Desserts by Pierre Herme (Hardcover)

~ Pierre Herme (Author), (Author) "The genoise is the "Old Faithful" of French pastry chefs..." (more)
Key Phrases: dessert ring, reserved small bowl, large flexible rubber spatula, Perfect Tart Dough, Sweet Tart Dough, Transparent Glaze (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Master pastry chef Pierre Hermé creates desserts that look too good to be eaten. Whether your own renditions will look quite as exquisite is another question! But finding out is definitely worth the time investment. Here are Lemon Crepes to die for, a Golden Pearl Brownie cake that will send your taste buds spinning in an orgy of taste, and delicate Orange Tuiles that are so light and dainty they practically melt in your mouth. A majority of the recipes do require some more advanced culinary skills--and a patient disposition. A Warm Chocolate and Banana Tart requires that the tart's filling of chocolate and butter be cooled to 104 degrees, and then be cooked for exactly 11 minutes. Thankfully, Desserts offers a wealth of helpful information for cooks--listing the essential equipment and ingredients required for pastry perfection and a dictionary of dessert terms. Beautiful photographs make the desserts shimmer in a translucent light, crying out for you to try your hand at creating them. So, with a little endurance and love, you will be well rewarded with your choice of more than 100 heavenly desserts. --Naomi Gesinger

From Publishers Weekly

Herm?, a celebrated French pastry chef who was not only the youngest person ever to be named France's Pastry Chef of the Year but is also the only pastry chef to have been decorated as a Chevalier of Arts and Letters, exports his wizardry to America for the first time in a book that will primarily attract ambitious confectioners. Veteran food writer Greenspan (Baking with Julia) warns that the book's recipes require technical skill and patience. For Flourless Chocolate Cake Batter, the chocolate must be melted and then cooled to 114 degrees. The recipe for Genoise is "temperamental." Fragile is a word applied to Perfect Tart Dough and many other recipes that call for some tricky assemblage. Unexpected ingredients include the one and a half cups of corn in Golden Lemon Fruit Layers; the basil chiffonade garnishing Basmati Rice and Fruits-of-the-Moment Salad; the black pepper and an optional sliver of a haba?ero that spark Warm Chocolate and Banana Tart. For some, a slice of Carioca made of alternating layers of genoise and dark chocolate mousse, topped with bittersweet ganache and glazed almonds, will make all the work worthwhile. Ambitious cooks with steady nerves will find welcome inspiration here. Agent, Jane Dystel.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; 1st edition (November 2, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316357200
• ISBN-13: 978-0316357203
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.9 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #55,395 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For the serious cook, November 4, 2003

By	Lisa M Hsu "lisamuss" (Dix Hills, NY United States) - See all my reviews

After reading all the other reviewers who either gushed over or maligned this book, I felt compelled to give yet another opinion which I hope will clarify the polarized opinions on this cookbook.
First, if you are looking to find a cookbook on comfort food or "the-way-Mom-used-to-make-it-desert" for your next family gathering, DON'T GET THIS ONE. Also, if you're on a frugal budget or a time crunch, again, LOOK ELSWHERE. This is one of the GREATEST patisserie chefs in the world. And he gives us in his cookbook all the extravagance, style, taste and showmanship that title carries. The recipes are expensive, time consuming and sometimes tricky. They contain specialty ingredients and use specialty tools. Any substitutions based on economy or convenience will probably result in failure.
On the other hand, if you long to create something really extraordinary and impressive and have the time and pocketbook to match don't hesitate to get this. Although some ingredients are special, they are not so hard to obtain. If you can read and write, you can cook from this. Both experienced and beginner cooks. I can't account for a previous reviewer who complained about confusing directions. All I can say about that is some people don't bother reading directions thoroughly, make a mess, and then blame the directions. I have baked time and again from this book, from the simple and delicious coconut pound cake to the spectacular and complex "Melody," and never a glitch in the preparation. I have to tell my guests that I made it. They always just assume its created by a professional chef and ask me for his number.
So there you have it. Know yourself before you decide to spend the money on this one. Definetely for the serious cook only.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Seemingly Difficult Recipes in Reality Easy and Delicious, December 5, 2001

