Dessert Person: Recipes and Guidance for Baking with Confidence: A Baking Book

I read a lot of reviews before I bought this book. Another reviewer said that the reviews by people who got a free copy were fake because it had only been out for a month or so. Well, I got this book less than 7 weeks ago (I paid for it myself) and I’ve made over a dozen recipes (!) since then, and ~5 of them multiple times. I’ve been joking that it’s the best book I’ve ever owned and with each recipe, that declaration is less of a joke.... it’s just that amazing. The almond poppyseed cake is the one I’ve made the most, and I will say I add more powdered sugar to the glaze so it sets thicker. But mostly I’ve made everything by the book. The recipe matrix at the front of the book really *is* amazing, but my favorite part of the book is the recipe descriptions. They are so well written. I’ve made the following recipes: brioche + brioche pigs in a blanket, almond poppyseed bundt cake, kabocha turmeric tea cake, seedy maple breakfast muffins (I call them Birdseed Muffins), the oat pecan brittle cookies, chocolate chip cookies, focaccia, malted brownies, rough puff pastry, palmiers, buttered pie dough, creamy greens & baked eggs pie, skillet buckwheat blueberry pancake, classic birthday cake, cream cheese frosting, miso buttermilk biscuits, and rice pudding cake with mango caramel. My favorites have been the almond poppyseed cake. seriously, it’s SO good.... I’ve given whole ones to loved ones as well as slices of it, and everyone who tries it is obsessed with it. I had to buy some sturdy cake rounds & boxes because I know I will be giving this cake to so many people this year! Okay, back to the list of standouts— I also loved the pecan oat brittle cookies (quite a few steps but one of the best cookies I’ve ever had), the rice pudding cake with mango caramel (one of the best desserts I’ve had since my last trip to France a few years ago- I cooked it and baked it a bit longer than the recipe), the brioche pigs in a blanket, and the buckwheat blueberry skillet pancake. Only a few were so-so, and no total flops (at least not yet— I’m more of a beginner at baking so I’m sure I’ll encounter some flops at some point). Most recipes do take at least a few hours from start to finish, but she often calls for ingredients to rest in the fridge at different points, so that contributes to a lot of the time. Some are pretty quick and easy though! It’s fun to try new techniques because her instructions are usually very thorough. And I like the ability to plan out making different parts of a recipe across a few days. After getting the book I discovered I her YouTube channel where she makes different recipes from the book, it’s been awesome to use as a reference for the recipes I also made. Trust the reviews from the people who got the book for free for their reviews. This really is good enough that you will want to make recipes from it as often as possible. There are so many more recipes I’m excited to try- the flourless wave cake, tarte tropezienne, carrot cake, thrice baked rye cookies, gateau basque, clam and fennel pizza..... every recipe looks incredible. I’m just sad I didn’t know about it until ~4 months after it was released!!!! Honestly, I could probably write a few thousand more words about why I love this cookbook but instead I am going to go make another recipe from the book (her lemon tart!). Update: in the time it took amazon to approve my review, I made another recipe (which was technically three recipes?)- the lemon tart. Sweet tart dough, lemon curd, then the lemon tart recipe itself. It’s amazing and another standout. I love the layer of jam in between the tart shell and curd! And I love how tart the lemon curd is. Another win!!!

“Baking with confidence” is an unexpected subtitle. Saffitz has an engaging camera presence precisely because of her humility; her anxieties and doubts in the kitchen are relatable. Of course she’s prepared to troubleshoot her mistakes— she’s a French-trained pastry chef, and a highly capable and resourceful educator. Where this book shines is where she gets to present recipes that she’s proud to have mastered— ones which meant something to her growing up, or in her culinary training, or in her efforts at recipe development at Bon Appetit and beyond. She’s the kind of author who will title a recipe “Foolproof Tarte Tatin” and then promptly undercut her own accomplishment (“Is this 100% foolproof? Probably not”). So what do we get? There’s an emphasis on fruit pies and tarts, which the author acknowledges are her favorites, with a variety of seasonal fruits, flavors and presentations. Several cakes. Several interesting cookie recipes, a brownie recipe or two (included, it would seem, because an editor felt a brownie recipe was necessary). It’s not just desserts, either; savory items include quick and yeasted breads (including a workhorse of a focaccia recipe, with several variations for toppings). Most are targeted at a motivated home cook, with a minimum amount of equipment and ingredients but perhaps a surplus of time in the kitchen (helpful recommendations are provided in the introduction, and the more time-consuming elements of recipes are clearly marked and organized). At the higher end of difficulty are French pastries— croissant, kouign-amann, croquembouche— which I’m not sure she expects many home cooks to succeed at, let alone attempt? Regardless, given the instructions in this book I could probably manage pastry cream and choux for cream puffs, or puff pastry for the palmiers. All steps in assembly, including those for several “foundational” recipes, are well-described and carefully, legibly photographed, with footnotes highlighting tips, tricks, and pitfalls to avoid. I’m pleasantly surprised by the representation of Jewish holiday desserts here: mondelbread, a honey cake, a flourless chocolate cake, hamentaschen. Babka, challah, and a third “babkallah” recipe which she developed for BA that sits somewhere in between; more basic recipes for bagels and bialys. There’s a gooey butter cake from St. Louis. This isn’t a gluten-free cookbook, but there are a few recipes here that are and would do. Special mention is deserved for the food styling and for Alex Lau’s photography; presentation overall is first-rate. I’m looking forward to taking on some new challenges from this book. Highly recommended.

