|
Books : Sweet Stuff: Karen Barker's American Desserts |
|
|
Books : Sweet Stuff: Karen Barker's American Desserts |
| Browse by Category: Cooking, Food & Wine Baking Baking > Bread Baking > Cakes Baking > Chocolate Baking > Confectionery Baking > Cookies Baking > Desserts Baking > General Baking > Muffins Baking > Pastry Baking > Pies Baking > Pizza Bartending Beer Business Canning Coffee & Tea Cooking > General Cooking > Potatoes Cooking by Ingredient Cooking with Cheese & Dairy Cooking with Fruits Cooking with Game Cooking with Herbs & Spices Cooking with Meats Cooking with Pasta Cooking with Poultry Cooking with Rice & Grains Cooking with Sauces & Salsa Cooking with Seafood Culinary Arts & Techniques Diabetic & Sugar-Free Dietary Drinks & Beverages Gastronomy Gastronomy Essays Gastronomy History Gourmet Healthy Juice Kosher Low Cholesterol Low Fat Low Salt Meals Meals > Appetizers Meals > Breakfast Meals > Brunch & Tea Meals > Outdoor Cooking Meals > Salads Meals > Soups & Stews Natural Foods Occasions Occasions > Holidays Occasions > Party Planning Occasions > Seasonal Occasions > Tablesetting Outdoor Cooking Outdoor Cooking > BBQ Outdoor Cooking > Picnics Outdoor Cooking > Tailgating Preserving Professional Cooking Quick & Easy Quick & Easy > Cooking for 1 Quick & Easy > Microwave Reference Region > African Region > Asian Region > Canadian Region > Caribbean & Indian Region > Europe Region > General Region > International Region > Latin American Region > Mexican Region > Middle Eastern Region > Native American Region > U.S. Regional Regional & International Smoothies Special Appliances Special Diet Special Occasions Spirits Sweets (see Baking) Vegan Vegetables Vegetables & Vegetarian Vegetarian Wine Wine & Food Wine Buying Guides Wine Collecting Children's Books Entertainment Health, Mind & Body Home & Garden Horror Job Interview Job Resumes Literature & Fiction Mystery & Thrillers Nonfiction Outdoors & Nature Parenting & Families Romance Science Fiction & Fantasy Travel |
by: Karen Barker
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.86 EAN: 9780807828588 ISBN: 0807828580 Label: The University of North Carolina Press Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 320 Publication Date: April 19, 2004 Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press Release Date: December 04, 2003 Sales Rank: 480880 Studio: The University of North Carolina Press Editorial Review: Drawing on years of professional experience as well as memories of cooking and baking from her New York childhood, Barker gives us the benefit of cooking alongside an experienced mentor. Starting with the fundamentals, she offers advice on selecting key ingredients, suggestions for essential kitchen equipment, and even tips on ways to fit dessert-making into the busiest of schedules. Her recipes begin with pastry doughs, sauces, and special toppings that serve as building blocks for other desserts and provide a foundation for home cooks eager to improve their skills. Chapters on pies, fruit desserts, custards, cakes, ice creams, cookies, and breakfast-like desserts feature familiar favorites with a twist, such as key lime coconut pie with rum cream, deep-dish brown sugar plum cobbler, dark chocolate Peppermint Pattie cake, and cornmeal vanilla bean shortbreads. Sweet Stuff offers something irresistable for everyone. Related Items:
Average Rating:
 Rating: - Fun, delicious & entertaining cookbook!I love it! I used my Mom's and now have my own copy to share with my 2 little girls as we bake up a storm! This cookbook is very eary to follow with simple, yet tasty recipes. Thank you, Karen Barker, for sharing such wonderful recipes and your personal touch to each of them! Rating: - What A Great Home Dessert Guide!I've been a cookbook fan and user of Karen and her husband having enjoyed cooking from their cookbook, but now to have one devoted to Karen's outstanding talents and love for desserts is neat. She has a philosophy here that should comfort and inspire: to get us back cooking our own desserts using great recipes. That's how she and previous generations learned, at the side of someone who had a great recipe. Her styling of this collection of desserts is with the home chef in mind. So, ingredients, techniques and equipment are with us in mind, and she tells us her preferences and what she used to make these. Also, she provides info as one proceeds with the recipe on what to expect, adjust, etc. Most of the recipes are not complex, nor simple, but all delicious and most very unique and creative. But none of them are of that category of being "over the top" that would scare most of us home dessert makers to ignore trying them, except in those unique times when we would torture ourselves and our patience to take days to make a special one. None of that here! Just great desserts! I've tried several of the following with great results and look forward to more of the same: Lime Meringue Tart; Blackberry Slump with Sweet Potato Dumplings; Bourbon Creme Caramel with Bruleed Bananas; Summer Cherry Berry Pudding; Dark Chocolate Peppermint Pattie Cake; Banana Upside Down Cakes; Pumpkin Cognac Cheesecake Brulee; Ruby Port Ice Cream; Purple Plum Rum Sorbet; Cornmeal Vanilla Bean Shortbreads; Raised Cocoa Waffles a la Mode. There is much useful sections as well: Baker's Bookshelf; Sources; Equivalent Pan Sizes (this I find