Customer Reviews

Classic Home Desserts: A Treasury of Heirloom and Contemporary Recipes from Around the World

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

If I had only one book on desserts, this would be it. It is a joy to read, interesting, informative and precise. The recipes are spectacular and quite doable in an ordinary kitchen. The World's Best Lemon Tart is sensational and the best I've had. In fact, everything I've tried is terrific and I'm looking forward to trying more. I wrote this review because I wanted to share something wonderful with as many people as possible. If you're a dessert lover, this book is a must have.

I received this as a gift in 1994, the year it was first published. Although I have a large cookbook collection now, I use less than ten on a regular basis. Classic Home Desserts is a great cookbook and is my staple for baking desserts, especially for cake recipes.

I feel that healthy eating is best, but desserts do have a special place-mostly reserved for holidays and special occasions in our household. My policy is that if I am going to eat a dessert, I want it to be worth the calories, fat and carbs. There is nothing worse than eating a dessert that is flavorless or just inferior quality-but you won't have that problem with baking from THIS cookbook.

After getting married and then, later, after having children, I began a tradition to bake a birthday cake for my family members from scratch and this cookbook is my recipe source. Each time I serve a dessert from this book I receive numerous compliments. Several people have also suggested that I open a bakery or start a home business baking desserts. This always surprises me as all I did was follow the directions in the recipes in this book-nothing special was done on my part and certainly the recipes are not my original creations. For the cakes, I am always surprised when people are shocked when they find that the cake actually has flavor-because they have grown used to grocery store baked cakes which have almost no flavor!

Our family favorite for yellow cake is the 1-2-3-4 cake, it is very moist and flavorful and always receives rave reviews. I also use the 1-2-3-4 cake recipe, as per the books directions, as the cake portion of the Boston Crème Pie. The Applesauce-Carrot Cake is the absolute best carrot cake I've ever had in my life, and friends and relatives agree. (I amend the recipe by omitting the lemon from the frosting and use vanilla extract instead for a traditional cream cheese frosting that is not lemon flavored). The Chocolate Cloud Cake is to die for, and a must-try for chocoholics (use the best chocolate you can find for the best flavor). The All-American Fudge-Chunk Brownies are delicious and a far cry from supermarket boxed mixes.

I was raised in a home where cakes were baked from boxed mixes from the grocery store. I now know that cakes from scratch with quality ingredients are far superior in taste. Baking cakes from scratch is also not difficult at all and takes just a few minutes more than using a boxed mix (the extra time is the 3-4 minutes it takes to cream the butter and sugar).

A Kitchen Aid stand-up mixer is also a kitchen must-have and makes baking so easy!

Cookbooks that have different recipes than Classic Home Desserts which are also staples for baking in my kitchen are: The King Arthur Flour 200th Anniversary Cookbook for the bread recipes (easy to make with the stand-up mixer) and for Italian cookies and Christmas cookies: Sweet Maria's Italian Cookie Tray: A Cookbook by Maria Bruscino Sanche.

This book would make a wonderful gift!

"Classic Home Desserts" has a lot of style and character. You'll find historical details on many of the recipes, quotes from interesting people, and useful tips and hints. I particularly love the "Equivalent Pan Sizes" chart. Richard Sax goes into a fair amount of detail about what, for example, a cobbler really is, and how it differs from crisps, brown Bettys, crumbles, pandowdies, and shortcakes.

This book is heavy on the fruit; you'll find a recipe for whatever is in season. There are cobblers, crisps, compotes, baked fruit, fools, jellies, fruitcakes, pies, tarts, etc. If it's the dead of winter and you just can't find good fruit, you'll still find plenty to work with. There are puddings, custards, souffles, dumplings, cookies, cakes, coffee cakes, cheesecakes, custard pies, pastries, and so on. And these recipes are good. I really mean *good.* Here I see the huge star we put next to the Mixed Fruit Cobbler. Turn the page and you'll see a gorgeous picture of Panna Cotta and Poached Pears in Merlot Syrup. Yet another large ball-point pen star graces the New Hampshire "Plate Cake."

You'll find new and old recipes here. Recipes by people you've never heard of as well as big-name chefs (on p. 163 you'll find Jasper White's Maple Sugar Creme Caramel). My favorite cookies are M.F.K. Fisher's Ginger Hottendots. Trust me--no one can eat just five, and they travel well in the mail at holiday-time.

