Chocolate and Vanilla »

Gale Gand is the James Beard Award—winning executive pastry chef and partner of the acclaimed restaurant Tru in Chicago. Known across the country as the host of Sweet Dreams, which was the Food Network’s first daily show devoted entirely to baking, Gand has her own root beer company and line of bakeware. She lives in Illinois with her husband and three children. This is her sixth cookbook.

Love Vanilla?
Award-winning pastry chef and Food Network star Gale Gand considers vanilla the lingerie of baking: It’s an invisible essential, the thing you put on before anything else; but when given the spotlight, it’s every bit as sexy and alluring as chocolate–vanilla fans would say even more so. In this flip/cookbook, Gand offers tips on working with both vanilla beans and vanilla extract, revealing which is best for what, and includes a helpful substitution guide. And then it’s on to the good stuff: recipes for irresistible sweets that showcase vanilla’s beguiling flavor. With one section devoted to desserts using whole vanilla beans–think Vanilla Raspberry Rice Pudding with Lemon-Vanilla Caramel and Late-Night Vanilla Flan–and another focusing on extract–such as Vanilla-Blueberry Crumb Cake and Boston Cream Cupcakes–these are recipes that are anything but plain vanilla.

Love Chocolate?
Say the word chocolate and a chocoholic’s face lights up with visions of utterly satisfying, rich pleasures. In this fun flip/cookbook, award-winning pastry chef and Food Network star Gale Gand shares her favorite ways to indulge family and friends–and yourself.

Gand offers tips on buying and working with chocolate, including demystifying those ever-confusing cacao percentages, before getting down to business with more than thirty luscious, tempting recipes. Organized by type of chocolate–dark, semi-sweet, milk, and white–they run the gamut from simple treats such as Chocolate-Praline Cake in a Jar and Creamy Dreamy Walnut Fudge to impress-the-guests desserts that include Mexican Hot Chocolate Fondue and Chocolate-Almond Upside-Down Cake. Accompanied by amusing anecdotes, helpful make-ahead notes, and clear, uncomplicated techniques, Gand’s creations are as much fun to make as they are to eat.

Library Journal

Gand, pastry chef and co-owner of Chicago's well-known Tru restaurant, is the author of three other dessert cookbooks, including Butter, Sugar, Flour, Eggs. Here she presents 60 mostly easy recipes featuring two of her favorite flavors: Hot Chocolate Pudding, White and Dark Chocolate S'mores, Late-Night Vanilla Flan, and more. Gand also includes information on the history of chocolate and vanilla, along with tips on buying and working with each ingredient. Full-page color photographs show off many of her mouth-watering treats. For all baking collections. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.