Customer Reviews

Let Them Eat Cake: 140 Sinfully Rich Desserts-With a Fraction of the Fat

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a great cookbook for people who love to eat desserts guilt-free. Susan Purdy does an excellent job of turning traditional favorities (like brownies) into low-fat treats. She uses rich ingredients (like dutch-process cocoa) in smaller quantities to provide flavor and low-fat ingredients (like low-fat cream cheese) to cut fat and calories. She gives a complete breakdown of the fat and calorie content at the end of each receipe. The recipes are written step-by-step and there are some pictures. Most of the recipes make a couple dozen cookies or an 8-in square pan. If I had one complaint it would be that the receipes call for a lot of very specific ingredients (for example, you are advised against substituting low-fat cream cheese and Neufatchel cream cheese). However, everyone I've shared these recipes with can't believe they are low fat.

Just reading the Table of Contents may make your mouth water: Luscious Lemon Squares, Strawberry-Rhubarb Cobbler, Key Lime Pie, Southern Sweet Potato Pie, Pear-Prune-Brandy Cake, sauces, toppings, and more! Susan G. Purdy (former student at "Le Cordon Bleu" and "L'Ecole de Cuisine la Varennes" in Paris) is a master chef, whose previous book, "Let Them Eat Cake" won the Julia Child Award. Her number one criterion for these low-fat goodies is taste: "The recipes must stand on their own and taste wonderful, not `okay' because they are low fat."

It's an easy yet complete guide to making low-fat sweets, with cooking tips on almost every page, enumerated instructions for each recipe, and notes on advance preparation, special equipment, and time requirements.

Her recipe for the delicious and usually cholesterol-heavy Tiramasu is a wonder. Per serving, it has 341 calories (compared to 600 for her favorite non low-fat recipe), 7.8 g of fat (compared to 37 g), and 92 mg of cholesterol (compared to 243mg). Her lemon meringue recipe has half the fat and one-sixth the cholesterol of the usual by using non-fat butter, no egg yolks, and other healthy substitutions. There is a long, excellent chapter on nutrition and cooking, a list of recipes by dietary requirement (e.g., fat-free, lactose-free, reduced-sugar) and occasion (children; holidays). She includes also a humorous 4-pagesection called "quick-fix cover-up tricks" when recipes don't go as expected.

This is a fun, thorough, and delicious set of recipes. Ms. Purdy talks about the importance of reducing fat and cholesterol but never sounds preachy. There's a guide to USDA food labels (for example, she explains the meaning of "fat-free" on a label), a list of mail order suppliers, a bibliography, index, and some beautiful color pictures within the book's 389 pages. An excellent book: Highly recommended!

AT LAST! She has an exceptional index of tons of fabulous main-stream baking recipes for those of us who suffer from Celiac Disease (can't eat anything made with wheat/rye/oats/barley). You've NO idea how difficult it is to bake without wheat flour! While this is certainly not the main theme of these marvelously decadently rich recipes, it's very sensitive of this author to include an index of her recipes for us. Fantastic for Celiac kids who miss out on so many desert goodies. And for the rest of us "big" kids who never outgrow our longing for great deserts! Also, don't miss the index on Lactose-intolerance recipes. THANK YOU SUSAN PURDY!

The recipes here run the gamut from everyday desserts to holiday specialties. Easy to follow directions, clearly written and the ingredients used are easy to find in any supermarket. Best of all, the results taste better than the fat-laden,sugary sweet recipes we love! I don't believe there is a bad recipe in the entire book. This cookbook deserves greater popularity and credit. HIGHLY recommended!

When this arrived I was pleasantly surprised by its' size and contents, there are a lot of well-written recipes in this book. The only reason I give a 4 rather than 5 is that I like to see more pictures. There is a middle section of pages in the book with quite a few color photos and each chapter has a black and white photo at the beginning, but the rest of the pages are a different material paper and no photos. Still, especially considering the price, I think this is a great buy.

I had a ball just reading the recipes. While they all wouldn't be considered "low-fat" they are reduced-fat and would definitely curb that craving that so many of us sweet-tooths get. I found the way the author reduced the fat (without adding sugar) to be fascinating. She really knew her stuff and I look forward to trying one of the cheesecake recipes later today.