A Sweet Quartet: Sugar, Almonds, Eggs, and Butter
by Fran Gage
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Description
A baker celebrates the four elements that make dessert possible Fran Gage calls sugar, almonds, eggs, and butter the DNA of desserts. Simple as they seem, they make possible a profusion of pastries and other sweets, from the elemental lollipop to the ethereal realms where marzipan, meringue, and puff pastry hold sway. No one appreciates this fabulous foursome better than Fran Gage, who relied on them for her daily output during the ten years she owned and ran her acclaimed San Francisco show more bakery, Patisserie Francaise. Nor could anyone do a better job of ferreting out how each found its way into the kitchen and yielded up its alchemy, influenced by technological innovation, genetic manipulation, and government intervention--not to mention human error and, of course, the weather. In A Sweet Quartet, she tells the story of each ingredient, from its origins to its transformation into culinary gold, drawing upon her travels, tastings, experiments, and remembrances. Each section ends on a sweet note, with a baker's half-dozen of recipes that show off the multiple talents of the ingredient. The book concludes with a look at the meaning of desserts, from ancient times to the present day, and--the piece de resistance--ideas for a dessert buffet. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
Just the kind of book about food that I like. More story than recipes. Plenty of background about the agriculture scene in California and how it produces almonds (with help from honeybees), sugar (from beets), eggs (from Petaluma) and butter (from happy California cows).
I learned that the almond is sort of like an inside-out peach: With almonds, you throw away the husk and eat the kernel; with peaches you eat the flesh and discard the pit.
Actually made me want to bake something, which almost never happens.
I learned that the almond is sort of like an inside-out peach: With almonds, you throw away the husk and eat the kernel; with peaches you eat the flesh and discard the pit.
Actually made me want to bake something, which almost never happens.
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5+ Works 206 Members
Fran Gage is a member of the Baker's Dozen and writes frequently for Saveur, Fine Cooking, and other publications. She lives in San Francisco, where she was the proprietor of Patisserie Francaise
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- Members
- 52
- Popularity
- 581,216
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (4.00)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 2
