Sweet

I discovered Sweet on a blog, and saw the picture of a famous confectioner, Valerie. I thought I saw her at the Cooking Channel and was featured on the Unique Sweets episode. I remember her for her Peppermint bark and was exquisitely wrapped on a chocolate brown tissue paper and boxed on brown boxes. So I bought this book on Amazon... and these recipes are so divine. You can definitely discover how she develop recipes on her home kitchen, while keeping the shop open. Glad the peppermint bark recipe is here, but recently tried the Lemon Verba green tea ganache for her green tea cakes. The recipe was great and the process of getting the final product was superb. I mean I served it to family and friends to try, they were astonished, surprised, amazed by the flavor combination. Glad that this baker had more recipes that i ever thought. This is a great baking cookbook. If you ever come to Silverlake down Southern California, give yourself a treat and thank Valerie for what she has done in the pastry and chocolate world. I will definitely try other recipes.

The most unusual thing about this cookbook is the way it is laid out. Instead of the usual divisions, it is divided into Pedestal(Celebration Cakes), Plate(Everyday Cakes), Tin(Pies & Tarts), Box(Chocolates & Confections), Bowl(Desserts to Eat with a Spoon), Jar(Cookies & Bars), Larder(Jams & Marshmallows), and Hand(Breakfast and Snacks to Eat on the Go). These divisions seem to work well. There are nice pictures of the food throughout. There are sections that help you create your own cakes and pies using combinations of the recipes in the book. One of my favorites is the section on Petits Fours. It can be hard to come by many recipes for these. There is also a page on perfecting petits fours. Some recipes, like Chocolate Marshmallows, are not unusual, but Mint Toffee sounds intriguing. Golden Butter Cake with Berries and Mascarpone Frosting looks delicious. The recipes are given in both weight and cups, so you can choose which works for you. The front of the book has information on ingredients and techniques and there are also informational sections throughout the book. If you're someone who enjoys that, as I do, you will like the longer introduction, as well as the sections before each recipe, telling a bit about where it came from or how it tastes.

Just received this book a few days ago and have a component of a recipe in the fridge chilling right now. I was looking forward to the book and purchased it especially to make the champagne cake. It turns out the recipe is NOT in the book. I read the index before purchasing the book. There is a recipe called Champagne cake but it only has it in the ganache. So I have to say I am a bit disappointed. But there are many other enticing recipes.As others have said the photos are good, some very good ones, but what really turned me off is that some of the dishes, like the fruit pies are presented in the cheap aluminum pans they sell them in, sitting in the runny juices. I am a chef and have judged for many years and these would not even get a "honorable mention" because of that. I would think that a book with this caliber of recipes would use better bakeware.I was interested to learn about some new items in the recipes, that are not available to me because of my location and I was directed to the back of the book to a resources section, but then they are not listed. After googling them I did find them at great cost. Not sure this is a book a lot of people would want to own and bake from, but a good read from the public library

I bake a lot and have a lot of cookbooks, so when I tell you this is my favorite baking book, that's saying something! I've been trying the recipes every weekend since I got the book and every one I've tried has been excellent. Last weekend for a family dinner I made the Chocolate Pots de Creme and the Durango Cookies (yes, we like chocolate!). My daughter said it was the best dessert I've ever made, and I have to agree! The directions are easy to follow, but don't make you feel like an idiot. She writes like she is explaining to a friend. And I love the extras she includes to put special touches on each of the desserts. Often the recipes in restaurant cookbooks aren't worth trying because the ingredients are too hard to get, but Gordon has considered that and I very much appreciated the sourcing guide! I've already given two copies as gifts! If you like to bake, buy this book!

I have tried 5 recipes out of this book, and even though the end product was good, there are some issues with the recipes themselves. I would have given this a higher rating if I didn't need to modify almost every recipe I tried. Make sure you read the recipes all the way through before starting out and verify the pan sizes and ingredients!1. The Almond Fleur de Sel Toffee was wonderful.2. I think the pan size is wrong for the Single Malt Scotch Truffles, the ones I made were only .25 thick and did not look like the photo.3. Instructions are missing for the Champagne Cake. The 1st two ingredients in the Champagne Ganache are never mentioned again after the instructing you to "sprinkle the gelatin over the cold water in a small bowl".4. The Lavendar Earl Grey Mini-Cakes are delicious, but i have no idea how you managed to cut 27 3 inch rounds out of a cake poured into a 13 x 18 inch pan. 2 1/2 rounds work better.5. The Upside-Down Apple and Almond Cakes are delicious, but it would have been helpful to mention that the muffins cups need to be large muffin cups, not regular.