PastryWiz A Sweet Quartet: Sugar, Almonds, Eggs, and Butter: A Baker's Tour, Including 33 Recipes

 

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A Sweet Quartet: Sugar, Almonds, Eggs, and Butter: A Baker's Tour, Including 33 Recipes
by: Fran Gage

List Price: $15.00
Price*$6.98
You Save: $8.02 (53%)
as of 02/09/2010 07:11 EDT

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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 641
EAN: 9780865476745
Edition: 1st
ISBN: 0865476748
Label: North Point Press
Languages: EnglishOriginal LanguageEnglishUnknownEnglishPublished
Manufacturer: North Point Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 256
Publication Date: November 06, 2003
Publisher: North Point Press
Studio: North Point Press

Editorial Review:

Product Description:
Fran Gage calls sugar, almonds, eggs, and butter "the DNA of desserts." Simple as they seem, they make possible a profusion of pastries and other sweets, from the elemental lollipop to the ethereal realms where marzipan, meringue, and puff pastry hold sway.

In A Sweet Quartet, Gage tells the story of each ingredient, from its origins to its transformation into culinary gold, drawing upon her travels, tastings, experiments, and remembrances. She crowns each section with a baker's half-dozen of recipes that show off the multiple talents of the ingredient.



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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:  out of 5 stars

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - A charming, and compelling tale
A Sweet Quartet is a charming tale about the history of sugar, almonds, butter, and eggs, and how each made its way independently into the kitchen and became the foundation of all desserts. She tells the story of each ingredient by weaving history with personal recollections in the field at a sugar mill, at a hatchery, as owner of a patisserie, and other experiences. The story is compelling, and comes complete with 33 recipes. -rkc



Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - The culinary history of dessert-making is fascinating
Four basic elements make desserts possible: sugar, almonds, eggs, and butter. A Sweet Quartet blends a culinary history of these ingredients with a recipe guide and travelogue. No color photos, but the easy recipes don't need them, while the culinary history of dessert-making is fascinating, adding a literary touch to the results.



Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Gorgeous writing about basic ingredients
Fran Gage's "A Sweet Quartet" is filled to overflowing with gorgeous writing about four basic baking ingredients: sugar, almonds, eggs, and butter. She refers to these with the charming assertion that they are "the DNA of desserts." Although I'd disagree with her here (in my book, flour would replace almonds, much as I love almonds!), this former bakery owner makes her case so winningly and with such conviction that you are swept along in her cause.

The recipes are few--just under three dozen total--which may seem like very little for a cookbook that costs over twenty bucks. But Gage isn't trying to provide you with recipes as much as she's trying to fill you in on the background, the history, the chemical properties, and the world view of these ingredients. On the task she sets for herself, she does beautifully. Did you know, for instance, that:

"The Germans have loved marzipan since it arrived in the sixteenth century from Venice. They sought out the best almonds for it, and trade guilds regulated its sale; only apothecaries were allowed to sell it, much to the chagrin of confectioners . . . Neideregger, a marzipan maker in Lübeck since 1805, still boasts two hundred varieties."

or . . .

"The rhythmic slapping of balloon whisks beating egg whites in copper bowls is more than a romantic holdover. Atoms from the copper bind with one of the white's proteins, which promotes cross-linking between the protein molecules, resulting in a foam that is creamier and not so easy to overwhip."

or . . .

"There is real butter, and there is fake butter, and they are not the same . . . Spurred on by a challenge from Napoleon III in 1869, Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès came up with a cheaper substitute. Relying on shaky biological knowledge of how a cow produced something that became butter, he mixed the oil from beef fat (oleo) with skimmer milk and water, throwing in a strip of cow udder for good measure. His invention was surprisingly like the veritable item. He called it margarine, after the Greek word for 'pearl,' a name that reflected its glossy appearance. People liked the price, and some may have liked the taste. The new product became popular."

"A Sweet Quartet" is filled with fascinating nuggets like this, studded with information that way one of Gage's desserts might be studded with dried cranberries or chocolate chunks or, well, almonds. This is a super book for anyone interested in peeking behind the bakery curtain to see the whys and wherefores of the way these essential dessert ingredients work and how they affect both each other and other ingredients. And the recipes, by the way, are wonderful!

Buy Now!

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A Sweet Quartet: Sugar, Almonds, Eggs, and Butter: A Baker's Tour, Including 33 Recipes
List Price: $15.00
Price*$6.98
You Save: $8.02 (53%)
as of 02/09/2010 07:11 EDT

 

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Product prices and availability updated on 02/09/2010 07:11 EDT.