One of my favorite books. Brachman's style is fun and the recipes are great, not to mention that they draw raves on looks alone.

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Product Description

In Retro Dessets, Wayne Brachman, executive pastry chef at New York's Mesa Grill and Bolo, presents the desserts you loved as a kid--only better. It's time for a trip down to memory-lane bakery, where the old fashioned desserts of yesterday have been revamped for today's kitchen. Imagine homemade cream-filled chocolate cupcakes (you know, the ones with white squiggles on top) or big, fluffy coconut layer cake that Mrs. Cleaver would be proud of. Or impress your guests with a totally hot and cool baked Alaska. They're all here in all their retro glory.

These desserts may be fun, but they have been created with a professional's eye and palate--they taste as good as they look and vice versa. Instead of the little packaged boxes of instant ingredients that were the start of many midcentury desserts, in Retro Desserts you'll find homemade gelatin salads (come on, admit you love them) made with real fruit juice and fresh fruit, comforting puddings, and marshmallows. Now you can fill your cookie jar with homemade versions of Chocolate Sandwich Cookies with Vanilla-Cream Filling, Vanilla Wafers, and Animal Cookies. Wayne gives the best-ever recipes for classics such as Strawberry Chiffon Pie, Banana Pudding (made with your fresh-baked Vanilla Wafers), Chow Mein-Noodle Haystacks, and Diner-Style Strawberry Shortcake.

Retro Desserts is as much a cultural history of the American sweet tooth as it is an indispensable cookbook. It's a blast to read and jammed with outasight recipes.

Ever find yourself dreaming about a big fluffy coconut layer cake like the one Mom might make if you lived in Leave It to Beaver-land? Or Cream-Filled Devil's Food Cupcakes that don't taste like the plastic and cardboard they are wrapped in? Well, now you can bake these cakes and eat them, too.

Wayne Brachman, executive pastry chef for Bobby Flay's popular New York restaurants, presents this totally hip collection of recipes, Retro Desserts. Inspired by classics from the '40s, '50s, '60s, and '70s, these fabulous desserts look just as great as you remember, and taste even better. It's a trip down to memory lane bakery, where kitsch desserts of yesterday have been revamped for the sophisticated kitchen of today. Updated classics include Chocolate Blackout Cake, Checkerboard Cake, Baked Alaska, and Cherries Jubilee. Other recipes include wild creations based on old-fashioned flavors, like Chocolate-Dipped Frozen Banana Bon Bons, Rum and Cherry Cola Marble Cake, and Caramel Apple Chiffon Cupcakes.

Showcased by retro-style full-color photography and artwork, headlines and excerpts taken from vintage magazines and cookbooks, these are well-tested, seriously fun desserts that really work in your home kitchen, making Retro Desserts a valuable addition to every home baker's cookbook collection.Ever find yourself dreaming about a big fluffy coconut layer cake like the one Mom might make if you lived in Leave It to Beaver-land? Or Cream-Filled Devil's Food Cupcakes that don't taste like the plastic and cardboard they are wrapped in? Well, now you can bake these cakes and eat them, too.

Wayne Brachman, executive pastry chef for Bobby Flay's popular New York restaurants, presents this totally hip collection of recipes, Retro Desserts. Inspired by classics from the '40s, '50s, '60s, and '70s, these fabulous desserts look just as great as you remember, and taste even better. It's a trip down to memory lane bakery, where kitsch desserts of yesterday have been revamped for the sophisticated kitchen of today. Updated classics include Chocolate Blackout Cake, Checkerboard Cake, Baked Alaska, and Cherries Jubilee. Other recipes include wild creations based on old-fashioned flavors, like Chocolate-Dipped Frozen Banana Bon Bons, Rum and Cherry Cola Marble Cake, and Caramel Apple Chiffon Cupcakes.

