Gordon Ramsay's Just Desserts

Here, Gordon Ramsay aims to demystify the art of dessert-making. There are the basic building blocks - fruits, ices and creams, mousses and souffles, crepes and batters - that can be served alone for everyday meals or in combination to impress. Then come the stand-alone dishes - homely favourites and special-occasion desserts - and a final chapter on vital accompaniments - biscuits, s[ponges and meringues. Throughout the book Gordon offers the benefit of his short cutsand tricks of the trade.

Gordon Ramsay's Just Desserts is a very fine book of last courses from energetic three-star Michelin chef Gordon Ramsay, expertly marshaled for the domestic kitchen by Roz Denny. Ramsay's imagination is obviously caught by the sweet course: he expends a great deal of innovative thinking to it with fascinating results. He is inclined to roast his fruit, for example, caramelizing it for greater intensity of flavor; or he might deep-fry it, as in the elegant and fantastically nonchalant Fruit Tempura. Asian flavors appear in ethereal dishes like the Thai Rice Pudding with Coconut and Lemon or Banana and Passion Fruit Sorbet. Cheesecake is light and flavored with pumpkin. Proper homage is paid to comfort food, with recipes for Bread and Butter Pudding (Ramsay makes his with a baguette and laces it with Baileys Irish Cream) and Steamed Toffee, Banana, and Pecan Pudding. The chocolate recipes are particularly fine, with a Chocolate Mocha Tart standing out. Just Desserts is also an excellent primer of patisserie techniques; its explanations and illustrations of the standard syrups, pastes, sponges, and pastries of the restaurant kitchen, here translated into domestic terms, are particularly lucid. The professional mysteries of the mousse, the parfait, the bavarois, and the various manifestations of the meringue are made wonderfully clear. --Robin Davidson, Amazon.co.uk