Oh my goodness is this the book I needed in my life! I for one am someone who has always struggled to cook for one after being raised in a large family this was the book for me. While I have learned to downsize while cooking I've never been brave enough to figure out how to downsize a baking recipe to serve just me. Baking is chemistry and I hated chemistry in school. I love baking and while I have found a true and tested method for freezing cookie dough that does start to take room in your freezer. (Especially with the meats I'm already freezing.)

These recipes aren't boring either nor is there a reliance on microwave mug cakes (although there is microwave bread pudding if that's how you like to rock). I'm personally looking forward to trying the coconut lime cupcakes. And then maybe a chocolate custard for later.

Another advantage of this book is that you can test out small batches of dessert to see if you even like it. I for one wouldn't be certain of Pan De Calatrava since I've never even heard it before, but I'd be willing to try it for a recipe that makes it for just one person.

I received this book from NetGalley for free for an honest opinion.

As a person living in a 2-person household, this cookbook is a gamechanger! I love the number of classic dessert recipes, plus new ones I haven't tried before like spiced cardamom custard. This cookbook is pretty straightforward and chock full of recipes, but the visual elements are slightly lacking. The ratio of text to photos is imbalanced as someone who likes visually seeing what the final product should look like. Other than that, great cookbook for small households or people trying to cut down on sweets!

Loved this cookbook. I found some very good recipes and new ideals to try in the future. I do recommend this book.

I’ve enjoyed diving into The Ultimate Baking for One Cookbook over the last few months. Like most cookbooks, some recipes work better than others. After trying 28 recipes I found the cookies & pies much better than the cakes & breads. Some of the bread recipes didn’t scale down well & the layer cakes were way too tall. I’m ready for a baking break, but will definitely try some more of these recipes later in the year.

I love the idea behind this cookbook, as I often want to make just a few cookies or a little bit of cake for just myself or a friend or two, not a several-servings dish. (I do think many of the recipes, despite the book's title, are aimed more at pairs or small groups rather than a single person, actually. Or maybe I should just be eating more cake at a time...) It's also great for someone who wants to learn and try out a lot of different recipes without wasting (or overeating, I suppose!) the results. The recipes are easy to follow and reasonable for an amateur home baker like me. I do wish there were more photos, to make this cookbook more visually appealing and give the reader/cook more sense of what the result should be.

Thank you to NetGalley and Adams Media for the advance review copy.

The Ultimate Baking for One Cookbook by Kelly Jaggers is a perfect book for anyone wishing to make small amounts of baked goods. This recipe book has lots of different types of treats to choose from and will satisfy your craving for something sweet without having to make an entire cake. The recipes are straightforward and suitable for both novice and experienced bakers alike.

There are so many times that I have wanted to bake a little treat and either wind up making way more than I need or abandoning the idea altogether. I really enjoy that this book takes the legwork out of halving a recipe and provides a quick and easy result. While the recipes are perfect for one, I would even say that some of them can be enough for two as well.

❀ EASY TO FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS

Jaggers gives her readers an exhaustive list of tips, techniques, equipment, and ingredients at the start of the book, which is really useful for anyone new to baking. The instructions are easy to follow and the tone of the book is very down-to-earth. My only complaint is the lack of images. Personally, a great cookbook always has images to show a final product or technique.

❀ CONTENTS: THE ULTIMATE BAKING FOR ONE COOKBOOK

Baking for One Made Easy
Small-Batch Cookies and Brownies
Cakes and Cheesecakes
Breads, Rolls, and Biscuits
Pies, Tarts, and Cobblers
Puddings and Custards
Muffins and Quick Breads

❀ PERFECT FOR A STUDENT

The Ultimate Baking for One Cookbook by Kelly Jaggers is a great addition to a student’s shelf or anyone looking to create smaller portions. There are lots of great ideas that will satisfy your craving for a little something. It would make a fantastic gift as well.

