Something I hear all the time when I bring up desserts is, ‘I can cook, but I can’t bake’. Of course, I know why people say that: conventional wisdom suggests that cooking is wild and free, encouraging creativity and improvisation. Desserts, on the other hand, should be tidy and precise. Scientific, even. But I reject those sentiments. Desserts, should be for anyone, requiring little more than two hands and a modicum of patience.
Generally speaking, my recipe style and aesthetic could be described as ‘rustic’, ‘carefree’, ‘approachable’. My desserts tend to follow suit; a little wild-looking and decidedly unkempt. Perfect they are not. But rusticness aside, these recipes are intentionally simple and flexible. Some of the recipes don’t require an oven or even a stovetop. I wanted to write a dessert book that celebrated the excellence of basicness rather than distract with needless complexities. My hope for you, reading this book and hopefully baking (or assembling) your way through it, is that you strive for the animalistically irresistible, not the aesthetically pristine – I find the two are rarely the same.
Despite my formal training as a pastry chef in a restaurant kitchen, I’m still not an expert. My desserts are consistently imperfect. But perfection is boring, and these recipes – well, damn, if they aren’t delicious. And when they come out of your kitchen, I hope you, too, feel that they’re full of joy, imperfections and all.
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