Review by d bucci:

I am a compulsive baker with an embarrassingly large collection of dessert/baking cookbooks. For another book to make it onto the crowded shelves it has to stand out with unique recipes and techniques. While there are many excellent recipes in this collection that I am thrilled to have is there anyone out there who is thinking; if only I had another recipe for Mexican Wedding Cookies?

They are stingy with the photographs and it is very disappointing that of the pictures included none are of some of the more elaborate desserts where you would like to see what the final product looks like. Instead there are pictures of chocolate chip cookies, pots de creme, gingersnaps, flan, bread pudding, sorbet and frozen yogurt. That is just plain annoying. I would gladly pay more for a book that is well photographed.

I have a great deal of respect for David Lebovitz and was excited to be one of the first to get a look at his new title. There are some books I can say unequivocally, buy it you will love it. This one I would recommend looking through it first to see if it is something you would enjoy.

Review by Patrick W. Crabtree:

What most struck me about this work is that, even though these dishes have supposedly come into the author’s head over the past thirty years (he says), each of these recipes are clearly right up-to-date and of the 21st Century, quite typical of California chefing. I review and give away lots of cooking and baking books, but I’ll be hoarding this little treasure for myself. Every day I cook meals from scratch and I’m very much impressed with this dessert recipe collection.

Author David Lebovitz is a pastry chef who garnered much of his guidance from the Chez Panisse Cafe, (a highly-renowned Berkeley, California venue), an eatery from which many other terrific cookbooks have emanated. Here’s my favorite of them all, authored by the restaurant’s founder: Chez Panisse Vegetables. In any case, Lebovitz has assembled 172 dessert recipes here, most of which feature mercifully brief ingredient lists. These are recipes which can pretty much all be easily managed by home cooks of moderate experience.

Here is a breakdown of the recipes:

– Cakes (29 recipes)

– Pies, Tarts, and Fruit Desserts (29 recipes)

– Custards, Soufflés, and Puddings (16 recipes)

– Frozen Desserts (32 recipes)

– Cookies and Candies (30 recipes)

– Basic Sauces and Preserves (36 recipes)

The recipes themselves are rendered one or two to a page and since the book format is large (8 1/2″ x 11″ x 3/4″) it’s quite easy to follow the instructions as you cook or bake. In fact, I cannot actually recall having seen a nicer recipe layout. I’m reviewing an advance proof edition so the photos in my copy are in black-and-white. It may be the plan of the publisher to print them in color at some point but honestly, it makes no difference to me. These photographs (by Maren Caruso) are crystal clear and I can discern with no difficulty whatever what the finished dishes are supposed to look like. There isn’t a picture for every dessert but for the ones where you most need direction, they’re there.

There are 274 pages in all which includes an Introduction, tips on equipment and supplies, and so on. Other advanced cooking tips are described in the Appendix.

I found these desserts to be both innovative and inspiring — toffee puddings, cream pies, sorbets, and numerous old standbys (which have been artfully tweaked to contemporary culinary standards) such as ginger cake and macaroons proliferate this fine cookbook. I should also add that ingredient measurements are conveyed in two ways, by Avoirdupois increments (American standard measurement) and by the metric system.

Most important to me, the author expresses the imperative value in utilizing only the best available ingredients in preparing these wonderful dishes — I don’t see emphasis on this important point much elsewhere and I was pleased to see it here as I heartily agree with this culinary philosophy. Having now read the book from cover to cover, I liked every single recipe in here and I’ve already made two of the desserts, both of which turned out great.

I feel compelled to say that any erudite home cook or professional chef will benefit from the recipes in this, Lebovitz’s most recent dessert book. Highly recommended.

Review by Larry Fineberg:

I pre-ordered the book from Amazon after making Lemon Blueberry Buckle, from an adaptation of that recipe published in the local paper. I have alfeady made several recipes from the book, all but one of them were highly successful. The book is small (a big plus). Most recipes take up only one page. Most two page recipes are on facing pages. The photographs make me want to make almost every recipe. The book is deeply satisfying and comforting.

