THE TREASURY OF FINE DESSERTS

Definitely for the carriage trade, this de luxe dessert cook book. In spite of which word of warning, any housewife seeking to have a piece de resistance to wind up that special dinner will find suggestions a-plenty. The ""gimmick"" for special notice is the set of eight basic recipe cards, which will accompany each book. These basic recipes are used recurrently throughout, and-being on cards- can be shifted promptly to the recipe you plan to use, whether that be pie, cream puff, puff paste, biscuit, icing or whatever the specific recipe stems from. With these as ""starters"", the cook book goes on to French pastrics, Petit Fours, fruit and nut desserts, custards and souffles, pancakes, frozen desserts, sweet sauces, cookies, ""quick ones"", coffee cakes, exotic fruits, festive drinks, and dessert wines. There are some hard to find items such as chess pie, shoofly pie, torte Saint-Honore, raised brioche, and so on. One wishes now and again that national origins were more consistently indicated, that some of the tricks of the cordon bleu cook were hinted, but in the main it is a super-cook-book, in its field. Though occasionally down to earth items are exalted (prunes for example), mainly it is on a high level. And definitely not intended for areas where local option is the rule.