With this much variety you won't like everything you find. But this book is well worth what you pay for it for the sheer volume of recipes, the quality, and the ease of production. I predict you'll find, as we did, that this book becomes a staple in your kitchen.

I really like desserts, and since I like desserts so much I'm fussy and don't want to waste the effort making them and the calories eating them if they aren't good. This book covers the classics in every category - cakes, cookies, puddings, custards, pies, pastries, frozen desserts - so no matter what you're in the mood for you should be able to find something in here. I've had the book for several years and have never had anything fail. The directions are clear and well laid out, although I wouldn't have minded more pictures. Some of my favorites are the White Chocolate Banana Cream Pie, Edna Lewis's Sunday Night Cake, Omaha Caramel Bread Pudding, Boston Cream Pie, and Baked Custard-Style Rice Pudding.

I bought this book because of its awards and rave reviews. I also bought it to prepare for an annual informal pie contest held by friends. I had hoped to find a special, winning recipe. I baked five pie/tart recipes and ended up using none for the contest as the results ranged from poor to good but nothing was spectacular. I consider myself to be an experienced baker and I was expecting so much more than what I got. I made the following pies: lime chiffon, buttermilk, sweet potato pecan, caramel walnut tart, rice pie, and holiday nut tart with chocolate glaze. I also made the rich, all butter pie crust. The lime chiffon pie was a little too tart and had a somewhat gelatinous texture. It certainly cannot compare to a real key lime pie. Noone at my dinner enjoyed it. The sweet potato pecan pie had bland, overly-sweet potato filling, with a sugary topping that was not at all reminiscent of real pecan pie, as promised. Again, all tasters at that dinner party were underwhelmed. The rice pie, promised to be one of the best recipes in the book, was fine but not anything special - it was firm rice pudding in a shell. The only three I would make again were the nut tarts and the buttermilk pie and, surprisingly, the buttermilk pie was my overall favorite. It tasted almost like a light, lemony cheesecake. The holiday nut tart had a bitter edge to it - it might have helped to use a different combination of nuts, I'm not sure. The caramel walnut tart was well liked by all and I have no criticism of it, but can note nothing exceptional either. Lastly, the pie pastry recipe ended up feeling greasy and the food processor method made it tougher than the pastry recipe I usually use. Not wanting to take the same risk for the patee sucre for the tarts, I used another, known, recipe for them. I don't usually pay this much money for a cookbook, and I wish I had not bought this one. Maybe non-pie recipes fare better. The non-recipe aspects, such as the introduction and side notes are well written, interesting, and fun to read.

I want to go on record that Sax's apple pancake is so good it is worth the price of the book. He has many interesting recipes that you may have seen elsewhere, but his are better, clearer and in general more accessible. The woman who complained that his 1,2,3,4 cake was the same as her recipe obviously doesn't know that the 1,2,3,4 cake is a standard recipe. It is in my Joy as well as many other cook books. Sax doesn't claim to have invented the cake. He has tried to find really tasty and interesting recipes for people combined in one book. I made the pumpkin creme brulee for my husband who had craved something like this for a long time and he loved it. Where else would you find a recipe like this?

This is a fantastic collection of recipes and dessert history. Very user friendly, and all that I have cooked from here has come out wonderfully. It is always a source of inspiration to get in the kitchen and have fun!

This book is a feast for the eyes and the imagination! Not only do the recipes work but the photograhs and stories keep me looking through this cookbook over and over. I have owned this book for years and never tire of it. It seems to offer something new each time I open it. I am a pastry chef and have countless cookbooks and I can say without hesitation that this is one of my three favorites along with "Baking with Julia" and "The Cake Bible"

How could anyone quibble with this book? There is so much historical information coupled with good sense and excellent recipes. So many of the desserts are simple to prepare and impressive when served. I reach for this book often and have given it as a gift; when it was out of print for a while I searched for it second hand. If you have never made the pumpkin pie recipe, this is a great place to start (consider substituting Irish Whiskey for Bourbon) or perhaps try the Panna Cotta with Poached Pears in Merlot sauce. This is one of the all-time great dessert cookbooks. By the way, the "World's Best Lemon Tart" really is incomparable.

This book is comprehensive and easy to follow. Every recipe I have tried has worked. The pecan pie recipe is especially good, and very easy for novice bakers. If you could have only one dessert book on your shelf, this would be it.