The title should have read small batch baking desserts for one or two if your sharing. I bookmarked a few of the recipes I thought were doable:) Most people that bake by dozens freeze the other half but to each there own. If your into just baking enough for one or two then this dessert book is for you❤️

This cookbook is pretty comprehensive from anything else I’ve seen about single-serving recipes. The author is a good photographer and there was a serious lack of photos in this book, which felt like such a lost opportunity. There were tips and tricks throughout, but I’d really rather have those be in the section headers since some of them were really valuable tips that you wouldn’t find unless you made that specific recipe. I wish the author had listed the pan/dish you needed at the top of the recipe ad well, since this recipe book calls for uniquely small sizes of bakeware. It’s a great comprehensive list of recipes but isn’t anything super unique other than that. 3.75 stars Thanks to NetGalley for an advanced copy.

Kelly Jaggers has carefully brought quite a few recipes down to size - 175 to be exact. If you are tired of trying to satisfy a cookie craving with a recipe that yields 4 dozen, then this book was designed for you. Although the title indicates it is for "one", these recipes can easily satisfy two with no leftovers. Most of the recipes in this book are popular classics we've all heard of, they are simply small batch. Many recipes don't shrink very well (e.g. how do you cut 1 egg in half?), but Kelly has done the leg work for us here and solved many of these types of challenges. This book also has plenty of tips and tricks that will be useful to novice and even intermediate bakers. It is worth noting, however, that the majority of the recipes in this book have no photo to match. This is one aspect I'd change, but beyond that, this is a good book for those of us who enjoy baking and would like to do so in small batches.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the advanced electronic copy of this wonderful book. This book provides a variety of great single-serving recipes of sweet and savory baked goods. Great for portion control.

Sometimes you just don't need a lot of food and don't want to contribute to the food waste problem, and this cookbook is perfect for that problem. Easy to follow recipes that are quick and yield just enough where leftovers aren't an issue. I think this title will be a benefit for the college student, the single person, or the empty nesters who only need to cook for one or two. The recipes are also the perfect amount for someone who may want to try something new and only need enough for a taste test to see if they like it or not.

This was a great baking cookbook because I always have a hard time cutting recipes down to fit just one or two people. I always make way too much and we end up stuffed or having way too many leftovers.

Pros: As a single person who cooks for herself, I was interested to read this book. My experience with cooking and baking is that I often end up freezing a large portion of what I cook because I cannot eat it all before it goes bad. I thought this would be a relevant book for me to read and that it might help me reduce waste by offering one-person dessert ideas.

I love to bake (and LOVE chocolate) and can’t wait to try many of the recipes in this book. Some of the dessert recipes I want to try first are chocolate chip cookies (my favorite dessert), monster cookies, chocolate chip skillet cookie, classic cocoa brownies, triple chocolate brownies, brookies, cocoa vanilla swirl brownies, nutty brownies, chocolate layer cake, molten chocolate cake, confetti mug cake, chocolate mini cheesecakes, Texas skillet sheet cake, chocolate chip cookie pie, chocolate cream pie, chocolate chip muffins . . . I want to try all the chocolate desserts. I appreciate that this book also features savory recipes, including flat bread, pizza dough, quiche, and several cheesy breads/rolls/scones/biscuits/muffins—yum!

The recipes in this book are accessible for bakers of all skill levels. This book also offers very practical baking advice.

What I appreciated most about this book is that it does not make baking for one a shameful thing. Instead, it encourages avoiding waste, which often comes with making too big of a batch of something.

Cons: None that I can think of!

Thank you to NetGalley and Adams Media for the opportunity to read this book.

I really like the idea of small batch baking for one or two people. There are some great recipes in this book. I think the major drawback is the lack of pictures. I think adding in some good pictures would really enhance this cookbook. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced reader’s copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Overall, the book is not bad, though in the end most of the recipes just use smaller moulds and cut ingredients in half (or smaller) to make a smaller portion.
Some recipes are great, because they actually make some pretty little cakes and I loved the few no-bake recipes because they really do make it easy to make a little sweet treat for oneself, as do the mug cakes.
But apart from that, it still takes a fair amount of prep and bake time for one person and I think I would rather make the full-sized batch and freeze some for next time, especially when it comes to breads and muffins.