I’ve tried the following recipes, all of which yielded a fresh, full flavored product with just enough sugar for a pleasant balance between tart and sweet.

- Lemon Blueberry Buckle was a keeper, tart and sweet. It inspired me to buy the book.

- Cherry Almond bars did not work.

Since the recipe clains takes its inspiration from lemon bars, there must be an error. All lemon bars prebake the bottom crust and then either pour the filling on top or make a custard and then pour it on top. They all bake the crust for about 30 minutes and the ssembled bars until the top is set. The Cherry Almond bars really need a total redo. The cherry filling was very good but the bottom was soggy and the top was undercooked. I’ve written an email to Julie Richardson about the problem. They are deluged with comments and praise from readers. Since it was the my second recipe and the first was so sucessful, I decided to try another.

- Vanilla-spiked plum Galette was extraordinary.

With plums from the farmers market, it was both tart. Just be careful when making it – place the parchment paper on a well made of aluminum foil, otherwise the juice will spread over the oven and burn. I used vanilla sugar for the vanilla infusion.

- Short Dough made a beautiful baked shell for a tart.

I modified the recipe substituting sour cream for heavy cream.

- Galette dough was much better than my old standby of Pasta Frolla by Flo Braker from Baking with Julia [Julia Child].

On balance, the successful recipes are all keepers. Some (Quince, Apple, and Brown Butter Tarte) inspired me to try other recipes on the web. I made an a really good, elegant quince brown butter tarte — a variation of a financier – my spouse said it was the best dessert ever that had made.

I look forward to making and modifying more of the recipes from this book as the seasons change and different fruits become available in the farmer’s market.

Review by S. D. Fischer:

This is a wonderful addition to my collection of cookbooks which focus on local, seasonal foods. The authors hail from the Pacific Northwest but many of the fruits they use are available seasonally throughout the U.S. It is easy to understand why Gourmet magazine chose this for a Cook Book Club selection.

The authors explain the difference between tarts (pie without a top crust), galette (free-form tart which doesn’t require a pan), cobbler (deep-dish fruit pie with a dense pastry on top), grunt/slump (cobbler cooked on top of stove), crisp/crumble (baked fruit dessert with streusel topping), betty (fruit layered between or on top of diced bread cubes), pandowdy (deep-dish dessert with a crumbled biscuit topping), buckle (cake batter poured in a single layer with berries added to batter), teacake (simple cake like coffee cake), fool (summer fruit layered with whipped cream) and trifle (layered cake, thick cream, and fresh fruit).

This type of dessert is less fussy than frosted cakes, soufflés and other more complicated desserts. Many of these recipes are fairly quick and involve cleaning and chopping fruit and then preparing the dough or crumble topping. For example, Mimi’s German Apple Cake requires only 15 minutes of prep time before it goes in the oven.

The book is into four chapters by season plus one Pantry chapter. Each seasonal chapter includes five full-page color photos of finished dishes and a few photos of ingredients or unfinished dishes. You can look up desserts by fruit in the index (some fruits such as apples appear in more than one chapter).

The 14 recipes in the Spring chapter utilize rhubarb, cherry and strawberries. Examples include Upside-Down Sweet Cherry Cake, Rhubarb and Bing Cherry Brown Betty, and Lemon Buttermilk Rhubarb Bundt Cake. The Summer chapter includes 17 recipes which highlight plums, fresh berries (raspberries, blackberries, boysenberries) and stone fruit (peaches, apricots, plums) and include Gingered Peach and Blackberry Pandowdy, Raspberry Red Currant Cobbler, and Caramel Peach Grunt. The 13 Fall recipes utilize apples, quince, pears and figs and include Maple Apple Dumpling, Grape Galette, and Upside-Down Pear Chocolate Cake. The Winter chapter include 16 recipes which utilize apples, pears, cranberries and citrus fruits. The Winter recipes include Carmelized Pear Bread Pudding, Olive Oil Citrus Cake, and Cranberry Buckle with Vanilla Crumb.

