Perfect Light Desserts: Fabulous Cakes, Cookies, Pies, and More Made with Real Butter, Sugar, Flour, and Eggs, All Under 300 Calories Per Generous Serving (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Readers who know Malgieri as the author of such drool-inducing books as Chocolate, Perfect Cakes and Cookies Unlimited may be surprised to find the phrase "all under 300 calories per generous serving" on the cover of his new cookbook. Has the renowned pastry chef gone healthy? Only a little bit—and with nary a sprinkle of Splenda or spoonful of "buttery spread" in sight, Malgieri and Joachim (A Man, a Can, a Grill) offer 125 simple recipes for chocolate desserts; cakes; pies and tarts; puddings, custards and soufflés; fruit desserts; iced and frozen desserts; and cookies that happen to be lower in calories than most. Some recipes are for traditional desserts that are naturally low in calories and fat (Blueberry Pie, Peaches in Red Wine, Biscotti), while others use lighter ingredients, e.g., a combination of whole eggs and egg whites (instead of egg yolks) or low-fat dairy products (Chocolate Cupcakes with Brown Sugar Icing, Ginger Lovers' Pound Cake). The authors only go so far with their "light" approach, though: real butter and even real heavy cream appear in several recipes—the result being a well-rounded recipe collection for delicious and fairly guiltless treats. Photos. (On sale Oct. 17)
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Product Description

Everybody loves dessert, but nobody loves the calories. Perfect Light Desserts offers recipes for desserts rich enough to satisfy any sweet tooth -- but with sensible calorie counts.

Master baker Nick Malgieri and healthful food expert David Joachim have joined forces to create 125 exceptional desserts without the usual quantities of fats and sugars. The focus is on flavor and texture achieved through balanced ingredient combinations and superior baking techniques. Not a single recipe has more than 300 calories per serving.

The results are nothing short of spectacular, with desserts that range from devil's food cake (complete with fluffy icing) to a lemon custard highlighted with a colorful raspberry sauce. Old-fashioned American favorites such as hermits mingle with sophisticated treats like rum raisin semifreddo and white chocolate raspberry tartlets. Best of all, while these desserts are low-calorie, they are high in flavor. Moist coconut poppy seed coffee cake, juicy blueberry pie, and fudgy brownies don't taste like “diet desserts”; they simply taste great.

All of the recipes here achieve great flavor without resorting to artificial sweeteners or synthetic substitutes. The recipes use moderate amounts of real butter, sugar, flour, and eggs in perfect proportions. Every recipe includes a complete nutritional analysis as well as serving and storage notes. Everybody loves dessert, and now no one has to go without it.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Cookbooks (October 17, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060779292
• ISBN-13: 978-0060779290
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #430,692 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lightened Desserts Done Right. Buy It., December 28, 2006

By	B. Marold "Bruce W. Marold" (Bethlehem, PA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

`Perfect Light Desserts' by baking teacher extraordinare, Nick Malgieri and veteran cookbook author David Joachim is a classic meld of baking technique and substitution cooking, fitting the skills of the two authors. There is probably no other baking writer's work on a `healthy' baking book I would expect more from than Malgieri, since I always go to his books first whenever there is a specific kind of recipe I wish to make. He doesn't always have what I want, but every time I use his recipe, the results exceed my expectations. I have even found better recipes in his book, especially `How to Bake' than I have in books which specialize in the subject I am searching.

David Joachim's contribution is utterly appropriate, as his latest opus was `The Food Substitutions Bible', being an encyclopedia of what ingredients, as in lower calorie for higher calorie, can be swapped for what.

The authors' introduction shows their technique is entirely in the direction I would have hoped. They use no `non-fat' ingredients and no artificial sweeteners, although they do use `lowered' fat products. Just as I am fond of Rachael Ray's take on fast cooking without relying on prepared convenience foods, these authors fill their book with low calorie and low fat recipes by concentrating on those recipes which tend to be lower in the bad stuff to begin with.

There is little mystery to how the recipe slimming is done. First, as stated above, the authors choose recipes that are not high in sugar and fat to begin with. Second, high fat ingredients such as dairy products are replaced with `moderate' fat substitutes or dairy products with extra body such as buttermilk or yogurt. Third, fat is replaced with vegetable products such as applesauce. Fourth, rich icings are removed, so bulking up with rich stuff is an option. The classic examples of all these techniques put together would be a cheesecake recipe replacing cream cheese with ricotta and a carrot cake which makes heavy use of vegetable textures to begin with. Both these examples are also classic cases of picking good recipes to begin with. The ricotta cheesecake is not a diet faddy invention, it is based on an old Neapolitan recipe.

