestyle Center of America's Complete Program to Stop Diabetes, Restore Health,and Build Natural Vitality
The 30-Day Diabetes Miracle Cookbook: Stop Diabetes with an Easy-to-Follow Plant-Based, Carb-Counting Diet
 Very disappointing April 20, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
The first recipe I tried was a disaster! I now assume it has a misprint, for the Black Bean Brownies it says to use an 11 x 18 inch pan - that's huge, I can only assume it should be 11 x 8 inch pan. Anyway, these Brownies were described by Faith Middleton as "...To die for" and they were barely edible, they are mealy, grainy, the texture is terrible and the taste nothing special. Too many of the recipes call for esoteric ingredients like "sprouted spelt flour" etc. none of them are made with white flour, and only a few give whole wheat pastry flour as an option. The introduction was the only worthwhile part - it tells how to substitute agave nectar in any recipe; but I likely could have found this agave/sugar conversion on the web without buying this bookBaking with Agave Nectar: Over 100 Recipes Using Nature's Ultimate Sweetener
Disappointing April 12, 2008
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
I was so excited to hear about this book... I have PCOS and need to lay off the high-glycemic food. Another cookbook that I love--King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking--has whole-wheat recipes, but they also use tons of sugar, so it kind of negates the whole idea of low-glycemic baking (if that's what you're after). I thought this book would be the opposite--that it would use white flour even though it doesn't use refined sugar. To my delight, I was wrong. The recipes use whole grains only.
I was so excited to try the recipes... the book itself is beautiful, with gorgeous photographs and yummy-sounding recipes. And it was recommended by a cooking blog that I trust.
So today I tried the following recipes: Ultimate Fudgy Brownies and Raspberry Linzer Torte Cookies. Both were really easy to make, and used Spelt Flour (which, by the way is very expensive at $11 for 5 lbs, but for a cook book that uses an ingredient like Agave Nectar, expensive ingredients are to be expected).
The Brownies turned out very chocolatey, but the texture was.... off. I did whatever I could to keep from over-mixing and over-baking. I pulled it out of the oven 5 minutes before the recommended 30 minutes and found it to have this feel.. not quite rubbery, but like it was made with egg whites or something (in fact, it uses 4 whole eggs). And it looks like some of the agave nectar leached out of the batter and coated the bottom of the pan while it was cooking. Very strange.
The Linzer cookies were better, I think. The texture was great and I liked the combination of spelt flour, oats and almonds in the cookie portion. But the cookies were overwhelmed by the flavor of canola oil. Blechh!! And they really could have used some salt. Just a little. I'm really surprised that salt wasn't included in the recipe list.
It almost seems like these recipes weren't fully tested before being published. I really am surprised that they turned out this bad. Truly, neither one of these items is edible. And it's not like they are easy to screw up--they are both very simple recipes.
I may try one other recipe, maybe in a different category, but if that one doesn't turn out either, I'm done.
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