When I ordered this book I was very excited about it. I love fruit, and using it in cooking for me is always fun. When I use fruit in savory dishes I do it to be innovative and for something "new," but when I use fruit it dessert, it's for elegance, and style.
This book did not dissapoint. There are recipes for almost every fruit imaginable, most available in any grocery store, along with some beautiful photos of some of the finished and plated desserts.
The book starts with the authors, Mr. David Lebovitz, acknowledgments, and continues with a foward by Ms. Deborah Madison. This is the first book of Mr. Lebovitz's I've owned, and seeing how great this one is, must now get his other, Room for Dessert.
Then there is an introduction from Mr. Lebovitz, including some tips, techniques, and a section on different types of fruits.
There are then seven chapters, seperated by fruit catergory, full of recipes.
Apples, Pears, Quince, and Rhubarb - Included are fourteen recipes, mostly for apples and pears. The quince and rhubarb being included in this chapter, since they don't really fit anywhere else. There are six recipes for apples, one being a tempting spiced apple charlotte with cider sabayon. There is one recipe for quince; quince marmalade with manchego cheese. Then six recipes for pears, including; stilton shortcakes with honey-poached pears and cornmeal shortcakes with spice-baked pears. This is followed by a single recipe for rhubrab; rhubarb tart with almond nougatine.
A chapter for tropical fruit follows with ten recipes. There's a papaya recipe for papaya cake with coconut glaze, then a tropical version of baked Alaska, reightly re-named here, a baked Hawaii. There's two mango recipes, and three pineapple recipes, including one for a caramelized pineapple flan. There are two banana recipes, and a recipe for mango and lilikoi butter.
Next is a chapter full of citrus fruit desserts, with nineteen recipes, nine being for oranges, or one of their counterparts. The orange recipes include orange allspice cake with brown sugar glaze and ricotta cake with candied orange. There are then three lime recipes, the best being the lime-marshmallow pie, a single grapefruit recipe; pink grapefruit champagne sorbet, and six lemon recipes including; lemon-ginger creme brulee and gingery lemonade.
There is a whole chapter for dried fruits, which I believe are under-used in America. Mr. Lebovitz has managed to take these under-rated fruits, and come up with fifteen recipes including them. Most recipes include more then one fruit, so it's impossible to seperate them by fruit, like in the other chapters. Some examples of recipes included are; pear and fig chutney with bittersweet chocolate mousse, date ginger and candied pineapple fruitcake, and peppery chocolate-cherry biscotti.
There is then another chapter of more misc type fruits, that seem to hard to group with any other fruits; Figs, Grapes, Melon, and Pomegrantes. There are only seven recipes, two of them being; fig and raspberry tart with honey and a duo of wine grape sorbets. This is not a bad chapter, but is weaker compared to the other chapters.
There is then a chapter of stone fruits with fifteen recipes, with four cherry recipes including chocolate bread with sauteed cherries, four peach recipes, including the cover recipe; peaches poached in wine syrup, an apricot recipe; apricot and marzipan tart, two tempting nectarine recipes, and four plum recipes, including a spiced plum streusel cake.
The last chapter is devoted to my favorite fruits; the berries. Fourteen recipes are included. There are four strawberry recipes, which seem to be a favorite of everyone, including; strawberries in red wine syrup with almond meringue baskets, a boysenberry recipe, two blackberry recipes, only one blueberry recipe, and two recipes for mixed berries. There's also a recipe for tomatoes.
The only fruit that I find to be missing in the whole of the book is raspberries. Though it is used as a supporting ingrediant in some recipes, it deserves a stand alone one that all other fruits have been given.
Mr. Lebovitz has also included two indexes, one which lists the recipes by type, i.e. cakes and pies, which is handy since the book is divided by fruits, and another general index.
