What’s For Dessert by Claire Saffitz

Welcome to Halfman, Halfbook for my stop on the Blog Tour for What’s For Dessert by Claire Saffitz and published by Murdoch Books.

About the Book

Claire Saffitz returns with 100 recipes for all dessert people―whether you’re into impressive-yet-easy molten lava cakes, comforting rice pudding, or decadent chestnut brownies.

In this all-new collection, Claire shares recipes for icebox cakes, pies, cobblers, custards, cookies and more, all crafted to be as streamlined as possible. (No stand mixer? No problem! You won’t need one.)

To keep the recipes straightforward and simple, Claire makes sure each recipe is extra efficient, whether you’re making a Whipped Tres Leches Cake with Hazelnuts or Caramel Peanut Popcorn Bars. Fans will find all the warmth, encouragement, and deliciously foolproof recipes with loads of troubleshooting advice that they’ve come to count on from Claire.

Baking recipes include:

• Salty Cashew Blondies
• Blood Orange Pudding Cake
• Easy Apple Galette
• Mango-Yoghurt Mousse
• Sticky Pumpkin-Chestnut Gingerbread
• Flourless Chocolate Meringue Cake
• No-Bake Strawberry Ricotta Cheesecake
• Banoffee Pudding

About the Author

My Review

I have a lot of cookery books at home, a whole bookshelf and others scattered elsewhere around the home. The shelf needs a bit of a tidy-up, but amongst the shelves are books that are well-thumbed and splattered; these are the ones that we most often turn to for everyday meals and special occasions. Some of them we have had for over thirty years now and they are part of our home.

When we head out as a family to eat we often have a starter, but rarely have them at home. What we do have at home a lot though, is cake and desserts. My daughter, Lauren, who is a brilliant baker will make something most weekends when she is home from university and this is a joint review with her cooking some of the cakes and me (and the rest of the family) eating them. It is great but it doesn’t help the waistline…

Anyway, to the book. The layout is very clear and the format is used on each of the recipes, making it easy to follow the process and find the ingredients. I particularly liked the grid at the beginning of the book that had each recipe with difficulty and time so if you wanted a dessert that took about an hour and was moderate in difficulty, you’d find one quickly. Each recipe has an introduction with anecdotes about ingredients or why it was chosen. Also useful is the equipment list and essential techniques that are used across a number of recipes in the book.

There are some lovely cake and dessert recipes in here, though as with any cookery book there are some that we felt that we would never make. We selected about 20 or so that really appealed and my daughter picked the ones that she wanted to make from that selection. I have taken pictures of two of the deserts that she made, Salty Cashew Blondies and Flourless Chocolate Meringue Cake:

Both were delicious and didn’t last long.

I think that this will be a book that we will return to again and again to cook our favourites.

Don’t forget to visit the other blogs on the blog tour

Buy this at your local independent bookshop. If you’re not sure where your nearest is then you can find one here

My thanks to Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for the copy of the book to read and cook from.