The Pantry chapter includes recipes for different doughs and pastry, both Vanilla and Berry Ice Cream, Vanilla bean Shortbread, Vanilla Chiffon Cake, and more.

The authors describe what to look for to choose the freshest produce, how to store it (in or out of the refrigerator) and whether the fruit freezes well. There are a few recipes which use dried fruit (helpful in the off-season as well as when you need to through something together for surprise guests). There are hints throughout the book on advice on how to zest citrus, toast nuts, making caramel, whipping cream, removing currant stems, and more. In addition, there is note with each recipe about how to store it and whether it freezes well.

Another good book with similar desserts (but no duplicate recipes that I caught) is Cobblers & Crumbles. I recommend Rustic Fruit Desserts between the two as it includes the information on seasonal fruit but you can’t go wrong with either.

Review by H. F. Corbin:

CLASSIC SOUTHERN DESSERTS is quite simply the best cookbook I have seen in a long time on Southern desserts– perhaps the best ever– and is destined to become a classic. Published by the editors of the magazine “Southern Living,” it contains over 200 recipes that according to the writers were selected from more than 10,000 recipes over the past 40 years. And there are almost as many color photographs as there are recipes. The pictures which are breathtaking will make your salivate. Unlike many of recent cookbooks of Southern Desserts this one makes no attempt at nouvelle cuisine, whatever that means, and offers recipes as traditional as a family reunion. And if you are looking for “cooking lite,” look someplace else. For the most part these recipes are heavy on butter, sugar, nuts, flour, coconut, etc., etc. There are few cake recipes, for instance, without icing– piled high and deep– cream cheese frosting, praline frosting, chocolate marshmallow frosting, milk chocolate frosting, vanilla buttercream frosting, caramel frosting, coconut cream cheese frosting, nutty cream cheese frosting, 7-minute frosting, luscious lemon frosting– you get the picture.

The chapters of recipes are as follows: “Luscious Layers & Other Cakes,” “Crunchy Cookies & Chewy Bars,” “Cheesecakes To Die For,” “Old-Fashioned Pies, Cobblers & Tarts,” ‘Sweet Breads & Coffee Cakes,” “Bread Puddings, Custards and More,” “Ice Cream & Frozen Desserts.” There is also a chapter on tips for successful baking with 13 tips on baking the perfect pound cake, the most tempermental of cakes as far as I am concerned.

A big fan of both baking and eating cheesecakes, I thought there were no more recipes to be had on the subject. I was wrong. Eleven cheesecake recipes are printed here including the New York Style South Cream-Topped Cheesecake similar to the one I bake often. But also included are Key Lime Cheesecake with Strawberry Sauce, Uptown Banana Pudding Cheesecake– looks interesting– and Irish Strawberry-and-Cream Cheesecake.

The editors outdo themseselves, however, on the chapter of the rest of the cakes: the traditional Lane Cake, Black Forest Cake, Caramel Cake, Chocolate Layer Cake with Vanilla Buttercream Frosting, Coconut Cake, Italian Cream Cake, Carrot Cake. There is the obligatory Red Velvet Cake without vinegar but with 2 ounces of red food coloring and the Triple-Decker Strawberry Cake– the reason I bought the cookbook– that appears to be the only cake in the collection made with a mix. But as a friend of mine would say, if you add several other ingredients– in this case strawberry gelatin among others– you are essentially baking from scratch. What the editors called an “Updated Hummingbird Cake” makes the cut as well. By that, they mean less sugar (1 3/4 cups) and less oil than the original. And they also inform us that this recipe first appeared in “Southern Living” in 1978, was submitted by Mrs. L. H. Wiggins of Greensboro, North Carolina and is the magazine’s most requested recipe. By my counting there are 22 or more of these layer cakes and 10 or so pound cakes and some sheet cakes thrown in for good measure. Conspicious in its absence, however, is that country cousin of cakes, the Fruitcake, for which we can all say a little prayer of thanks at the family reunion.

