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Classic Stars Desserts: Favorite Recipes by Emily Luchetti Review`Classic Stars Desserts' is `Favorite Recipes by Emily Luchetti'. An important thing to know about the book is that it is a digest of two earlier books by Madame Luchetti, `Star Desserts' and `Four-Star Desserts', both presenting recipes from Jeremiah Tower's San Francisco restaurant `Stars' and the companion `Stars Café'. So, if you own one or both of these earlier books, you may have second thoughts about getting this re-presentation.
The high-end restaurant dessert menu book field is a just a bit crowded and includes some outstanding offerings. The two best I've seen in the last few years are `The Secrets of Baking' by Sherry Yard of Spago, Los Angles and `This Sweet Life' by Kate Zuckerman of New York City's Chanterelle. Both books distinguish themselves by digging deep into the mysteries of baking technique, making themselves very valuable to the ambitious but unschooled amateur bakers.
What makes this field even narrower is the fact that while the home cook may get worthy ideas for everyday meals from a restaurant book with recipes from The French Laundry, Chez Panisse, Babbo, Commander's Palace or Nobu, it is highly unlikely that elaborate dessert recipes will be used for anything except entertaining, or to inspire the really dedicated baking hobbyist. To address this concern, the book's recipes are labeled `deceptively simple'. This phrase hides the possibility that what is being hidden is a complexity mastered only by professional pastry chefs. Let's explore this, shall we.
For starters, we find desserts and wine pairings in this book which is not commonly found in other dessert books, certainly not in those from Yard and Zuckerman or the great standard texts by Maida Heatter, Nick Malgieri, Flo Brakker, and Rose Levy Beranbaum. Score one for Luchetti as an entertainment source. Another consideration is that this book is about the entire range of desserts, not just baked goods. So, it includes much on non-baked dishes, such as puddings, ice creams, and compotes. If you happen to own Ms. Luchetti's book on Ice Cream, which I have not yet seen, it may diminish the value of this book for you by just a smidge.
Ms. Emily begins with `Things That Make a Difference', a primer on baking equipment and techniques. The best news in this chapter is the fact that none of her recipes will require one to temper chocolate, a black art if I've ever seen one.
The `Sweets and Stickies' chapter is written by the Farallon wine director, Peter Palmer and lists dessert recipes by the wine with which they are best paired. This has the nice feature that you can choose (or find yourself left with) a wine, and wish to match a dessert to it.
`Puddings, Custards, Mousses & Trifles' covers an excellent variety of entertaining dessert, which can easily be made a day ahead and is virtually certain NOT to be mistaken for something you bought at your local Patisserie.
The `Chocolate Desserts' chapter may seem like the home of famous baked goods; however, it is actually where you will find more gooey goodies, such as bread puddings, chocolate pudding, zabaglione trifles, chocolate semifreddo, ice cream sandwiches, white chocolate parfaits, espresso granita, and gateau royale. This and the previous chapter hide several ice cream recipes.
The `Hot Desserts' is another chapter which guarantees a `homemade' cachet. It seems to have most of the classic recipe names, such as Crepes Suzette, Blueberry Blintzes, Apple Pandowdy, Pear Charlotte, and Chocolate Souffle. Again, there is not a lot of `baking' going on here, but lots of familiar tastes in unfamiliar guises, such as the rhubarb ice cream. Note that you will need an ice cream maker to make several of the desserts in this book.
`Fruit Desserts', as one may expect, is also low on baking requirements, but there are a lot more frozen goodies such as a creamsicle bombe, vanilla ice cream, tangerine ice, and frozen kir royale. And, the ultimate wine and dessert combination, poached fruits.
`Pies, Tarts, & Pastries' gives one the feeling that now we are getting down to business and actually baking. There are several standards, such as pumpkin, key lime, blueberry, and banana cream pies plus some fancy French tarts.
`Cakes' is another baker's venue, where most recipes also have familiar names with a bit of a twist, such as the goat cheesecake with mixed berries and a plum-cardamom upside-down cake.
`Cookies and Candies' has a surprisingly large number of recipes, so that if your bookshelf is light on cookie recipes and short on space, this makes it a strong argument to get this book. There is a nice mix of standards such as chocolate chip cookies and oddies, such as stareos (gourmet `Oreos', mascarpone filling between chocolate shortbread).
The `Breakfast' chapter is a bit thin for a major restaurant which stays open for breakfast, but all the recipes, of course, are sound. I was just a bit surprised that the cinnamon roll recipe was not quite as elaborate as my favorite and most successful one in `Baking With Julia'. Score one for simplicity!
The `Building Blocks' chapter covers 25 commonly needed dessert staples, especially crème fraiche, pastry cream, caramel sauce, tart and pie dough, brioche, sponge cake, and crepes. Almost all recipes include a `Planning Ahead' paragraph that is especially useful for entertaining applications. The recipes are all sound; however, they are not as detailed as you may find in either Yard or Zuckerman's books, and especially not as detailed as in standard baking texts. Some methods are just a bit different than the norm, as when the author uses a stand mixer as her pie dough mixer of choice (almost everyone else suggests doing it by hand or with a blender.
This may not be your best first baking book, but if you already have sound baking skills, this has great entertainers, both familiar, easy, and exotic.
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