Indulge: 100 Perfect Desserts (Hardcover)

~ Claire Clark Head Pastry Chef at The French Laundry (Author), Thomas Keller (Foreword) "This Scottish favourite has a wonderful buttery taste and firm but light crumb - an irresistible combination..." (more)
Key Phrases: quick puff pastry, little spray oil, angled palette knife, Gas Mark, Claire's Notes, Crème Anglaise (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Irresistible .... [has] enticed me to start measuring ingredients with a scale in the true pastry-chef fashion. (Bonnie Stern The National Post 20071215)

Claire's Notes ... give the book a voice and a sense of the pastry chef's many years of experience. (The Globe and Mail )

Product Description

Learn to craft desserts from a master pâtissier.

Claire Clark is the pastry chef at The French Laundry (Napa Valley in California), one of America's most renowned restaurants. Its innovative and creative menus always deliver the highest standards of quality and great taste. Its celebrated desserts, made by Clark, are nothing short of remarkable.

Indulge is a collection of Claire Clark's favorites dishes that any home chef can re-create. Perfectly decadent, the recipes in this new cookbook range from the deceptively simple to the more exotic. Included are cookies, cakes, pastries, mousses, ices, meringues, custards and creams, and more. Clark's down-to-earth writing style demystifies such sumptuous sweets as:

• Red wine and chocolate cake
• Bitter chocolate, praline brûlée and espresso torte
• Orange and pistachio semolina cake
• Fig and blueberry and créme fraîche tart
• Rich chocolate ganache tart with salted caramel and candied peanuts
• Tropical fruit Pavlova
• Mango, ginger and lime sorbet.

Along with the recipes there are valuable tips and techniques learned during Claire Clark's 20 years as a pastry chef in world famous restaurants.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Whitecap Books (October 12, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1552859096
• ISBN-13: 978-1552859094
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #57,254 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Unique, delicious recipes that will challenge your culinary know-how, December 16, 2007

By	BakingandBooks.com "BakingandBooks.com" (CT) - See all my reviews

Indulge: 100 Perfect Desserts, by Claire Clark, is an inspiring collection of unique recipes that range in difficulty from moderate to complex. As an experienced home baker & cook I appreciated how this book challenged me to up the proverbial ante. Though recipes for things like apple and cinnamon charlotte, carrot cake and shortbread don't require too much kitchen know-how, other recipes will force you to flex your culinary muscles. A recipe for Feuilles D'Automne (which consists of layers of hazelnut meringue sandwiched with a hazelnut chocolate mousse and covered in crisp chocolate leaves) requires you to know how to make meringue, mousse, and how to temper chocolate, for instance. Clark has helpfully included a "Secrets of Success" section at the beginning of each chapter, which is filled with tips that teach you how to master many of the skills utilized in the book. She also includes a useful index of UK to US conversions (which lets you know that what she calls "cornflour" is called "cornstarch" stateside), as well as notes with most recipes, where she guides you through especially difficult steps and shares tricks she has used in her own kitchen. Under her instruction ordinary gingerbread becomes a veritable feast for the senses, with individual gingerbreads covered with crystallized rose petals, syrup and butter cream. I was especially delighted with her recipe for "dumph noodle," which is a kind of bread smothered with homemade crème anglaise. It was a tremendous hit with everyone who tried it and has been added to my list of favorite recipes.

Because the recipes in this book have such a wide range of difficulty, "Indulge" would best be enjoyed by someone with a solid foundation of culinary knowledge and a desire to greatly improve their skill. Anyone who can bake, cook and meringue their way through the entirety of this book will find themselves in possession of a wealth of invaluable know-how. The only caveat I would offer is this: unless you are already an accomplished baker/cook, many of the recipes will be daunting. I have yet to master Clark's recipe for Turkish Delight, which though I've followed it to the letter three times, has ended in complete disaster on every occasion. When this happens I find myself thinking about those "Star Trek" moments when Bones would turn to Jim and say something like "I'm a doctor Jim, not a pilot!" Well, in my case I'm a baker not a candy maker, and I'm completely fine working through the learning curve. One of these days I will master the magic of Turkish delight! In the meantime I have my dumph noodle, honey madeleines, and many other scrumptious treats to keep me company.

Chapters include: Biscuits and Cookies; Cakes; Pastry; Meringues; Custards and Creams; Desserts, Mousses and Jellies; Puddings; Ices and Petits Fours. A "Suppliers" index is also included at the back of the book.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, well-written, well-photographed, January 16, 2008

By	Cookbook Gal "Cookbook Gal" - See all my reviews

Baking and Books has done a good job of discussing Indulge. My two cents: the recipes are interesting, the photography is beautiful. I plan to make the Popcorn Ice Cream (yes, you read that correctly!) This book will definitely challenge a beginner, but the author's instructions are so well written and comprehensive, that this would be a great book for a beginner with which to hone his or her skills. It will also please experienced home bakers: Clark provides measurements in both grams and cups, and lists oven temperatures in Celsius, Fahrenheit, and Gas Marks (thank you, thank you, thank you!)

Some other recipes: Lemon Posset, Battenburg Cake, Spiced Pumpkin Custard with Orange Infused Granola, Apple Strudel (check out Great Coffee Cakes, by Carole Walter for even better rolling instructions, or Desserts by the Yard by Sherry Yard). I list some of the recipes because I think it's important that someone looking for a homey, every day baking book with recipes for quickbreads, American layer cakes, etc., should pick another book. If you want interesting, old European recipes, plus some innovative desserts, this is the book for you.

Two more observations: the author is English, I believe, so some of her terminology can be confusing to Americans, but the publisher provides a helpful "translation" index at the front of the book. Finally, a number of ingredients are going to be hard to find if you don't live near a major city, so you will have to order them via the internet (examples: gelatin sheets, hibiscus flowers).

16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous, November 14, 2007

By	Eliza (Poland) - See all my reviews

I love to bake and have many cookbooks, but this one belongs to my favourites.
Full of real knowledge and inspiration. For me it's also important that the author is the experienced pastry chef and reading this book you feel that she exactly knows what she talks about. And - not like many other authors - she wants to share her knowledge with you.
Recipes are clearly explained. Simple (like shortbread), and more difficult like creme brulee or difficult like Opera. It's a book not for beginner, rather for someone who has some experiences in baking.
And also this book is just beautiful - with modern pictures and nice colours.
Highly reccomended!