The authors claim to have maintained reasonably sized portions. I suspect a good symptom of the Americans' inflated notion of portion size is that these portions seem just a bit on the small size. When I am not in `dieting' mode, I would not imagine getting 8 portions from a 9-inch fruit pie or even less 16 portions from a 10-inch Bundt pan cake. But, the portions all seem to be of reasonable size, and most of the time, the calorie count for the portion is actually well below the target of 300 calories per portion.

One corollary to the fourth technique above is that there are very few double crusted pie recipes in the book. And, the pie crust recipes are all for a single 9 inch piecrust or maybe a 10 inch tart crust. Virtually the only caveat I have about the book is that unlike some of Malgieri's other books, this is not a serious tutorial on baking techniques. This is not to say there are no good guidelines and lessons here. Just the opposite. It's just that you will do much better with this book if you are already a fairly adept baker. The recipes for the pastry crusts, for example, assume you know most of the tricks of the trade in making a nicely flaky crust with a food processor. I am not overly fond of using the food processor and I do fine with my old-fashioned dough cutter. But, since these recipes use less butter and even less water, I suggest you go along with the recommended food processor technique, as this will work better on the smaller quantities.

On the other side of the coin, I find things in this book that I would expect and do not find in a lot of other books. My favorite is a little table showing when many popular fruits are in season. Unless you are a strict carbophobic, it is clear to both me and the authors that fruit is one of the very best ingredients for healthy desserts.

One thing to take very seriously is that this is not a book on baking in general, but only on DESSERTS. This means there are no recipes for lower calorie biscuits, breads, muffins, or breakfast pastries. But, you do get a generous helping of recipes for vegetable bulked breads.

It is no surprise that the book starts with chocolate, as that seems to be everyone's favorite dessert ingredient (except for my mother, probably because she spent several decades working in a candy factory). The very best news about chocolate is that not only is it not, in itself, fattening, it is literally good for you, just like tea and (dare we hope) coffee. The bad side of chocolate is from the level of sugar added to cut its natural bitterness. The authors accommodate this by using sugar-free baker's chocolate plus complex sweeteners or use Dutch process cocoa power, which is less bitter than unprocessed cocoa powder. My only regret here is that while there are many fine chocolate recipes, a classic chocolate layer cake is not among them. The authors redeem themselves by giving us a `healthy' recipe for chocolate chip cookies (sorry, no nuts). Even better is the even healthier oatmeal raisin cookies. Now why didn't I get this book before Christmas!

Reading this book in December makes one regret that all the best berries and stone fruits are out of season. Just Wait!!!

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a simple and easy book for the everyday baker, January 5, 2007

By	Everyday Baker "Everyday Baker" (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews

I am a starter baker, so my husband bought this book for me as a Christmas present. I love the concept presented here by Nick Malgieri - real ingredients (real butter, real sugar, etc), less the amount, and still delicious desserts. I have tried two recipes so far, and both have turned out well (even though the tart crust contains only THREE tablespoons of butter, a minor miracle indeed!). What I also like about this book is that the ingredients and the equipment are simple and common in local supermarkets. None of the recipes requires fancy, exorbitantly priced rarities from the other side of the world. In addition, the recipes cover a range of dessert genres: chocolates (with an entire section devoted to it), cakes, tarts and pastries, ice creams, cookies. Nick also teaches you the basics of ingredients and baking techniques, along with helpful tips - so the book is educational as well (my husband was reading it for fun the other day!). One thing that this book doesn't have, but that I would've appreciated having, is prep time. Otherwise, no complaints from me. I look forward to trying all the recipes in 2007!

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic book!, February 13, 2007

By	gypsy "gypsy" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews

I have by now made six of the recipes in this book, one of them (the brownies) three times. Most cookbooks that I keep have an eight in ten success record. This book, however, is ten out of ten. The brownie recipe is one of the best I've ever tasted and certainly the best I've ever made. The fruitcake ended up being the highlight of a recent holiday potluck. The coconut poppy seed cake was the perfect birthday cake, and the reason I'm reviewing the book at this moment is that I handed a slice of spice cake to a co-worker who praised it for a good three minutes.

I always knew Malgieri was a great baking book author. I didn't realize how great until just this moment. I haven't had a failure yet from this book, and I can't even say that about classics like "The Joy of Cooking." Bravo, Mr. Malgieri!

p.s. Buy this book if you want to make some scrumptious, lower fat and calorie, desserts.