I really enjoyed this book, as a vegetarian it was very useful to have the basics in such a well presented and organised but also pleasant way, the recipes are an inspiration to build on and I have been regularly using them.

Amazing plant based cookbook! This book starts you with the basics and helps you build upon the basics. Great instructions and wonderful pictures. Highly recommend.

Perfect for mastering the foundations of cooking but make it vegan! Recipes that will upgrade every meal you cook!

My husband is vegan and I am trying to eat more plant-based meals. We both work full-time and are looking for easy to make, delicious vegan recipes. Unfortunately, the Plant Academy cookbook does not fit in our current lifestyle. While the cookbook is beautifully illustrated and the recipes are unique, it really isn't meant for the home cook. The recipes are way beyond what we have time for (making your own vegan cheese, understanding adaptogens, fermenting your own foods). Many of the ingredients can only be found in speciality stores (makrut lime leaves, gualjillo chili, lion's mane mushroom powder, nasturtium) and you really need a stocked kitchen (stovetop smoker). We aren't novice cooks, but we are very intimidated by most of the recipes in this book. They look yummy, but we just don't have the time to source the ingredients and make these recipes.

This book just might not have been for me. I am new to trying out veganism and only eating vegan a few times a week. So this book was at times confusing and I would get hung up on titles, for example, they called what looked like a granola bar a flap jack. Instead of wrapping tamales in corn they wrapped it in chard. For me to was just too many recipes that did not sound good.

2 stars

I acknowledge that this rating may be a bit unfair as "Plant Academy: The Cookbook" is very aesthetically pleasing, well photographed and illustrated - simply a feast for the eyes.

However... I think the audience of this cookbook does not consist of home cooks who want to prepare tasty and fairly uncomplicated meals for themselves and their families. Most of the recipes require multi-step processes or special equipment (stove-top smoker, really?!). This books seems to be written more for pro or semi-pro chefs, who have a lot of time and resources (not to mention - space) to procure and store various specialised appliances in their homes.

Another thing that gave me an ick was the chapter on adaptogens and the fact that they were inserted to many recipes with a lot of emphasis. Adaptogens are a concept, not miraculous plants or other organisms (like fungi), that is unconfirmed, despite multiple attempts on research. Think about it, if the so called adaptogens would have truly confirmed effect on people's health, they would be widely promoted by health services but aren't. Please don't use veganism/plant-based eating to promote pseudoscience because such a discourse actually discourages folks from trying or adopting vegan diet.

So many great ideas in Plant Academy! Will definitely be getting this and recommending to others.
Thank you for the advance copy.

Although a great idea for a book it was not a book I actually got much out of but it was very informative. It is more a book of information than a cookbook in my opinion and bases itself on making everything from scratch.

A good book for anyone getting into a vegan style diet but it just wasn't for me.

Thank you Net Galley and Quarto Publishing Group – White Lion for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

This would be a great book for anyone who wants to step up their culinary game. It shows how to work with raw ingredients to cook homemade plant based substitutes that are usually store-bought (milk, butter, cheese etc )
There's loads of great information and I'm eager to try some of these recipes.

This cookbook was an informative, interesting read. The layout and flow worked well and covers many aspects of cooking, from simple to complex, and I enjoyed the variety of recipes. Will I make everything here? No. Was it still worth my time and did I learn from this? Absolutely yes. It’s always exciting to learn new recipes, especially in the vegetarian/ vegan world.

Thank you to NetGalley and the Quarto Publishing Group - Leaping Hare Press for the e-ARC!

Plant Academy: The Cookbook by Lauren Lovatt is quite wordy and focused on making everything from scratch. It includes a number of raw recipes and detailed plating instructions. While the photos are beautifully styled, the portions shown are quite small.

Thanks to Netgally and Leaping Hare Press for the digital advance review copy.

A great book for vegans and non-vegans alike. Provides an expanse of information on both basic and more complex plant-based recipes though some were not hugely accessible/appealing to me personally as they’re quite highbrow. There are some I’m looking forward to, however, and overall the includes a wealth of plant-based cooking knowledge.

This was very informative and well broken down by types of foods and processes you need to use when creating the items.

