Room For Dessert : 110 Recipes for Cakes, Custards, Souffles, Tarts, Pies, Cobblers, Sorbets, Sherbets, Ice Creams, Cookies, Candies, and Cordials Hardcover – November 1, 1999

Baking books abound, but none presents a more mouthwatering selection of contemporary sweets than David Lebovitz's Room for Dessert. A former pastry cook at Chez Panisse in California, Lebovitz offers more than 110 recipes for cakes, curds, soufflés, tarts, pies, cobblers, ice creams, cookies, and more, beautifully depicted by color photos. He also manages, as few other baking book authors do, to provide lucid technical guidance, so even novice bakers should have success with his recipes. Readers searching for a solid collection of doable desserts, from homey to dress-up (but never too bedecked) will find the book is just what they're looking for.

Featured are a number of Lebovitz's most acclaimed desserts, including Meyer Lemon Semifreddo, Butternut Squash Pie, and Orange Almond Bread Pudding. Readers will also want to try his modernized Marjolaine (chocolate-covered layers of vanilla and praline creams sandwiched between crisp nut meringues), Fresh Ginger Cake, Mexican Chocolate Ice Cream, and Brown Sugar-Pecan Shortbread, among others. With a chapter on liqueurs and preserves--there's a recipe for a luscious pineapple ginger marmalade, for example--and a presentation of basic formulas that includes dessert sauces (Lebovitz's soft-candied citrus peel topping is a standout), the book, wide in scope yet straightforward in detail, delivers. --Arthur Boehm

"Room for Dessert is a tempting collection of recipes that are beautiful to look at and delicious to eat. But more than that, this book is a distillation of all the experience of a gifted pastry chef and teacher who guides the reader through every technical step to achieve a glorious result. Room for Dessert is a winner!"

-- Nick Malgieri, author of Chocolate and How To Bake

"Room for Dessert is my favorite kind of cookbook. It is a very personal collection of dessert recipes collected over many years by an extremely gifted cook/baker. This book is like having a teacher stand beside you as you make each recipe. It is a one-of-a-kind dessert book." -- Marion Cunningham, author of Learning to Cook with Marion Cunningham

"David Lebovitz's charming and personal book is a wonderful addition to my kitchen library. Utterly delectable desserts for all seasons, great tips, and a liberal sprinkling of David's adventures at Chez Panisse." -- Alics Medrich, author of Cocolat: Extraordinary Chocolate Desserts and Alice Medrich's Cookies and Brownies

"David Lebovitz's distinctive desserts offer the best of both worlds--heavenly flavor combinations and down-to-earth techniques. Every page is rich with information which this fine pastry chef has gleaned for home cooks everywhere. Follow me: I can't wait to bake my way through this fabulous dessert book." -- Flo Braker, author of The Simple Art of Perfect Baking and Sweet Miniatures: The Art of Making Bite-Size Desserts

"Every so often a cookbook comes out that actually breaks new ground, expands its subject matter and energizes its readers. I feel this way about...Room For Dessert. After thumbing through the book I started baking cookies, then cakes, then roasting fruit. These desserts are so ingeniously simple that beginners can cook them, yet smart that they inspire professionals. Lebovitz has created a classic."

"This book... delivers pure substance. If you follow his recipes step by step, you will succeed. Lebovitz uses no complicated or fussy techniques. He requires no arcane equipment. The home cook can do any recipe in the book. "

"But what really sets this book apart is the originality and charm of the recipes...He has impeccable taste and a unique sensibility that takes traditional desserts one step further. ...Personally, I'd buy Room For Dessert for the cookie section alone, and I'm giving it as a holiday gift to anyone I care about who even thinks about entering the kitchen. This is a book that inspires people to cook." (Excerpted from the San Francisco Examiner, November 1999) -- Patricia Unterman, San Francisco Examiner Sunday Magazine

SIMPLE AND SWEET FROM A MASTER BAKER (excerpts): Room For Dessert... is as endearing as it is brilliantly appealing, because Mr. Lebovitz writes with a personal touch. It could be catagoried as a chef's cookbook, but that would be an unfortunate label, as most of those thick compendiums are full of desserts meant to be composed by a team of cooks, not by a home cook with a conventional oven.

Mr. Lebovitz hands you over a collection of his best recipes and leaves you to assert your own know-how....His instructions are clear and simple, and the recipes are so good that it becomes clear what a master baker he is without his announcing it himself with complex recipes. -- Amanda Hesser, New York Times