Showcased by retro-style full-color photography and artwork, headlines and excerpts taken from vintage magazines and cookbooks, these are well-tested, seriously fun desserts that really work in your home kitchen, making Retro Desserts a valuable addition to every home baker's cookbook collection.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #205304 in Books
• Published on: 2000-05-01
• Released on: 2000-04-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

Amazon.com Review
Tired of tiramisu? Good. Wayne Brachman to the rescue. He's the pastry chef for Bobby Flay at Mesa Grill and Bolo in New York City. For Retro Desserts Brachman has culled food magazines, newspapers, cookbooks, leaflets, and the like from the 1940s to the early 1970s for the classics of American dessert kitsch, turning up one horrid treasure after another. The most frightening aspect of this book is the urge that comes with each turning page to get into the kitchen and start baking, stirring, cooking, and re-creating. Why would anyone want to bake a Crazy Craters of the Moon Cake with Moonrock Topping? (Miniature marshmallows--that's the secret of the topping.) But then Brachman shows you how to make your own marshmallow, reconstructing this entire processed dessert from scratch. "If you must," he writes, "go out and get store-bought cookies or crumbs [for pie crusts]. OK, it's extra work, but homemade cookie crumbs make a remarkably big difference in flavor." There are recipes for the home-baked equivalent of the Oreo and Cream-Filled Devil's Food Cupcakes, as well as Strawberry Chiffon Pie, Banana Pudding, Bananas Foster, Strawberries Romanoff, Lemon Bars, and Cornflake Macaroons--all illustrated with the kitsch of the time. Fun as they all sound, the recipes bear the integrity of a fine pastry chef who obviously likes a good time but is also serious about what he brings to the table. Those may look like Ding Dongs you are serving at your next dinner party, but wait until the flavor kicks in. --Schuyler Ingle

From Library Journal
Brachman's first cookbook was called Cakes and Cowpokes. Now he's combined his corny sense of humor and fondness for nostalgic desserts in this collection of recipes ranging from Chocolate Blackout Cake to Baked Alaska, grouped into chapters with such titles as "Cookie, Cookie, Lend Me Your Comb" and "For Whom the Ice Cream Bell Tolls." The recipes themselves, though, are straightforward and clearly written, and these desserts are sure to bring back memories for many readers. Recommended.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
"After working alongside Wayne Harley Brachman for the last decade, I can't think of anyone else better qualified to reconstruct and re-create the retro desserts we all know and love." -- Bobby Flay, owner, Bolo and Mesa Grill

"Even if you don't remember poodle skirts and '57 Chevys, you'll love Retro Desserts. Wayne has put together a collection of easy and tasty desserts that are more fun than a sock hop." -- Nick Malgieri, author of How to Bake and Chocolate

"I absolutely love this book. It really does make me want to get baking!" -- --Sara Moulton, executive chef, Gourmet magazine, and host, Food Network's Cooking Live

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Customer Reviews

Cute, but very frustrating
I was excited to try to make a better tasting version of Oreos, Hostess cupcakes, black and white cookies, etc. The oreos came out great, there is certainly a mistake in the amount of liquid needed for the batter for the black and white cookies, and the cupcakes came out totally flat and stuck to the pan! After double checking amounts and technique, redoing the whole thing they are still a mess! I would return this in a minute if it was that easy! A lot of cuteness, but very difficult and inaccurate recipes.

Exciting sounding...but a bit of a let-down
The desserts described in this rather entertaining book are certainly mouth-watering. Although scattered with cute commentary (often very funny!) and interesting bits of information about times gone by, I find the recipes not to be very workable. My biggest pet peave is the 'Black and Whites', our beloved huge New York cookies,soft,lemony and satisfying. The recipe sounds great...but it doesn't work out! The batter spreads too much, so the cookies are very thin and fragile, with no body and the fondant frosting turns out a mess. A chef's book?

I wanted to like it, but...
I really wanted to love this book. The idea is great, the photos are fantastic, the writing is funny -- but so far, every recipe I have tried has stunk. Some of them didn't work, some of them worked but the result just wasn't that great. I'm glad I have it on my shelf to look at and be inspired by, but I'm not going to cook from it anymore.