Customer Reviews

Ice Cream Deck

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[Review book (published 2009) provided by Chronicle Books]


I find card deck-format cookbooks to be both a positive and a negative. It's great to be able to pluck a single card from the deck and stand it on the kitchen counter to work with--particularly when compared with a soft-bound book prone to closing. On the other hand, you have to consistently remember to put the cards back in their case, preferably in order, or the whole thing becomes chaos and you risk losing cards. Ultimately I expect this is one of those personal preference things that some cooks will love and others won't.

The recipes include a nice mix of basics and a few unusual flavors. I thought the honey-orange-pistachio ice cream was heavy on the pistachios, but that's the sort of detail it's easy to tweak to individual tastes, and other than that the ice cream was heavenly. There's a semifreddo in here that's creamy-smooth and has enough alcohol that it tastes like a frozen cocktail (yum!). Unfortunately, this recipe is also where we found our first obvious error: the ingredients listing includes orange zest, which isn't mentioned again in the recipe instructions.

The cards are sturdy and include quite a few pretty color photographs. The layout is easy to read, with simple, clear fonts. The surface of the cards is smooth, making them much easier than most cookbook pages to clean off if you get them dirty.

The number of recipes isn't huge, and not everyone will like the card deck format, but these recipes definitely yield delicious results! Making your own ice cream can be very rewarding for dessert lovers, and this is a great way to get started.