While I’m not big on pies, the offerings here look great. Included are Key Lime Pie (it has to be made with condensed milk to meet my requirements and is), Lemon Meringue Pie, Coconut Cream Pie, Pecan Pie and the obligatory Sweet Potato Pie, to name a few. Even the artsy Grasshopper Pie is here as well. The editors let us cheat and use refrigerated piecrusts. By far the best cook I ever knew swore that you couldn’t tell the difference in piecrusts done from scratch and the refrigerated ones– not the frozen ones– you buy at the supermarket, and he was seldom wrong about baking.

Bread Puddings, Frozen desserts, Rice Puddings and Cobblers (Sweet Potato Cobbler, which is one of my favorite cobblers and one that I had never seen published before) get their place in the sun as well– Coffee Cakes, Scones, Cookies– you name it.

CLASSIC SOUTHERN DESSERTS is a must for anyone who believes that desserts should be showy and outrageous and that lean cuisine should be reserved for the rest of the meal. My only complaint– and it is minor– is that the individual recipes are not listed in a table of contents page at the beginning of each section.

Review by Nancy C. De Young:

“The Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776, but something else just as sweet happened in America that year- the first ice-cream parlor opened.” What follows is a history of Ice Cream in America. Just an example of how interesting and thorough Southern Living editors are. I love their books! I do believe this one is a compilation of the best Southern desserts…with one exception…Tipsy Puddin’. Living in the South is a cultural and taste experience second to none. Church socials, family reunions, Sunday picnics ALL have DESSERT..you can count on sweet and memorable.

A few recipes include: Vanilla, Peach, and Unbelievable Chocolate Ice Creams, Granitas and Sherbets. Any pie you can think of, OF COURSE pecan…AND pecan pie cookies. Oatmeal Cookie Sandwiches with Rum Raisin Filling, Lemon Bars, Macaroons, and the ULTIMATE Chocolate Chip Cookie. Cakes galore from Lane, Red Velvet, Hummingbird, Mississippi Mud, Texas Sheet, Cola Cake and Pound Cakes to die for…how about Buttered Rum Pound Cake With Bananas Foster Sauce? Caramel, Decadent Banana,Black Forest and last but NEVER least, Chocolate Turtle Cake. Coffee Cakes, Bread Puddings,and Cobblers too numerous to mention..but are they GOOD!

You can’t miss with this cookbook. You will be the hit of the Charity Cake Auction, Sunday Church Social, or Family Reunion with any of the recipes on the 330 pages with loads of pictures sure to make you think about exercising just so you can have a serving! My Dad used to say “Life is uncertain, Eat Dessert First!”

Review by dnk:

Ani Phyo is getting more and more popular by the day, and in large part that’s due to the fact that she, more than any other raw foodist, is making raw food easily and readily accessible. Yes, she does use the dreaded dehydrator, but not for nearly as long as some of her peers. Her food looks and tastes good, but it isn’t nearly as fussy and “gourmet” as some of the other stuff out there.

This book goes even further towards accessibility than her last book. Whereas before her recipes for ice “kream” required the use of young Thai coconuts- wonderful, but not always easy to access- here she gives a recipe using easy to find shredded coconut and an alternative preparation with raw coconut. Also, while on her websites she gives recipes for (really wonderful) chocolate using very hard to find raw cacao butter, here she provides a method with coconut oil and then, again, gives tips to use the harder to find ingredient. Yeah- now it’s even that much easier to enjoy these (healthier) desserts.

She provides recipes for chocolates, ice creams, fudge, cupcakes, cobblers, pies and even cheesecake- yum! However, she’s a little short on recipes for cakes- not entirely sure why, and I’m disappointed because I was hoping to see more of those (she had a few in her last book). Also, the cupcake recipes seem more like mini cobblers. She doesn’t give any instructions on how to eat- with a fork? by hand- so I’m not sure what the texture is like. Still, it feels like a worthy experiment to undertake

I’m exciting about trying pretty much every recipe in this book.

