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Retro Desserts: Totally Hip, Updated Classic Desserts from the '40s, '50s, '60s, and '70s
 
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Retro Desserts: Totally Hip, Updated Classic Desserts from the '40s, '50s, '60s, and '70s [Hardcover]

Wayne Harley Brachman (Author)
3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)


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Book Description

April 26, 2000

In "Retro Dessets, " Wayne Brachman, executive pastry chef at New York's Mesa Grill and Bolo, presents the desserts you loved as a kid--only better. It's time for a trip down to memory-lane bakery, where the old fashioned desserts of yesterday have been revamped for today's kitchen. Imagine homemade cream-filled chocolate cupcakes (you know, the ones with white squiggles on top) or big, fluffy coconut layer cake that Mrs. Cleaver would be proud of. Or impress your guests with a totally hot and cool baked Alaska. They're all here in all their retro glory.

These desserts may be fun, but they have been created with a professional's eye and palate--they taste as good as they look and vice versa. Instead of the little packaged boxes of instant ingredients that were the start of many midcentury desserts, in "Retro Desserts" you'll find homemade gelatin salads (come on, admit you love them) made with real fruit juice and fresh fruit, comforting puddings, and marshmallows. Now you can fill your cookie jar with homemade versions of Chocolate Sandwich Cookies with Vanilla-Cream Filling, Vanilla Wafers, and Animal Cookies. Wayne gives the best-ever recipes for classics such as Strawberry Chiffon Pie, Banana Pudding (made with your fresh-baked Vanilla Wafers), Chow Mein-Noodle Haystacks, and Diner-Style Strawberry Shortcake.

"Retro Desserts" is as much a cultural history of the American sweet tooth as it is an indispensable cookbook. It's a blast to read and jammed with outasight recipes.Ever find yourself dreaming about a big fluffy coconut layer cake like the one Mom might make if you lived in "Leave It to Beaver"-land? Or Cream-Filled Devil's Food Cupcakes that don't taste like the plastic and cardboard they are wrapped in? Well, now you can bake these cakes and eat them, too.

Wayne Brachman, executive pastry chef for Bobby Flay's popular New York restaurants, presents this totally hip collection of recipes, "Retro Desserts." Inspired by classics from the '40s, '50s, '60s, and '70s, these fabulous desserts look just as great as you remember, and taste even better. It's a trip down to memory lane bakery, where kitsch desserts of yesterday have been revamped for the sophisticated kitchen of today. Updated classics include Chocolate Blackout Cake, Checkerboard Cake, Baked Alaska, and Cherries Jubilee. Other recipes include wild creations based on old-fashioned flavors, like Chocolate-Dipped Frozen Banana Bon Bons, Rum and Cherry Cola Marble Cake, and Caramel Apple Chiffon Cupcakes.

Showcased by retro-style full-color photography and artwork, headlines and excerpts taken from vintage magazines and cookbooks, these are well-tested, seriously fun desserts that really work in your home kitchen, making "Retro Desserts" a valuable addition to every home baker's cookbook collection.Ever find yourself dreaming about a big fluffy coconut layer cake like the one Mom might make if you lived in "Leave It to Beaver"-land? Or Cream-Filled Devil's Food Cupcakes that don't taste like the plastic and cardboard they are wrapped in? Well, now you can bake these cakes and eat them, too.

Wayne Brachman, executive pastry chef for Bobby Flay's popular New York restaurants, presents this totally hip collection of recipes, "Retro Desserts." Inspired by classics from the '40s, '50s, '60s, and '70s, these fabulous desserts look just as great as you remember, and taste even better. It's a trip down to memory lane bakery, where kitsch desserts of yesterday have been revamped for the sophisticated kitchen of today. Updated classics include Chocolate Blackout Cake, Checkerboard Cake, Baked Alaska, and Cherries Jubilee. Other recipes include wild creations based on old-fashioned flavors, like Chocolate-Dipped Frozen Banana Bon Bons, Rum and Cherry Cola Marble Cake, and Caramel Apple Chiffon Cupcakes.

Showcased by retro-style full-color photography and artwork, headlines and excerpts taken from vintage magazines and cookbooks, these are well-tested, seriously fun desserts that really work in your home kitchen, making "Retro Desserts" a valuable addition to every home baker's cookbook collection.



Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Tired of tiramisu? Good. Wayne Brachman to the rescue. He's the pastry chef for Bobby Flay at Mesa Grill and Bolo in New York City. For Retro Desserts Brachman has culled food magazines, newspapers, cookbooks, leaflets, and the like from the 1940s to the early 1970s for the classics of American dessert kitsch, turning up one horrid treasure after another. The most frightening aspect of this book is the urge that comes with each turning page to get into the kitchen and start baking, stirring, cooking, and re-creating. Why would anyone want to bake a Crazy Craters of the Moon Cake with Moonrock Topping? (Miniature marshmallows--that's the secret of the topping.) But then Brachman shows you how to make your own marshmallow, reconstructing this entire processed dessert from scratch. "If you must," he writes, "go out and get store-bought cookies or crumbs [for pie crusts]. OK, it's extra work, but homemade cookie crumbs make a remarkably big difference in flavor." There are recipes for the home-baked equivalent of the Oreo and Cream-Filled Devil's Food Cupcakes, as well as Strawberry Chiffon Pie, Banana Pudding, Bananas Foster, Strawberries Romanoff, Lemon Bars, and Cornflake Macaroons--all illustrated with the kitsch of the time. Fun as they all sound, the recipes bear the integrity of a fine pastry chef who obviously likes a good time but is also serious about what he brings to the table. Those may look like Ding Dongs you are serving at your next dinner party, but wait until the flavor kicks in. --Schuyler Ingle

From Library Journal

Brachman's first cookbook was called Cakes and Cowpokes. Now he's combined his corny sense of humor and fondness for nostalgic desserts in this collection of recipes ranging from Chocolate Blackout Cake to Baked Alaska, grouped into chapters with such titles as "Cookie, Cookie, Lend Me Your Comb" and "For Whom the Ice Cream Bell Tolls." The recipes themselves, though, are straightforward and clearly written, and these desserts are sure to bring back memories for many readers. Recommended.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 224 pages
  • Publisher: William Morrow Cookbooks; 1 edition (April 26, 2000)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0688164447
  • ISBN-13: 978-0688164447
  • Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 8.3 x 0.9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #868,942 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

18 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
3.0 out of 5 stars (18 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Cute, but very frustrating, February 14, 2001
By 
Sharon Schubert (North Kingstown, RI USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Retro Desserts: Totally Hip, Updated Classic Desserts from the '40s, '50s, '60s, and '70s (Hardcover)
I was excited to try to make a better tasting version of Oreos, Hostess cupcakes, black and white cookies, etc. The oreos came out great, there is certainly a mistake in the amount of liquid needed for the batter for the black and white cookies, and the cupcakes came out totally flat and stuck to the pan! After double checking amounts and technique, redoing the whole thing they are still a mess! I would return this in a minute if it was that easy! A lot of cuteness, but very difficult and inaccurate recipes.
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28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Pretty, but recipes don't work, October 27, 2002
By 
Suzanne A. Smith "suzorama" (San Diego, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Retro Desserts: Totally Hip, Updated Classic Desserts from the '40s, '50s, '60s, and '70s (Hardcover)
When I saw this book, I had to have it. It is beautifully photographed and the text is witty. The problem is, like some other reviewers have mentioned, the recipes don't work. I promised the gang at work I'd bring in delicious Black and White cookies and the results were a waste of time and money. I have tried four different recipes and had trouble with each. I've never attended culinary school, but I'm a pretty experienced home baker. After the recipes failed, I could figure out the problem and make adjustments, but I don't feel it's my responsibility to do that after purchasing a hardback cookbook. Get this book if you want to set it on your coffee table, but don't take it into the kitchen!!!
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30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Exciting sounding...but a bit of a let-down, July 31, 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: Retro Desserts: Totally Hip, Updated Classic Desserts from the '40s, '50s, '60s, and '70s (Hardcover)
The desserts described in this rather entertaining book are certainly mouth-watering. Although scattered with cute commentary (often very funny!) and interesting bits of information about times gone by, I find the recipes not to be very workable. My biggest pet peave is the 'Black and Whites', our beloved huge New York cookies,soft,lemony and satisfying. The recipe sounds great...but it doesn't work out! The batter spreads too much, so the cookies are very thin and fragile, with no body and the fondant frosting turns out a mess. A chef's book?
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