Sweet Stuff: Karen Barker's American Desserts [Hardcover]

Karen Barker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 4, 2003

Like many people, I believe that one should always save room for dessert, says Karen Barker. Inspired by this sumptuous collection of more than 160 easy-to-follow dessert recipes, you may decide to skip dinner altogether and head straight for the sweet stuff.

Drawing on years of professional experience as well as memories of cooking and baking from her New York childhood, Barker gives us the benefit of cooking alongside an experienced mentor. Starting with the fundamentals, she offers advice on selecting key ingredients, suggestions for essential kitchen equipment, and even tips on ways to fit dessert-making into the busiest of schedules.

Her recipes begin with pastry doughs, sauces, and special toppings that serve as building blocks for other desserts and provide a foundation for home cooks eager to improve their skills. Chapters on pies, fruit desserts, custards, cakes, ice creams, cookies, and breakfast-like desserts feature familiar favorites with a twist, such as key lime coconut pie with rum cream, deep-dish brown sugar plum cobbler, dark chocolate Peppermint Pattie cake, and cornmeal vanilla bean shortbreads. Sweet Stuff offers something irresistable for everyone.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

An award-winning pastry chef, Barkerâ€"coauthor (with her husband) of Not Afraid of Flavor, a cookbook from their restaurant, Magnolia Grill, in Durham, N.C.â€"presents a diverse and balanced selection of her favorite American desserts. She enthusiastically introduces home cooks to the basics of pies, fruit desserts, custards, ice cream, cookies, cakes, waffles and other breakfastlike desserts with clear, unintimidating directions and copious suggestions for variations. Every recipe includes a personal introduction, succinct directions, elaborate baker's notes with additional hints and advice, and serving suggestions that sometimes refer to other recipes in the book. By altering just a few ingredients or adding an unusual spice, Barker creates out-of-the-ordinary twists on classics, such as Apple Rhubarb Cardamom Crumb Pie, Buttermilk Vanilla Bean Custard Pie and Coffee Anise Creme Caramel, as well as more obscure tastes like Blackberry Slump with Sweet Potato Dumplings or Peanut Butter Cheesecake. Full-page photographs illustrate the dishes in mouth-watering detail. Although the book will satisfy any sweet tooth, lovers of fruit desserts will especially appreciate the abundance of recipes for pies, cobblers, crumbles, crunches, crisps, buckles, grunts, slumps and betties, as well as Barker's tutorial on how to tell the difference between them.
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Review

"Karen Barker has assembled an amazing array of delectable desserts."
— KLIATT

"Karen Barker believes one should always save room for dessert. And this . . . chef gives us plenty of reasons to share her belief, whether we're dining in her restaurant or perusing her delectable recipes. . . .With Karen's careful advice on ingredients and technique, it's easy to tackle any of Sweet Stuff's 160-plus recipes."
— Chapel Hill Magazine

Award-winning pastry chef Karen Barker draws on memories of her New York childhood and years of professional baking experience to present a collection of more than 160 recipes for classic American desserts for the home cook, from fruit pies and fritters to cookies and ice creams.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press; First Edition edition (December 4, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807828580
• ISBN-13: 978-0807828588
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 7.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,359,558 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What A Great Home Dessert Guide!, October 15, 2004

By 

rodboomboom (Dearborn, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Sweet Stuff: Karen Barker's American Desserts (Hardcover)

I've been a cookbook fan and user of Karen and her husband having enjoyed cooking from their cookbook, but now to have one devoted to Karen's outstanding talents and love for desserts is neat.

She has a philosophy here that should comfort and inspire: to get us back cooking our own desserts using great recipes. That's how she and previous generations learned, at the side of someone who had a great recipe. Her styling of this collection of desserts is with the home chef in mind. So, ingredients, techniques and equipment are with us in mind, and she tells us her preferences and what she used to make these. Also, she provides info as one proceeds with the recipe on what to expect, adjust, etc.

Most of the recipes are not complex, nor simple, but all delicious and most very unique and creative. But none of them are of that category of being "over the top" that would scare most of us home dessert makers to ignore trying them, except in those unique times when we would torture ourselves and our patience to take days to make a special one. None of that here! Just great desserts!

I've tried several of the following with great results and look forward to more of the same: Lime Meringue Tart; Blackberry Slump with Sweet Potato Dumplings; Bourbon Creme Caramel with Bruleed Bananas; Summer Cherry Berry Pudding; Dark Chocolate Peppermint Pattie Cake; Banana Upside Down Cakes; Pumpkin Cognac Cheesecake Brulee; Ruby Port Ice Cream; Purple Plum Rum Sorbet; Cornmeal Vanilla Bean Shortbreads; Raised Cocoa Waffles a la Mode.

There is much useful sections as well: Baker's Bookshelf; Sources; Equivalent Pan Sizes (this I find extremely useful);

All in all a most delightful and substantial dessert guide for just us home bakers. And great color photos of so many!

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well-rounded desserts for all levels of experience, June 8, 2004

By 

Lynn Harnett (Marathon, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sweet Stuff: Karen Barker's American Desserts (Hardcover)

Award-winning pastry chef Barker admonishes the reader (gently) not to skip the opening primer on techniques, tools and ingredients, and, along with the usual baking do's and don'ts, you will find useful information on the equipment and ingredients used in these American dessert recipes.

Her Basics chapter offers various pastry doughs as well as dessert sauces of all kinds, from classic chocolate to Concord Grape Syrup and Marshmallow Fluff.

All the classics are here, many with a twist (Apple Rhubarb Cardamom Crumb Pie, Goat Cheese Cheesecake in a Hazelnut Crust) and Barker offers homey tips as well as variations and serving suggestions. Notes throughout explain how to choose or handle specific ingredients, and recipes are very clearly organized and written.

Not just for bakers, there are ice creams; custards and puddings; pancakes, waffles and fritters; and numerous fruit desserts, baked and not.

With gorgeous photographs, lots of variety and clear, thorough instructions for success, this is a well-rounded book for beginners as well as experienced cooks.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fun, delicious & entertaining cookbook!, July 25, 2006

By 

HNW "mommy of liv & lina" (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sweet Stuff: Karen Barker's American Desserts (Hardcover)

I love it! I used my Mom's and now have my own copy to share with my 2 little girls as we bake up a storm! This cookbook is very eary to follow with simple, yet tasty recipes. Thank you, Karen Barker, for sharing such wonderful recipes and your personal touch to each of them!