Great Good Desserts Naturally: Secrets of Sensational Sin-Free Sweets [Paperback]

Fran Costigan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2000

Now you can eat sumptuous desserts that are as healthful as they are delicious, using more whole grain flours, nutritious oils, organic ingredients, and natural sweeteners, without eggs or dairy products. Enjoy sinful chocolate cakes and brownies, comforting fruit pies, baklava, dessert creams and sauces, heavenly frostings and fillings, and refreshing dairyfree ice creams.

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Good Cakes Publications; 1 edition (February 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0967310806
• ISBN-13: 978-0967310800
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 7.9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #898,585 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Chef Fran Costigan Meet the "Queen of Vegan Desserts"...
Native New Yorker Fran Costigan, the "Queen of Vegan Desserts," is an internationally recognized culinary instructor, author, consultant, recipe developer and the pioneering vegan pastry chef who marries healthy eating with sumptuous tastes. The "Fran Factor" is her unique ability to transform traditional desserts into modern, healthful, and luscious vegan desserts that satisfy vegans and omnivores alike. In Fran's recipes, 'nothing is missing except the dairy, eggs, white sugar and excess fat.' She is the authority on all things related to vegan baking and desserts.

A graduate of the New York Restaurant School, the Natural Gourmet Institute, and Nick Malgeri's Professional Pastry Intensive, today Fran teaches her unique courses at the Institute of Culinary Education, the Natural Gourmet Institute (including her always sold-out Vegan Baking Boot Camp Intensive®), and at other venues throughout the US and Canada. Fran's most recent book, More Great Good Dairy-Free Desserts Naturally (Book Publishing Company, 2006), is designed as a complete course in vegan baking. Fran's recipes feature organic whole grains, fair trade natural sweeteners and chocolates, and clean seasonal ingredients.

Fran and her decadent modern vegan dessert recipes have been featured on Discovery Health's Get Fresh with Sara Snow, Better TV, and ABC's Nightline. Her work has been profiled in numerous print and online publications such as The New Yorker, VegNews, Veg Family, Vegetarian Journal, Vegetarian Voice, Café Sweets Japan, and Organic Spa Magazine. Fran is an advisory board member of New York Coalition for Healthy School Foods, and she also promotes her message through her professional affiliations, which include the New York Women's Culinary Alliance (NYWCA), International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP), Women Chefs and Restaurateurs (WCR).
For more information, please visit www.francostigan.com.
"Like' Pastry Chef Fran Costigan on facebook and follow her Tweets @goodcakesfran

"Like" Vegan Pastry Chef Fran Costigan at Facebook and ollow Fran on Twitter @goodcakesfran

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Cookbook!, May 1, 2000

By 

Mary (Morristown, New Jersey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Great Good Desserts Naturally: Secrets of Sensational Sin-Free Sweets (Paperback)

I recently purchased a copy of Great Good Desserts Naturally! by Fran Costigan. I am a strict vegetarian and try to cook and bake using only natural ingredients. This book has great recipes that taste as if they have been made the traditional way with eggs, butter, and sugar. I have made the double fudge brownies with great success, and my skeptical husband even thought they were excellent. I also made the cornbread recipe, which is moister than any of the traditional recipes I have made. This recipe can be turned into cornmeal pancakes or corn muffins as well.

In the book, the author gives several tips about whole food ingredients as well as how to subsitute traditional ingredients with natural alternatives. She discusses appropriate baking utensils and techniques that make this book suitable for novice bakers in addition to experienced ones. She also tells how to modify recipes (e.g. making cupcakes from a cake recipe), and she provides information on how to present the desserts (frosting ideas for cakes, sauce ideas, fillings for cookies). The book contains recipes for cakes, frostings, cookies, frozen desserts, sauces, and more. I would recommend it as an easy way to have healthier snacks and sweets in your diet.

40 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Delightful new cookbook for healthy dessert lovers, March 24, 2000

By 

Kathy Eldon (West Hollywood, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Great Good Desserts Naturally: Secrets of Sensational Sin-Free Sweets (Paperback)

At last, a delightful new cookbook for people who want to indulge a sweet tooth, while striving towards being healthy. Fran Costigan's informative book is packed with recipes which include no butter, no refined sugar, no milk nor eggs, and are cholesterol free. Each recipe is written simply enough for a newcomer in the kitchen, and carefully tested to be totally fool proof. I love the author's lively notes, which makes the book ideal for bathtub reading. The book includes all my favorite traditional desserts; flaky pastry pies, yummy lemony custard sauce, fruit crumbles, outrageous chocolate sauce - even double fudge brownies (but all made healthily), as well as a new collection of contemporary, hip desserts, including lemon-lime tofu cream, carob cake, and "this is not my mother's pumpkin pie". This is a must-buy for anyone wanting to be healthy and happy at the same time!

38 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I RATE THIS BOOK 10 STARS!DELCIOUS-EASY-NO SUGAR-LOWFAT!, July 11, 2000

By 

"vegansam" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Great Good Desserts Naturally: Secrets of Sensational Sin-Free Sweets (Paperback)

The Recipe-Chocolate Cake to Live For and Ultimate Chocolate Frosting are worth the price of this book! I can cook but have not been successful with desserts. Until now! Fran's clear recipes and sense of humor have transformed me into the queen of dairy-free desserts (According to my happy family and friends). I think she must teach great classes and wish I was closer to NYC. What amazes me is that I have to fight to save pieces of these desserts for my vegan friends. EVERYONE LOVES THESE DESSERTS. I want to make every recipe. I am a chocolate person but love the blueberry slump as much. The format of the book is smart. THe beginning seems like a private class in natural foods, with so much information about healthy ingredients and how to use them and WHY and charts. I think beginners and more advanced bakers can use this book-it is like a terrific reference book with delcious recipes. She points out the recipes are easily varied. I doubled the orange cake (Tropical Fruit Gateau), split the layer in half, filled and frosted it with Chocolate and now it is a much requested birthday cake. I can't beleive how professional it looked. I am ordering onther copy for myself and definately will send this book out when a gift is needed. If I sound excited, it is because I am. Did I mention that the recipes are easy and many can be made and frozen? I can find only one negative and that is I want to see more books by Fran like this one. Yes I recommend this book.