Review by Susan Schenck:

Ani is a master–no, a PhD!–of desserts! And with these guilt-free tantalizers, DESSERT no longer means DESERTing your diet!

As the author of a raw food book myself, I have over 20 raw food recipe books and I must say, I am very impressed with this one!

By far the best part of the book (next to the recipes) are the mouthwatering photos which inspire us to hurry up and make the food so we can eat it! (And hurry we can, because most of the recipes include only 4-6 ingredients, making them simple and fast.) These stunning colored photos of her masterpieces are enough to lure any eater of standard Amercian diet (SAD) into raw cuisine! As I looked at the glamorous photos, I caught myself thinking, “These look just like REAL versions of the recipes! This looks like a real peach cobbler, real fudge cake, real chocolate truffles, etc.” Then I smiled as I reminded myself, raw natural food is the real deal, and the processed, refined, chemical stuff we grew up on is the fake, cheap imitation stuff.

Raw cakes leave cooked cakes in the dust, and make them taste like dust. Everyone raves if a cooked cake has a hint of moisture, maybe a tiny bit of pudding inside, but raw cakes are pure moisture! And Ani gives us not one, but 3 recipes for raw cheese cakes! I have a weakness for carrot cake, and her recipes for that with the cream cheese frosting are the simplest carrot cake & frosting recipes I have seen in any raw food books.

Are you tired of paying for overpriced raw chocolate bars? Ani teaches you how to make a liquid chocolate that you can form into molds. You can do all sorts of things with that, including a chocolate-covered frozen banana (which sold for [...] at the Raw Spirit Festival!), truffles, and chocolate-dipped strawberries. I am embarrassed to say I have some white raw chocolate (known as cacao butter) sitting in my freezer for years now. I had no clue what to do with it until I read p. 74 of her book, which shows that you can make your chocolates withstand the heat like a processed cooked chocolate bar can, if you use this instead of coconut oil in the liquid chocolate recipe.

The book covers a whole host of dessert lines, not only cakes and chocolates. There are separate chapters for the following categories: frozen treats, crisps & cobblers, cookies, puddings & parfaits, fruit, sun-baked treats, sauces & creams, and even sparkling desserts with wine & champagne. Yes, folks, wine and champagne are raw, and (if organic), they can be enjoyed in moderation on a healthful diet.

This book is not just about recipes, but informs the reader of a raw food diet, its importance in ecology and health, and includes definitions of many unique raw ingredients such as goji berries, maca powder and mesquite powder. The equipment and tools are defined and illustrated as well. The book is interspersed with side bars and short articles such as info on natural cleansers , the power of certain foods such as acai berry, how refined carbs accelerate aging, how to “green” your frig, etc.

I think the book could be improved in only one way: give us lower glycemic options of using stevia instead of agave. This comes in handy for those with candida, weight loss or blood sugar issues, while also reducing the calories–making the recipes even more guilt-free!

This is the premium raw gourmet recipe book. Any chef worth her Himalayan salt would be proud to use this book as her main dessert uncook book!

Review by Book Lover:

My Book just arrived, and I was SO tired of seeing my friends devour sugar over the holidays…I couldn’t wait to try something that would not trigger all of my allergies…yet be delicious.

I’d tried some of the author’s allergen free cookies, found them far superior to similar products on the market…so why not try to learn to make such desserts myself?

Too many dinner parties of making a scrumptious dessert, only to watch in envy as it was devoured by friends…while I suffered in silence, unable to consume the dreaded egg, sugar, wheat trifecta of doom.