By	Diana F. Von Behren "reneofc" (Kenner, LA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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Master pastry chef Pierre Herme has created a delightful book filled with more than enough taste treats to satisfy even the most sated dessert gourmand. On first glance, each recipe appears difficult to construct; each contains a multiple amount of steps most of which require parchment paper and pastry bag utilization--not the standards of most amateur bakers. Not worth the fuss? Au contraire! Pierre's ultimate products are fabulous--the tastes and textures meld together to form not only a tasty finish to any meal, but create perfect confections that are also a feast for the eyes.
The book is divided into 4 main sections: Pierre's basic recipes, Fruits, Creams and Cookies, Tarts and Tartlets and Cakes. A Dictionary of Terms, Techniques, Equipment and Ingredients as well as a Source Guide round out the book. I guarantee that the hands-on experience of creating at least one of these dessert extravaganzas will act as your own personal primer to pastry-making, igniting your passion for the French patisserie and insuring that you purchase all other books by M. Herme. My own interest in the book was cultivated by seeing M. Herme in action on Martha Stewart's kitchen where he piped the beautiful and delicious pear and fig tartlet with such an easy perfection I was astounded. Bought the book the next day and was not sorry!

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Restaurant Desserts, January 25, 2004

By	jerry i h (Berkeley, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

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At first I was skeptical of this book, since Hermé is worshipped by the French press as a demi-god. I am glad to say that this is a source of very good, but not great desserts. There are several things I like about this cookbook. All of the recipes were thoroughly tested, and I had no problem with the ones I tried, although some recipes required more than casual talent and there are no warnings about this in the recipes. Most of the recipes are assembly jobs. That is, the components are prepared at least a day before and assembled that day. The garnishes and plating are also completely described and recipes given for them; this way, there is no question of how to serve them. These are mostly professional restaurant desserts that have been successfully adapted to the American kitchen. So, these recipes are suitable for both restaurant and home. There is nothing here that is very difficult, but some are time consuming and have several preliminary steps. Hermé for the most part eschews decorative, architectural structures and focuses on the flavor of the dish.

The chapter "Basic Recipes" contains components used by recipes in the other chapters. It is an interesting collection of recipes, some with curious wrinkles. Some of them, like pâte brisée, meringue or inside-out puff pastry, do not work as well as standard versions. Some, like crème anglaise or pastry cream, are actually better than standard ones because they list actual temperatures rather than a physical description as the end point, meaning that the less experienced will have a good chance of doing them properly. Some recipes, like Lemon Cream, are a lot of extra effort without any discernable improvement. In this chapter, standard French names in addition to the American ones used would have been nice, especially for those who have not had a lot of experience with French patisserie.

The next two chapters, "Fruits, Creams, and Cookies" and "Tarts and Tartlets" are much more interesting. Hermé's use of fresh fruits is particularly impressive, particularly in simple fruit plates and tarts. The little tricks he uses are well worth learning and applying elsewhere, like burning off crème chiboust with a propane torch, adding freshly ground pepper to fresh fruits (I believe he is the one who invented this), or using chopped, drained oranges by itself as a tart filling. Some his tricks, however do not really help; draining or drying fruit produced a nice texture, but they lost their fresh fruit flavor.

The last chapter on cakes was rather ordinary. In particular, I did not really like the flavor of the chocolate cakes. They have all sorts of other flavors added in, and they did not combine well with the chocolate. The combinations are trendy, and many of them are already out of date (book copyright is 1998).

The last chapter is particularly useful: it has explanations of the procedures and equipment used throughout the book. My only complaint here is that marzipan and almond paste certainly are not the same thing, nor are they interchangeable. It is here, buried at the end of the section on measuring, that you discover how flour is measured for the recipes (they use dip and sweep).