What I really missed were some inviting pictures to make me want to bake!

The book starts out with explanations of ingredients, supplies, etc. The author probably goes into more detail than is necessary, but it's good information to have.

The recipes appear to be a good variety and have clear instructions. It's hard to tell though because this advanced copy appears to be incomplete.

There's a conversion chart at the end which I think would be great, but again, this advanced copy appears to be incomplete.

Overall, I think this would be a great book to have in finished form so I'm giving it five stars and planning on buying it when it's released

The Ultimate Baking for One Cookbook by Kelly Jaggers
175 Super Easy Recipes Made Just for You

Perfect for those wanting a smaller portion of baked goods than most cookbooks provide – I think that it would be fun for those wanting to limit leftovers and waste, people who want to limit portions available to be eaten, anyone who has a smaller oven in their home or camper/trailer, and anyone just interested in making smaller recipes any time.

The recipes sound delicious and include many of my favorites that I usually avoid because I don’t want a HUGE amount for just my husband and I. With cookies, bars, muffins, cakes, cheesecakes, breads, rolls, biscuits, pies, tarts, cobblers, puddings, custards, and quick breads – there is something for everyone.

Techniques, tips, ingredients, and equipment are all included along with specific measurements and sizes of pans that will be needed.

I did think that my oven is too large to make many of these items since we don’t use the oven often avoiding waste of propane and that made me wonder if perhaps a smaller electric oven might be a worthwhile purchase in the future. I also wondered how easy it would b to find some of the smaller baking pans.

The recipes that most intrigued me were the ones made in a mug and cooked in a microwave and I have a feeling I will be trying one or more of them in the future.

Did I enjoy this book? Yes
Would I like to have a copy on my kitchen bookshelf? Yes
What would I have liked to have that was not there? Nutritional information

Thank you to NetGalley and Adams Media for the ARC – This is my honest review.

5 Stars

The Ultimate Baking for One Cookbook is a practical and handy collection of small-batch recipes by Kelly Jaggers. Released 30th Nov 2021 by Simon & Schuster on their Adams Media imprint, it's 240 pages and is available in paperback and ebook formats.

Some years ago "mug cakes" were wildly popular and a mostly satisfying sweet alternative to fixing a full sized cake (which would go to waste) or dozens of cookies. This collection takes that basic idea to a whole new level. The ideas behind small batch cooking are more complex than just dividing ingredients, and the author has done all the legwork to figure out cooking times and temperature adjustments beforehand.

The recipes are appealing and well written. They're arranged roughly thematically: cookies & brownies, cakes & cheesecakes, breads rolls & biscuits, pies tarts & cobblers, puddings & custards, and muffins & quick breads. A US/metric conversion chart and a cross referenced index are included at the back of the book. Each recipe includes serving yields, special notes, and prep times. Recipe ingredients are listed bullet point style along with optional ingredients. All measurements are given in American standard measures only. The directions are given step by step, numbered sequentially. The nutritional information is not included.

The only thing the collection lacks is photographs. The food photos which are included are very well styled, attractive, and appropriate, but only 15-20% of the recipes are accompanied by photos (at a rough guess).

The recipes are well developed and the ones we tried were tasty and appealing. This would be a good choice for library acquisition as well as a go-to staple for singles and students. It would also be a good selection for folks newly living on their own as the recipes are especially beginner friendly and require little in the way of exotic ingredients or tools/supplies.

Four stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

The Ultimate Baking for One Cookbook is a fun and good cookbook for those of us who are single, don't have a big family, or just cannot have lots of sweets lying around. This book is full of recipes for cookies and brownies, as well as other desserts -- basically whatever you are craving for, there is a recipe for it here. The selection truly is big and I like that. However, there weren't too many photos in this cookbook and I missed those while reading the recipes.

Lots of easy recipes. I love the fact that there are US/metric conversion charts. Very helpful. It would have been nice if there had been more pictures, but overall a delicious cookbook for a small household.

I got this arc in exhange for an honest review.