extremely useful); All in all a most delightful and substantial dessert guide for just us home bakers. And great color photos of so many! Rating: - Well-rounded desserts for all levels of experienceAward-winning pastry chef Barker admonishes the reader (gently) not to skip the opening primer on techniques, tools and ingredients, and, along with the usual baking do's and don'ts, you will find useful information on the equipment and ingredients used in these American dessert recipes. Her Basics chapter offers various pastry doughs as well as dessert sauces of all kinds, from classic chocolate to Concord Grape Syrup and Marshmallow Fluff. All the classics are here, many with a twist (Apple Rhubarb Cardamom Crumb Pie, Goat Cheese Cheesecake in a Hazelnut Crust) and Barker offers homey tips as well as variations and serving suggestions. Notes throughout explain how to choose or handle specific ingredients, and recipes are very clearly organized and written. Not just for bakers, there are ice creams; custards and puddings; pancakes, waffles and fritters; and numerous fruit desserts, baked and not. With gorgeous photographs, lots of variety and clear, thorough instructions for success, this is a well-rounded book for beginners as well as experienced cooks. Rating: - Excellent Dessert Book If You Can Pick Only One`sweet stuff' is subtitled `Karen Barker's American Desserts', that is, probably coincidentally, almost exactly the title of Wayne Harley Brachman's new book published a few months ago. In summary, both books are great treatments of American desserts, covering very much the same territory. Brachman's book is funnier and it may explain some basic techniques a bit more thoroughly. Ms. Barker's book is a bit longer, covers some topics in somewhat greater depth. Karen's recipes are centered in Southern desserts while Wayne's center of gravity is somewhere between Brooklyn, New York and Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. I suggest you get both if you are a big dessert maker. Brachman covers doughnuts and does a better job on teaching piecrusts. Brachman's volume may be better for the novice. Barker's book has more recipes overall. I recently reviewed Gale Gand's new book `short + sweet' on fast desserts and it is quite a good book for working with kids. Karen has definitely done desserts for grown-up tastes, in spite of the large number of peanut and peanut butter recipes. The presence of rum, bourbon, and Jack Daniels as ingredients is just one indication of how this book is aimed at adult tastes. The reciped chapters in this book are named: The Basics: A Baker's Building Blocks A Pie Primer Fruit Somethings Custards & Puddings: Low and Slow is the Way to Go Let Them Eat Cake We All Scream for Ice Cream The Joy of Cookies Pancakes, Waffles, Fritters, and other Breakfast-Like Desserts As cheesecake is actually a type of custard pie, you may be puzzled to find it discussed in the chapter on cakes. That aside, I found the Ms. Brown's recipe, techniques, and explanations for how and why a cheesecake can go wrong is quite the best I have seen. It agreed with and went far beyond Alton Brown's `Good Eats' cheesecake episode in achieving a primo cheesecake. As with Brachman's book, the true subject of this volume is not as centered on historical American recipes as it is on recipes which are currently popular in the United States, whether they originated on these shores or are imports from England, France, or Italy. The book gives you a fair share of Crème Broulee, Panna Cotta, and Sabayon. It balances that with lots of true American classics like apple pie, `Sally Lunn' brioche like bread, Sumps, Crumbles, Cobblers, and Shortcakes. The most distinctive strength of the book is it's very concentration on reusable techniques and preparations. It can very much be seen as an application of Ming Tsai's `Master Recipe' technique in the book `Simply Ming'. The approach starts in the chapter entitled `The Basics', but it permeates the book. The chapter `Fruit Somethings' in particular has several techniques for compotes, shortcakes, and syrups that may be used together with ice creams, cakes, and other pastries. Please be careful to note that this book is not a general book on baking and does not cover a lot of baking topics. Conversely, it includes ice creams, sherbets, sorbets, and granitas, which may be a classic province of the pastry chef, but it is not baking. The book contains a great little bibliography with references to important modern works on baking. My only disappointment was that the author chose to present only `New York' style ice cream, which is a frozen custard. A truer `American' dessert may be the `Philadelphia' style, which includes cream, but no eggs. Highly recommended if you need only one book on desserts. Not easy, but the results are more than worth the effort.
Other Departments - Book Shop - Cake Decorating Shop - Magazine Shop - Candles - Licensed Characters - DVD - Video Shop - Wedding Shop |
Please send mail to PastryWiz with questions or comments about this web site.
This Store is brought to you by
BakingShop.com & PastryWiz.com
in association with Amazon.com
|
* Information in this document is subject to change without notice. Listed prices are for informational purposes only and may change without notice. Final prices are determined when you place your order. |