A very beautiful vegan cookbook about vegetable cooking techniques with a big highlight on beans, nuts and fermentation.
This is for the serious cook, with time on their hand and a strong desire to do everything from scratch (though I was surprised to see a few cans of beans in the ingredients).
It uses a lot of hard to find ingredients and equipment, which puts it out of my range... also I have limited cooking time, being a working mum, I'm certainly not going to smoke anything, or make nut cheese from scratch, or those types of things - but it remains interesting to anyone curious about food and new flavors, I mean who knew you could make a bean "cheesecake"?

This is very much a chef's book, for passionate cooking people with time and patience.

An interesting book about plant-based foods, starting with the philosophy and then into the basics - sauces, stocks, nut butters etc. with a few recipes at the end of that section. Cashew Bechamel tart looks especially inviting. The various stocks are also well worth a try. Next come legumes - how to sprout them, cook and ferment, again a few recipes (bean otto looks good); grains and pseudo grains likewise. Moving to plants (bit odd title as that's what's been discussed up until now) there's plenty about hot and cold smoking techniques with a few recipes. Next section is fermentation - types and details (the most interesting section for me), and then a 'cheese' module. The section on adaptogens (beneficial plants) felt a bit too quirky to me, emphasizing many things that seem like current fads although many will, no doubt, have a long heritage in other cultures. A good section on gluten-free followed this with raw foods (heated to not more than 42C) providing recipes for Cashew Cream, Caramels and fermented ginger cheesecake for three. A section for plating is fun if you are doing a dinner party - I especially love the vibrant image of blobs, drops, smears and splots of base food on plates - but not for every day dining in my household at least. Ideas for plating, sketches on how to develop the plate and then final photos have a nice effect though. At the end there is a table of soaking times for nut and seeds - always useful. Overall the book is well-written and provides plenty of useful basic information about a plant-based diet. Recipes are rather few but this does not label itself as a recipe book. Ingredients mostly available even if some has to be through the internet. Photographs are mostly enticing although Buckwheat Pumpernickel with a lurid purple spread set me running for the hills! Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy.

Been trying to get more into homemade vegetarian cooking that isn't just Asian inspired, and this gave me so many ideas! Loved it!

Plant Academy is a beautifully curated cookbook. It is very much exactly what it promises, "This is a book of techniques, base recipes and more complete recipes that use those techniques." I thought that the balance between pages with information and the pages with techniques or recipes was done well.

The photography and illustrations throughout the book were gorgeous, and I thought the layout of each section was easy to follow along with.

The intent behind the book being more focused on the overall theme of adapting various plant-based ideas and methods rather than just "here's 100 recipes using plants" without any background was refreshing. The bits of food science and explanations for different terms and techniques I found to be very straightforward, but still interesting and informative. (I will add that the "How to Use a Blender" section kind of made me LOL, but what they say is true; sometimes there is more to learn about a basic)

I have bookmarked quite a few things to try out, learned quite a few things I didn't know, and overall liked reading through this cookbook. If it's an area of cooking that you enjoy, I wouldn't say no to picking this one up!

Plant Academy is known for their next level vegan / plant-based dishes that look and taste just as good as their non-vegan counterparts. Many culinary enthusiasts and professionals have learned from them over the years so I was super excited to read this book!

It is packed with tried and true techniques to make amazing vegan dishes, desserts, dips and everyday essentials, ranging from easy-to-do up to more advanced complex recipes.

This book is packed with beautiful imagery and was a joy to read!

This is perfect for the vegan foodie in your life or someone who wants to learn how to make more elevated plant-based dishes.

Thank you so much to NetGalley, Quarto Publishing Group –Leaping Hare, Leaping Hare Press, Plant Academy and Lauren Lovatt for giving me an ARC of this super cool cookbook!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It’s becoming very common for chefs to collect recipes which build on one another, starting with the basics, and as someone who’s very interested in learning more about plant-based recipes, I really appreciated this approach being used here. The recipes themselves look wonderful, and I’m looking forward to trying them out!

Absolutely stunning plant based cookbook, full of exciting and very unique recipes! Some recipes are perhaps more complex than I would probably dabble with typically, however I will definitely be cooking from this, and recommending to my audience.

A big thank you to Lauren Lovatt, Quarto Publishing Group, Leaping Hare & NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.