By my friend, writer and pastry chef David Lebovitz. This book is filled with great desserts and useful explanations for cooking methods. ~Elise

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Product Description

Always Save Room for Dessert

Especially if it's one of David Lebovitz's signature showstoppers. In his first cookbook, Room for Dessert, he offers more than 110 recipes for sweet everythings. You'll find sensational cakes, custards, soufflés, tarts, pies, cobblers, sorbets, ice creams, cookies, and candies, each designed to tempt the diner.

In the introduction David writes of one of his earliest dessert memories--a bowl of freshly picked blackberries, perfectly ripe, topped with a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkle of sugar. "When you search out the best ingredients, do as little to them as possible, and serve them in a straightforward way, the presentation follows naturally," he writes. "A glossy custard looks best with a, swirl of whipped cream; a cool tapioca pudding looks enticing when it's accompanied by its natural complements--tropical fruits and shaved coconut."

With such an aesthetic, David eventually made his way to Berkeley's legendary Chez Panisse, establishing himself as a pastry cook under the tutelage of Alice Waters and founding pastry chef Lindsay Shere. He shares, the Chez Panisse commitment to fresh, seasonal exceptional ingredients, presented simply and unpretensiously, at their peak flavor. As Alice Waters writes in the books foreward: "David is one of those rare pastry chefs who knows that in desserts, as in all art, the cliché is true: sometimes less is more."

After leaving Chez Panisse, Lebovitz served as pastry chef at Bruce Cost's critically acclaimed Monsoon, experimenting with a wide variety of Asian ingredients and flavors to create more remarkable desserts. Home cooks as well as professionals have been clamoring for the Fresh Ginger Cake recipe, which, finally, is published here. It so often appears at Bay Area restaurants that it's frequently listed on menus as "Dave's Ginger Cake." Make it once and you'll immediately want to add it to your list of tried and true standbys. David offers comforting yet sophisticated versions of everyone's favorites, including Gingersnaps, Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies, and Coconut Macaroons, surefire hits for people of all ages. For grown-ups, there are homemade liqueurs and cordials. Add to this delectable ice creams and frozen treats, as well as jams, preserves, and candied fruits, and you get an idea of the incredible scope of David Lebovitz's talents.

Beautifully illustrated with seventy-five full-color photographs by San Francisco's Michael Lamotte, Room for Dessert is as stunning to look at as it is to cook from. With this remarkable debut, David Lebovitz offers his expert hand to guide a new audience of readers and home dessert makers.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #258234 in Books
• Published on: 1999-11-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 240 pages

Amazon.com Review
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

Review
"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

About the Author
David Lebovitz was pastry cook at Chez Panisse for twelve years with a few brief forays into the outside world, including a stint as pastry chef at Bruce Cost's Monsoon, a critical favorite.He lives in San Francisco, California.

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Customer Reviews

A Five Star Cookbook!
This cookbook certainly gets 5 stars. My requirement for a cookbook is that the recipes should be doable by mortals and that there should be at least one recipe in the book worth keeping. This cookbook meets both requirements. I have tried only the passion fruit poundcake and the ginger cake. They get rave reviews because they are perfect recipes and easy to do. I came to the ginger cake with reluctance simply because I don't care much for either ginger or molasses in anything and am not into pepper as an ingredient in cakes. Since the author says that this recipe is the favorite of many people, I took the chance and, boy, am I glad I did. In this recipe what you get is a beautifull deep brown, moist cake with great texture and subtle flavors. Mr. Lebovitz suggests fresh peaches to accompany this cake. A glass of cold milk goes well with it too.

In addition to 110 dessert recipes, many of them beautifully photographed, Mr. Levobitz has a chapter called "Essentials" in which he discusses equipment, ingredients and fruits. In his introduction he gives his philosophy of dessert-making, that they be simple and that less is often more. In this instance I would say less is just right.

If you like to cook unusual desserts, you will love this cookbook.

Heaven can wait.....
Heaven can wait, until I make every dessert in David Lebovitz's "Room for Dessert" - a visual feast with great content. This is a small cookbook compared to some, but a perfect and practical size with 110 incredible desserts.

I have tried approx. 14 of the desserts so far ALL with excellent results. This book has inspired me to make desserts when before I would stop with the entrée and buy the dessert (IF I could find a 'decent' dessert to buy).....now it's in my own kitchen! If I can do this you can too.

David's comments and hints are very helpful. He sounds like a nice guy too with 'human' commentary that the average to advanced cook can relate to. The source guide in the back is useful for quality chocolate, spices etc. and don't skip the front where David explains a bit of his `philosophy' relating to baking. I am very pleased!

Simply Wonderful!
Beware when reading this book, it will cause anyone who is even slightly interested in cooking, to think that they could quit their day job and become a pastry chef. I have become completely inspired to bake. I have tried about six recipies from the book, and a few from a class I took at Draeger's in San Mateo given by Mr. Lebovitz. Everything has turned out perfect. My friends at work can't wait to see what I am going to bring in next for them to taste. If you want to taste some great desserts, not to mention impress your friends, then this book is for you. The chapter on Essentials, I found particularly helpful. Most of the items that he mentions in the book can be found at Draeger's. (Three stores in the Bay Area).