First of all, the book looks great…wonderful photos of mouth watering, allergen free cakes, cookies, and other treats. For my first experiment, I zeroed in on a long time favorite…vanilla cake. Directions were clear, recipe simple to follow…and it wasn’t long before I stared at my reward for a holiday of dairy abstinence. I’m embarrassed to say that I devoured most of the cake before I could share it with my egg and wheat eating brethren. Unlike many of these ‘healthy’ desserts, it was delicious…moist, and a rich and creamy frosting. None of that disappointing aftertaste. (like you get with carob…I hate carob. I loathe carob)

I’m really happy with the book, and what I’ve sampled so far. Looking forward to dinner parties at which I don’t have to sip green tea, clutching the saucer in resentment as I watch others down their sweet treats. The book is really wonderful, and I highly recommend it for its layout, photos, and most of all…delicious, easy to follow, recipes.

Review by cookie box:

tastiest allergy free recipes I have ever tried. Great instructions and relatively easy to make. Also ingredients are readily available.

Review by Lynn Craig:

I love the focus of this cookbook. Deborah Madison has packed the book with terrific recipes using fresh fruits, as well as lots of information nuggets about why it makes a difference to buy locally. The mouthwatering photography tempts me to try every recipe in the book. So far I’ve made cookies from the book (everyone loved them), and can’t wait for more fruit to become available at the farmer’s markets to try many more recipes.

Review by datura2002:

As summer approaches, the farmer’s market season begins in earnest. I plan on going to market to buy delicious fruit (and heading out to local farms and picking my own!). Although I’ll eat a lot of it straight, I also want to bake some into desserts, and this is one of the first cookbooks I’m going to use.

This is the first baking/desserts-only cookbook from Deborah Madison, IACP and James Beard award-winning cookbook writer of Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone and The Greens Cookbook. Her recipes are reliable, but accessible for a home cook who doesn’t want a lot of fuss.

Madison loves fruit, particular fresh regionally-distinctive produce, and her expertise on growing seasons and different fruit varieties across the United States shines here.

I’m particularly looking forward to summer, when I’ll be able to make the Wild Blueberry Tart in a Brown Sugar Crust, and the Strawberries in Red Wine Syrup.

Review by Marcy L. Thompson:

This is a terrific book, and it solved my perpetual problem of what to give people I know well enough to go to their wedding but not well enough to drop 0 on a wedding present. The recipes in this book make great ice cream. Toss in a decent ice cream maker, and you have a present that no one else will think of, that the receipients will appreciate, and one that they will use over time. (For what it’s worth, I usually give the Donvier hand-turned machine because it makes dense, smooth ice cream that reminds me of gelato.)Anyway, about the book and what makes it so great: Ben and Jerry tell you how to make their most popular ice creams, and a bunch that I never saw before. They provide multiple recipes for chocolate ice cream, and write clearly about how they are different. A friend of mine once made all the choclate ice creams and had a tasting party. It was interesting to see how different they really were. (And this book taught me the secret to great chocolate ice cream taste: a pinch of salt–really!)If you are worried about using eggs, you will want to use a pasteurized egg product in place of the raw eggs. Other than that, this is a terrific book. Lots of good ideas, excellent recipes, and enough discussion about how to create new flavours to encourage even the most reluctant recipe-inventor to go hog wild. I wish there were a sequel.

Review by Jeffrey Harris:

Who doesn’t like Ben and Jerry’s premium commercial Ice-cream? The recipes in this book are for their familiar flavors and more. All ingredients are fresh and pure. There is plenty of unusual detail in the book. For example, who else bothers to mention that it takes some fresh lemon juice to restore a tanginess to the all too sweet flavor of over-ripened bananas in banana ice-cream? Unfortunately, Ben and Jerry are shy about providing techniques for refining the texture of the homemade version. But then why should they know them? They make ice-cream with commercial coolers. For refined techniques specific to homemade ice-cream, you will need to look elsewhere, like Liddle and Weir’s “Frozen Desserts”.

Review by Susan Tunis:

Who knew baking could be so cute? But every time one of my co-workers sees this cookbook on my desk, they say, “Awww.” Then, they flip through the pictures and say, “Yum!” And then they fling it away and say that it’s making them hungry, LOL.

