Classic Home Desserts: A Treasury of Heirloom and Contemporary Recipes Frm Around the World - Hardcover

Sax, Richard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1881527522 ISBN 13: 9781881527527

Publisher: Chapters Pub Ltd, 1994

A delectable collection of old-fashioned, mouth-watering deserts, updated for today's tastes, also includes profiles of the various chefs, their recollections of favorite desserts, and excerpts from literature related to everyone's favorite meal. IP.

Review:

Food writer Richard Sax compiles a massive selection of over 300 classic dessert recipes. Cobblers, fools, creams, pastries and cakes of every variety, including cheesecakes, are described--delights to tempt the most replete of dinner guests at the end of a meal. The recipes are drawn from old cookbooks, family collections and Sax's own repertoire of classics, giving the book the feel of an old-fashioned heirloom handed down from some perfect past; Sax includes some fascinating culinary history. Thankfully, a few allowances are made for modern taste, including reduced fat and calorie content in many of the recipes. 1995 Winner of the Julia Child Cookbook Award in the Bread, Baking and Sweets Category.

From the Inside Flap:

No fancy concoction by a pastry chef can match the direct appeal of a dessert made by a good home cook, whether a berry cobbler, a lemon meringue pie, a sour-cream cheesecake or a bowl of freshly churned ice cream.

For the better part of a decade, Richard Sax has searched out 350 of the most treasured home desserts from around the globe. The result is the most comprehensive collection of its kind yet assembled.

'These are the desserts made at home by mothers and grandmothers rather than by professional pastry chefs,' Sax writes. 'Those included are only the best in each category-the things you can bring to your table with confidence, knowing they will be eaten to the last crumb.'

Every dessert you've ever wanted to make is here:
--Fruit cobblers, crisps and compotes
--Puddings, creams and souffls
--Pies and tarts of every description
--Sauces and ice creams
--Simple pastries
--Plain cakes, fancy cakes and coffee cakes

Recipes include: Southern-Style Peach and Raspberry Cobbler, Frozen Cappuccino, New Orleans Bread Pudding with Whiskey Sauce, The World's Best Lemon Tart, Claremont Diner Coconut Cream Pie and Schrafft's Hot Fudge Sauce.

Although many of the recipes are delightfully old-fashioned, Sax has put his own innovative touches on others without compromising their ease or authenticity, adding a little fresh ginger to a plum crisp, or white chocolate to a banana cream pie.

But this is far more than a collection of recipes. Profiles of cooks and their recollections, essays on the evolution of classic desserts, and literary quotations make this as much a valuable historical and cultural exploration as a cookbook.

Also includes:
--Tips on how to avoid common mistakes in dessert-making
--A glossary of essential baking equipment, cookware and gadgets
--48 full-color photographs by noted photographer Alan Richardson