When Suzi and I moved to Tribeca thirty years ago, it was pretty quiet at night. The only place to eat was The Odeon a block away and we soon fell in love with the bistro chicken and the Southern-style desserts. Those desserts, we learned later, were the product of Wayne Harley Brachman who went on to Mesa Grill, other restaurants, television and, of course, writing cookbooks.
This book, American Desserts, from 2003, is about as Red, White, and Blue as the 4th of July at dusk. And filled with as much fireworks, too.
This is a book of, yes, American desserts. The ones you know and love. Plus ones you should know and love. The “lost” or forgotten recipes boldly advertised here include:
Vanilla Malted Custard Pie
Pineapple Pie with Macadamia Crumb Topping
Nectarine-Raspberry Cobbler with Pecan Biscuits
Indian Pudding with Cornmeal and Dried Cranberries
Berry Slump
Applesauce Pie with Cheddar Cheese Pie Shell
Oh, there are more familiar dessert ideas here, like the Chocolate Icebox Cake and Lemon Chiffon Pie. And those recipes all reflect Wayne’s skill at perfecting the classics. But I find this book now to be a seminal survey of the American dessert scene. We rarely indulge in chiffon and custard desserts anymore. But they once weighed down the dinner table, particularly if you grew up in the South, which I’m guessing Wayne did.
The chapters here are home to important though forgotten recipes plus familar ones we still adore:
- Pies, Tarts & All Sorts of Fillings
- Cobbler, Buckles Pan Dowdys, and All their Cousins
- Cakes and Plenty of Frosting
- Puddings and Custards
- Doughnuts and Other Fried Doughs
- Cookies, Brownies and Bars
- Ice Cream and Sherbet
- Sauces and Toppings.
Half the book lies in those first three chapters. The pies and tarts are, I suspect, his favorite dessert. It’s hard to make a cake with summer fruit, well, at least not immediately easy. But fruit is happy nestled in the crust of a pie or tart. So peaches, nectarines, cherries, berries, apples and pears all shine here — either solo or in combinations that you may not have experienced. And there are the old-fashioned recipes, like Chess Pie, that everyone knew a hundred or two hundred years ago. Now, we hear “Chess Pie” and shake our heads.
Most of us have had cobbler. But buckles and slump and grump and grunts and other movements and noises may have escaped our tables. Here the subtle differences are defined amidst more flowing fruit flavor.
The cakes appear here with, as advertised, plenty of frosting. There is Wayne’s own version of German Chocolate Cake with coffee in the cake and rum in the frosting. The Devil’s Food Cake is made with, yes, tomato juice although you can defer to buttermilk if fear grabs you. There’s an Applesauce Cake with Brown Sugar Frosting, and a Buttermilk Nectarine and Blueberry Crumb Cake.
The pie and cobbler and cake chapters here can occupy a year’s weekends of happy baking. That leaves the next year for puddings and doughnuts and cookies and ice cream and toppings. American Desserts is full of ideas, distinctively American and outrageously delectable. Find a copy this book and buy some fruit. You’ll soon be in the pie business.
Oh, a “new” copy of this book starts at $146 on Amazon. Suzi and I will make a few of the pies and share the recipes with you. Used copies start at $35 and you’ll probably be springing for one of those. If you make dessert, American Desserts is America First.