So, basically, this is book full of recipes of adorable, miniature desserts. The idea behind mini-desserts is that you can eat a smaller portion because it’s healthier, because you don’t want any more than just a little somethin’, or because you want to sample lots of mini-desserts. These are all good thoughts in my book! And on top of that, the presentations of these charming sweets, thanks to lots of wonderful photos, is inspiring enough to make me want to whip up a few of everything in the book.

Petite Sweets contains chapters on Basics; Little Cakes; Petite Pies and Tarts; Fruit and Berry Desserts; Mousses and Chilled Desserts; Creams, Custards, and Frozen Desserts; and Pastries and Sweets. I think you’ll agree that that pretty much covers the sugary territory. Most of the recipes are fairly simple–in some cases a little more basic than I might have chosen, but the author, Beatrice Ojakangas, offers useful advice on how to adapt other favorite recipes for miniature versions. And some of her shortcuts are just plain clever, such as using a whole vanilla wafer as the base of a miniature cheesecake.

A lot of the recipes call for specialized mini baking dishes, but there are helpful substitutions like to use mini muffin tins with foil cupcake liners for those of us who don’t yet own 24 miniature baking ramekins. And who are you kidding? You know you’ll be prowling Williams-Sonoma waiting for a variety of mini pans and dishes to go on sale. How can you resist, when the results are so darn cute and scrumptious? Soon you too will be turning Coconut Rum Butter Cakes out of the mini Bundt cake pans. And you’ll be filling up that old shot glass collection with Chocolate Espresso Mousse. And you’ll be collecting vintage parfait glasses to hold your Vanilla Banana Cream Pies.

Have I not tempted you yet? Can you resist the Miniature Bread Puddings, the Whoopie Pies, the Angel Cakes with Lemon Sauce, the Mini Chocolate Soufflés, the Strawberry Bruschetta, the Fresh Ginger Carrot Cakelets, the Greek-Style Honey-Nut Pastries, the Blueberry Cobblerettes, the Crispy Cream Puffs, the Mango Mousse, the Chocolate Truffle Tarts…? As you can see, the list goes on and on. Resistance is futile. Get to baking!

Review by Monica Garcia:

In Petite Sweets Ojakangas shows us how to make miniature versions of some of the most decadent and sinful desserts and sweets around. From planning the dessert menu and equipment basics to tips on ingredients it’s all covered with large full color photos.

Cooking and baking have always been hit or miss with me. I love to do it but even if I follow the recipe exactly I don’t always get the best results. Some of my more memorable dishes have been my Lemon Meringue Soup when trying to make my favorite pie and most recently when following my grandma’s light and fluffy gordita recipe I ended up with what my husband called “biscuits with meat”. LOL My son even nicknamed me “burner girl” because he was always scraping the burnt parts off his favorite grilled cheese sandwiches.

Petite Sweets has plenty of easy to follow recipes and for my review I tried the Mini Cream Puffs. There were just a few basic ingredients and I filled mine with vanilla pudding so in no time flat I had a tiny version of one of my favorite treats with almost no mess to clean up afterwards. My cream puffs were light, fluffy, golden brown and perfectly flaky and I actually surprised myself at how good they tasted.

One major plus is that since I’ve been dieting I’ve cut all sweets and goodies out of my diet. With Petite Sweets I was able to satisfy my sweet tooth without all the guilt that I would have had with the full size version.

In each of the categories below there are many more great recipes that have caught my eye and next up for me will be the Fresh Lime Pies made in mini muffin tins which will be just big enough to satisfy my craving while still being good.

Petite Sweets Categories

* Little Cakes

* Petite Pies and Tarts

* Fruit and Berry Desserts

* Mouses and Chilled Desserts

* Creams, Custards and Frozen Desserts

* Pastries and Sweets

Any of the sweet treats found in the book would be the hit of your party and your friends will all think you’re a master pastry chef. I highly recommend Petite Sweets for bakers of any skill level because as my family knows I’m not the best cook and my Mini Cream Puffs were a little bit of heaven.