From the moment I heard Dessert Person would be released I excitedly pre-ordered it. I always gravitate to desserts in my cookbooks and in life which is one of the joys of adulthood. Claire’s exuberant and authentic personality shines through this labor of love cookbook. One thing I really appreciate, that speaks to Claire’s voice and the tenants of the Dessert Person cookbook (and life!), are an emphasis on dessert being “morally neutral”, the beauty of learning through doing, and accepting a “wabi-sabi” (understated simplicity and less is more) approach to baking. Encountering failure is OK and part of the process, though with Claire’s guidance and this collection of recipes there won’t likely be much failing involved. Despite cooking and baking daily, it’s refreshing to have an ally for simple pleasures and enjoying them without guilt. So far I have made the Ricotta Cake with Kumquat Marmalade and the Kabocha Turmeric Tea Cake, but I am looking forward to working my way through this book as the seasons change. All three recipes I made are perfect for Autumn baking and following nature’s seasons insures all of the ingredients shine in the most sophisticated way. They are not cloyingly sweet and really seem to use sugar to modify the natural flavors, so high-5 for that. There is a very handy matrix for the recipes organized through a time chart, which is a unique and useful feature for this cookbook. I also love the little notes under the recipes to educate the bakers as to the how’s and why’s for specifics in each recipe as well as the difficulty levels. All of these seemingly tiny details really show Claire’s attention to every small thing to ensure her recipes work and those using them will learn a few things along the way to build their own confidence in making fuss free and delicious treats. To my surprise, I also have received a free copy of Dessert Person from Clarkson Potter in exchange for a free and unbiased review. I will be passing it along to a friend who also loves to bake so we can worth through this together. This is one that will earn a place in the kitchen and not just sitting on the bookshelf. Highly recommended! Update : I've now also made the miso biscuits and they are a game changer. Wow! Seriously, this is a phenomenal resource with such a solid array of recipes.

The directions are very clear and straightforward, and the ingredients are easy to find. I have very little experience in baking yet I baked a few things which I would feel comfortable to give out to family and friends. However there are times that the results are not as good as expected, and I learned that I need to follow all the steps thoroughly and the goal is still achievable. I am currently challenging myself to bake stuff that are “moderately” difficult according to the book, 3/5, with 5 being the very challenging level. Some recipes are very involved and took me many hours to work on, but the outcome is very rewarding. I still can’t make a lemon tart pie that can stay its shape after being cut, but the flavor is still great. I spent almost five hours on the babka recipe yesterday but it is literally the best bread I have had for a while. I bought a food processor and a Kitchen Aid mixer after I got this book. There are many many recipes in the book that needs these tools. There are desert that you can make without them, but they are mostly very basic (seedy breakfast muffins, pancakes, banana bread, chocolate chip cookies, etc). Don’t get me wrong, they are still great deserts, but this book can take you much further than that. If you are satisfied with those store mixes, and don’t like to get into much details, this book may not be a good choice for you. The author has a YouTube channel for this book that everyone can follow, if you are not sure about this book you can check out the video and get a feel of what you are getting into. I like Claire(the author)’s way of explaining things and not being too wordy, and I love her for being so simple yet being so articulate about every recipe. My husband’s only complaint about this book is he’s getting chubbier because he can’t stop eating the dessert I made. Lol. Update: I still love this book after 2 years. I have tried many more recipes since 2020, and there are still many more to try out. What I really love about the book is that it covers a wide variety of desserts from different regions of the world, like St. Louis butter cake, some Jewish recipes, some Italian recipes, and French recipes. I never failed any recipe I tried, because they are all tested by Claire before she put them in the book. The book holds up well after frequent use. I only wish the font could be bigger because even with my 20/20 vision sometimes I have to get really close to the book to make sure I’m reading it right. But I understand with all the instructions every recipe contains it’s hard to make the font bigger.

