There is nothing nicer than a home baked cookie and the recipes that I have baked from this book have not disappointed.  Alice Medrich's collection of recipes provides a lovely range of baked treats that satisfy any sweet tooth.  She pares back nicely the excess sugar and butter in many of the recipes and uses a good range of wholegrain flours, nuts and seeds for flavour but there are still many, many decadent treats to be had from this book. 

Alice Medrich is a good recipe writer and I think that is worth acknowledging.  The recipes delivered what they said they would in terms of appearance and flavour and took the time to bake that the recipe said (& I have a pretty terrible oven!).   For most recipes there are 'change-ups' you can add so as to provide a variation on the recipe.  My only little criticism is that some recipes have a base recipe on one page and then the variation on another page or chapter and if you are not careful, it is easy to miss something in the flicking back and forth.

Importantly, the flavour of the cookies I have baked has been so good.  Alice's recipes have, to my mind at least, been developed to really let the flavour of the key ingredients shine through and I think a good part of that is due to the easing back of sugar and other 'distracting' flavours.  My Chocolate Wafers had a lovely clean cocoa flavour, the peanut butter...