Review by Lee:

This is another really nice cookbook from this author. As with Lori Longbotham’s other’s that I own, its loaded with lots of great dessert ideas that focus on a single item or concept; berries, chocolate, lemon, “creamy”. Never thought that coconuts offered so many possibilities, especially after taking the plunge and learning how to use fresh coconut. And unlike a lot of cookbooks (especially baking books) the recipes really work at the first try.

Literally, an ideal book to have if stranded on a tropical island.

Review by Sabra Turnbull:

I couldn’t wait for this next book in Lori Longbotham’s dessert series, so I preordered it. I just made the Coconut and Mango Pavlova. As usual, I appreciated the clear directions, which make beautiful and impressive recipes easy to do. It was amazing! I could get addicted to mango curd. Next on my list is coconut custard pie, which has always been a favorite of mine.

Review by D. Fox:

Sure, the pictures are beautiful and the recipes sound delicious, but the true mark of a cookbook is how the final products taste.

Having made many of these recipes- some several times- I can vouch for the quality of the food. Chocolate chip cookies, blueberry buckle, apple pie. Simply put, everything I have made has been wonderful!

I wholeheartedly recommend this book for anyone who wants to delight a crowd. But you’d better double the recipe.

Review by B. Marold:

`The All-American Dessert Book’ by the accomplished baking writer, Nancy Baggett is the fifth `American’ dessert book I have reviewed in the last two years, not even counting her own, earlier `All American Cookie Book’. This seems to be an incredibly rich topic, as I see practically no `All American’ books on other branches of cookery, except for the great `James Beard’s American Cookery’.

The other `American Desserts’ books are by Wayne Harley Brachman, Judith Fertig, Karen Barker, and Laura Brody (emphasis on chocolate). The great thing about this subject is that these books are uniformly superior cookbooks, but I will give two big nods to Ms. Baggett over the other books.

First, Ms. Baggett’s two `All American’ baking books form a larger body of recipes than any of the other four alone. While Nancy’s second book does have a chapter on cookies and bars, there is no overlap of recipes with her earlier book, so the two are highly complementary, although the newer book does have a few which border topics in the cookie book, such as a new ginger cookie recipe.

Second, Ms. Baggett makes a point of giving us very detailed recipe instructions. The observation that very few of us got training at our mother’s knee anymore is becoming more and more common in cookbooks, so many cookbooks, like Ms. Baggett, are giving us more detailed instructions. While I am very fond of Wayne Harley Brachman’s book, especially for his many recipes for basic pastry doughs, I thing I would go to Ms. Baggett for her recipe for certain standards, if the two cover the same preparation.

The first thing I always go to in a baking book is the author’s recipe for pie pastry. It is amazing to see the variety of additives one can find in this seemingly simple preparation. While many highly respected bakers will add vinegar or egg to the water in making the pastry, Ms. Baggett adds baking soda. Otherwise, her technique is the same you will see over and over again, with the new suggestion of using supermarket produce bags to sandwich the dough as you work it, due to their strength and food grade material.

Like Brachman’s book, Baggett covers desserts which lie outside the world of baking such as puddings; custards; ice creams; sauces and sundaes; and candies and confections. The last subject is strong on fudges, taffies, caramels, and marshmallow.

Like all these books, this one is not by any stretch of the imagination a COMPLETE compendium of American desserts. I suspect that you could take all five books together and find a truly American sweet that is missing. I looked for my two favorite Pennsylvania Dutch sweets here, Apple Dumplings and Shoofly pie and found the former only as a variation to a peach dumpling recipe and found nothing on shoofly pie or molasses cake or anything else familiar to our Amish and Mennonite friends.

I am especially fond of the way Miss Nancy writes her recipes and whenever I need a cookie recipe, I always go to her book first, even before I go to bakery superstar, Nick Malgieri. And, I see the same attention to details in this volume. I am especially happy with her lecture on using the right sized pans and the techniques for assuring ourselves that our pans are comparable to what is called for in the recipe.

Very highly recommended book on American desserts of all kinds.