Sweet Simplicity: Jacques Pepin's Fruit Desserts - Hardcover

Pepin, Jacques

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0912333987 ISBN 13: 9780912333984

Publisher: Bay Books, 1999

Synopsis

One of America's favorite chefs shares the secrets of his kitchen, offering one hundred of his own dessert recipes for everything from Banana-Mint Ice with Rum-Raisin Sauce to Roasted Carmelized Pears and Apricot-Fig Souffle. 50,000 first printing. Good Cook/BOMC. Tour. IP.

About this title

Review:

There's no reason to deny yourself the pleasures of dessert when you're cooking with Jacques Pépin, for he's assembled a delicious assortment of fruit desserts in Sweet Simplicity. From summer's Fragrant Melon Soup (with one scant gram of fat per serving) to the winter warmer Grapefruit Gratin, Pépin serves up swift and sweet endings suitable for every season of the year. Organized by type of fruit, the beautifully photographed book offers more than 115 recipes for old favorites such as Nectarine Crisp and Banana Fritters, as well as fanciful new dishes, including Grapes, Oranges, and Currants in Lime Cookie Cones and Pinwheels of Peaches with Strawberry Coulis. Nutritional information accompanies each easy-to-read entry, and as one might expect from Claudine's father and instructor, the directions are clear and informative (heating a lime in a microwave oven yields more juice than just pressing it on the counter before slicing, for example). Nearly all of the desserts in the book are low in fat and light in calories, and even the heartiest, such as Warm Raspberry Gratin with Sour Cream, have only about as much fat as a Snickers bar. To achieve this level of healthfulness in a dessert cookbook, Pépin doesn't rely on silly low-cal substitutes, but instead on the rich, sweet, ripe fruits themselves--and he's careful to note that the ripeness of the fruit usually determines the quality of the dish. --Rebecca A. Staffel

Review:

...it contains about 150 recipes organized by type of fruit, and the operating philosophy here is simplicity of technique and flavor. It is not uncommon to see recipes with only two or three steps (an obvious blessing), and, for the most part, the recipes are refreshing both in taste and concept...Pepin has come up with new techniques that are both simple and often dazzling...One tester wrote, "If I had the time, I would systematically make every recipe." -- Cook's Illustrated magazine, July/Aug 1999

Take Pepin's "Sweet Simplicity." These are straightforward recipes for the home cook, with roots in French country cooking...Pepin's recipes enhance the natural goodness of fruit, adding simple touches of preserves for sweetening and almonds for crunch. It's so refreshing to rediscover the quintessential flavors of fruit without the masks of heavy, overdone preparations. An experienced cook might be tempted to gussy up the recipes, but don't mess with the master. Try them as printed first. For instance, there are no eggs in the Cherry Bread Pudding. Could this be a mistake? Nope. The dish set up beautifully...One tester asked for the recipe "right now." This book is also lovely to look at. Each fruit is given its own chapter, with handsome black and white photos complementing the short text describing seasonal availability, varieties and uses. -- Seattle Times, July 21, 1999

The book is well-organized, and each chapter offers information about particular fruits...As for the recipes, there are some fabulous no-bake offerings that would be perfect to make right now: mangoes with cognac, for instance, takes 10 minutes to prepare and couldn't be more elegant...Especially enjoyable is the chapter on uncommon fruits such as guava, papayas and quinces. And health-conscious cooks will welcome the nutrition information provided with each recipe. -- New York Daily News, July 21, 1999

About this edition

• Publisher: Bay Books
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0912333987
• ISBN 13: 9780912333984
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 224