Flavorful: 150 Irresistible Desserts in All-Time Favorite Flavors

590 Pages·2015·12.82 MB·English

by  Boyle

Copyright © 2015 by Tish Boyle Interior photography © 2015 by Andrew Meade Food styling
by Claire Perez
All rights reserved.
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions,
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York
10003.
www.hmhco.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Boyle, Tish.
Flavorful : 150 irresistible desserts in all-time favorite flavors / Tish Boyle; photography by
Andrew Meade.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-118-52355-1 (hardcover) ISBN 978-0-544-18640-8 (ebook) 1. Desserts. I. Title.
TX773.B6928 2015
641.86 — dc23 2015004678
v1.0915
To Mickey.

C o n t e n t s
INTRODUCTION
INGREDIENT NOTES
Basics
Vanilla
Berries and Cherries
Apple
Citrus
Sweet Cheese
Nuts
Caramel
Coffee
Chocolate
SOURCES
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INDEX

I N T R O D U C T I O N
There’s no accounting for taste, as the saying goes, and this is certainly true when
it comes to desserts. Consider three people dining together at a restaurant. What
makes one person order the lemon soufflé, another the flourless chocolate cake,
and the third the espresso-soaked tiramisu? Why do some people love the
puckery tartness of a lemon meringue pie, while others swoon over a rich
chocolate layer cake or a caramel mousse? If there’s a chocolate item on a dessert
menu, for example, that’s the one I’ll order every time. Everyone’s palate is a
little different.
I’ve always been curious about flavor. In my years as editor of Chocolatier and
Pastry Art & Design magazines, I frequently asked pastry chefs how they planned
their dessert menus. Many cited seasonality as an important factor in selecting
items for their menus — desserts with apples or pears for the fall; citrus for
winter; strawberry and rhubarb for the spring; and stone fruits and berries in the
summer. Working with the seasons makes perfect sense, because a big part of a
pastry chef’s job is getting ahold of the very best raw ingredients throughout the
year. After all, if you start with oversized, flavorless strawberries, your strawberry
shortcake will never be any good, regardless of how pretty it looks on the plate.
But even more critical than working with the seasons is the pastry chef’s
underlying goal of selling as many desserts as possible. As one chef put it, “You
can make the best prune tart in the world, but if people don’t like prunes, it’s just
not going to sell.” A good pastry chef knows what flavors sell, and his or her
menu will focus on these flavors. These are the desserts that people will order
time after time, regardless of the season or, for that matter, anything else.
Many factors come into play when we taste a dessert. Our tongues can
identify four tastes: sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. Simply put, it is how we react to