Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I received this book as a gift as I had high hopes for small batch baking. I have now made a number of the recipes most of which were not satisfactory in my opinion. I am NOT a novice baker, I have baked for years and am used to complicated recipes as well as simple. Thus I thought these should work but each one I have tried I questioned the measurements. for example, the vanilla cupcakes and the strawberry buttercream layer cake. Great ideas, poor in application. Both of the cakes turned out incredibly dense and greasy I believe she adds way too much butter as neither turned out light and fluffy and there was an excess of grease, especially around the cupcakes. The frostings also were loaded with butter and did not hold up light and fluffy like frosting should. I might expect something like this in an alternative ingredient recipe but this is using standard baking ingredients, all which I used and followed her instructions to the letter, only to have disappointing results. The flavors were ok but nothing to write home about. I think the people who have reviewed the book haven't made the recipes at all thus the reviews are misleading to those who would want the purchase the book. Had I known these things I known these things I would not have put it on my gift idea list. I am scared to try any other cakes or what are supposed to be fluffy baked goods because she will probably want nearly a cup of butter for a small batch! Now, the scone recipe was decent and the blueberry muffins I would make again, but I am hesitant about just about anything else as I've had too many fails vs successes and this is not, I repeat to user error as I am not new to baking. I also have now tried two of the biscuit recipes and they were good, no problems but due to the experience of greasy everything else I always cut out at least 1 TBS of butter and they worked out just fine. Besides, on biscuits you add more butter once cooked anyways! And, if you like baking books with actual photos then this is also not for you, you would think in this type of book photos would be had but there are none other than the ones at the beginning of each chapter. Huge disappointment. So if you are interested, save yourself the trouble and find another small batch book or just try from her blog but do so with great caution and concern. OR try halving a recipe yourself, you'd probably get better results than her talking about how expertly she did this when in fact, its quite horrible. Would I recommend the book? No.