Claire's cookbooks are more than cookbooks. She has so much instruction and explanation in them! It's learning experience. Her recipes are winners

I'm sure there are tons and tons of reviews here echoing the same thing -- Claire is fantastic and this book is undoubtedly an extension of all her life's work. I'm an ambitious home cook and a novice baker who is still trying to expand my skill set. I will readily admit that this cookbook presents a good number of recipes that I'll likely never attempt, but that doesn't mean that it isn't good; just that I can't see myself dedicating so much time and effort for something that (likely) only my wife and I will eat half of. A lot of stuff in this book can get pretty fancy and involved. I'm a lot more of a cake, cookie, brownie kind of dessert guy. The recipes are well written, easy-to-understand, and there aren't any wasted words. Claire does a great job of explaining how and why things are done the way she prescribes them. She uses easy-to-understand indicators of doneness and describes what things should look like along the way. I really appreciate that she lists both volumetric and weight measurements for all the ingredients. I've gotten accustomed to measuring with weight when baking so it's nice to see that every ingredient has an equivalent in both systems. If you don't live near a very-well stocked grocery store some of the ingredients might seem a bit exotic. Some I've never even heard of. I'm sure a lot of stuff can be ordered right here on Amazon (and I've done just that). I have so far only baked 3 items from the book, but all have turned out really well. The brownies in particular are ON POINT. It might be worth buying this book just for the brownie recipe -- it's absolutely perfect. A side-note: you should totally subscribe to her Dessert Person x Claire Saffitz YouTube channel. She makes a recipe from the book about once a week in a very similar format to her... other show that we won't talk about anymore. Plus you get to see her cats.

I love this cookbook. It's unlike any other cookbook I've owned in that I want to make nearly everything in it. Why? Because the recipes are so unique, and because I've grown to trust Claire's tastes, which seem to be similar to my own – sweet but not too sweet, and plenty of fruit. I purchased this cookbook only a couple of months ago and have already made around a dozen recipes from it, two of them twice. The least interesting one for me was the chocolate chip cookies, but no surprises there. (I would have loved, actually, if she had given chocolate chip cookies some kind of fruity twist.) Even recipes I wasn't so sure about have turned out amazing. The halvah blondies are unique and savory and delicious. The rhubarb cake is perfectly sweet and sour. For anyone thinking of buying this book, the biggest things I'd say to look out for are that her time estimates don't seem to include mise en place (a big deal if you're measuring nearly twenty ingredients, like in the seedy blueberry muffins), and I don't always agree with her difficulty estimates either. The mango rice pudding cake, for example, calls for making both rice pudding and a caramel, and a caramel isn't easy until you know what you're doing. She rates it a 2 out of 5, whereas I'd rate it a 3. There are also a couple of typos (like the brownie recipe's water measurement, which is accurate by volume but not by weight), but it doesn't seem to be frequent. There are a few recipes in here that I never plan to touch, such as the fruit cake that takes two months. But for the most part, I'm baking from this book obsessively, and her YouTube channel contains so much helpful instruction

First off, you'll need your reading glasses, perhaps even your magnifying glass, to read the print in this cookbook. But don't let that persuade you from the great content in this baking book. I saw a video by Claire Saffitz where she gave concise instructions for making a carrot cake. I wanted the recipe. It's in this book. The conciseness of her video is reflected in the details in the recipes in this book. There is a lot of instruction, but she doesn't overdo it at all. Regardless of your level of expertise, you're likely to become a better baker with this book. Most recipes are more than one page because they include a picture and ample instruction to achieve the results. As I paged through the book, I found many recipes that I want to try. There are a wide variety, recipes that I haven't necessarily seen another cookbooks, but none so out of the ordinary that I'd question "Why?" Bottom line, I'd recommend this cookbook for the carrot cake, the many other mouth watering recipes, and the well-done instruction.