72 of 75 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Creme de la Creme, May 1, 2004
This review is from: Paris Sweets: Great Desserts From the City's Best Pastry Shops (Hardcover)
Contemplating recipes in this new book from Dorie Greenspan, subtitled `Great Desserts from the City's Best Pastry Shops' is much like shopping for antiques in that furniture whose style and construction have survived either decades or centuries of wear and changes in taste is almost invariably of a higher quality than last month's great new thing. You don't even have the disadvantage of having to pay a premium price, as Ms. Greenspan's book list price is lower than many books containing mostly new recipes original with the author and her support team.
Ms. Greenspan is not only reporting recipes from what she believes are the greatest patisseries in Paris, she is telling us from which shops these recipes come, and where these shops are located. Happily, some of these shops even have satellites in New York City. Yum.
All of these recipes are classics. The Madeleine cookie is so important and so well known that Ms. Greenspan gives us three recipes from three different shops. Apparently, there are so many different recipes for Madeleines, she could have assembled a book from them alone.
Cookies are the subject of the first chapter. Following chapters cover cakes, tarts, `pastries and small treats', and `grand gateaux'. The `pastries and small treats' chapter includes such standards as Crème Brulee, Chocolate Mousse, Chocolate Bread Pudding, Ali-Babas (similar to baba au rhum), Tiger Tea Cakes, Soft Apple Cakes, Whipped Cream-Filled Meringues, Coffee Eclairs, Strawberry and Orange Flower Water Marshmallows, and Hot Chocolate. The `grand gateaux' chapter includes pastries such as Bacchus (raisin filled cake plus ganache and glaze), Opera Cake, Chocolate-Thyme Cake, Chocolate Temptation (ooh la la dessert), Blanc-manger (a very, very old French version of panna cotta), King's Cake (traditional after Christmas), Mille-Feuille (Napoleon), and Gate Saint-Honore. Decedent doesn't even begin to these homages to butter, cream, sugar, and eggs.
The final chapter of `Base Recipes' contains just a few important pantry staples. Even though they look very familiar and are probably in the repertoire of every experienced pastry chef, they deserve a look, as they may be a bit different than what you are used to. The recipe for pate sucree, for example, includes almonds and vanilla, things which are not commonly in American sweet tart dough recipes.
The recipes in this book are the main attraction, but they are not the only charm. There are lots of headnotes, asides, and sidebars on the recipes, the shops and their bakers who contributed the recipes, and the French take on classic ingredients such as butter, salt, vanilla, water, and eggs. A take on fleur de sel worth repeating is Dori's comparing it to extra virgin olive oil, the most desirable first yield from the olive oil harvest. The stories on the shops make me wish I was more in tune with French pastry when I was in Paris many, many years ago. Even the addresses of shops on streets such as the Boulevard Haussman and the place de la Madeleine bring back fond memories of time spent in Paris.
The final charm offered by the book is the collection of watercolors done by Florine Asch which decorate the text, the end pages, and the cover.
I am not at all surprised that the description of the recipes is quite clear and should be not at all difficult for an American amateur baker. Although all European professional bakers measure everything strictly by metric weight, the author has converted everything to the teaspoons and cups and English weight units. Many recipes make sensible use of a food processor for mixing dough. In spite of this all, do not be surprised that many recipes are two or more pages long. The result is more than worth the effort. Each recipe concludes with a supremely considerate note on how to best keep each result and for how long. Each recipe also includes a paragraph labelled `An American in Paris' on variations and options for serving.
Ms. Greenspan's credentials for writing this book are impeccible. This is her eighth book on pastry. Her previous books have included collaborations with Pierre Herme, Daniel Boulud, and the great Julia Child. It is quite appropriate that the book was suggested by the author of `The Paris Cookbook', Ms. Patricia Wells. Much credit to Ms. Wells for instigating this very happy result.
Highly recommended for both recipes and warm evocation of a sweet aspect of Paris.
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Delicious book, September 6, 2006
This review is from: Paris Sweets: Great Desserts From the City's Best Pastry Shops (Hardcover)
The big caveat about this book is that it has no photographs. That has come to be an expectation for today's better cookbooks, and some of the recipes (such as Gateau Saint-Honore) demand them. However, Greenspan's descriptions are so clear and evocative that you not only have a very good idea of what the pastry in question should look like, you are also transported (or so you feel) into the author's emotions and memories associated with the pastries, bakeries and chefs. The whimsical drawings also help, although they are more of place and ingredients than finished products.
While classics such as madelines, Opera Cake and the aforementioned gateau can be found, many of the recipes are updated versions of classics, such as the chocolate pound cake, Earl Grey madelines and Tigres. There are very few "new" recipes, though the ones included (such as the Chocolate Thyme Mousse) sound delicious. Many recipes are also surprisingly simple, such as the Chocolate Grandmother's cake. Plus, her recipes are so straightforward and easy to follow that you feel like you can tackle something like puff pastry and not encounter any difficulties (for the most part!).
I currently have this book out of my library, but I think it's going to require a permanent space on my bookshelf.
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35 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Great stories - mediocre recipes, March 17, 2007
This review is from: Paris Sweets: Great Desserts From the City's Best Pastry Shops (Hardcover)
I, too, love Paris and have spent years there as a student. I was delighted to find anecdotes about all my favorite pastry shops - and some others - and very excited to try the recipes. However, I agree with several other reviewers that not all of the recipes in Greenspan's book are not quite up to par. This comes partly from the fact that there are some desserts that Americans do better - the tea cake, being an excellent example. Greenspan's recipe came out dense and dry and absolutely could not compare to my usual cake. That said, there are several great recipes: the chocolate mousse technique Greenspan offers is very unique, delicious and quick, the madeleines tasty, the tarte tatin good. But I would hesitate to make any of these for a dinner party before trying them myself, seeing the collection is so mixed and many recipes simply not what you'd expect.
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