Review: The Beekman 1802 Heirloom Dessert Cookbook

Title: The Beekman 1802 Heirloom Dessert Cookbook: 100 Delicious Heritage Recipes from the Farm and Garden
Authors: Josh Kilmer-Purcell, Brent Ridge, Sandy Gluck
Format: egalley
Pub. Date: September 10th 2013
Source: Netgalley/Rodale Books

★★★★★

Five stunning stars.

Dr. Brent Ridge and Josh Kilmer-Purcell bring the best of their dessert recipes together in this cookbook, taking simple, comforting, and familiar dishes and giving them a modern, elegant twist. The duo is well known for making cheeses, soaps, and honey on their property of their historic home, and can be seen on the Cooking Channel. In this dessert cookbook, they bring the recipes from their family, and bring it to yours.

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I absolutely loved this cookbook. Though admittedly unfamiliar with the brand, these recipes have made a fan of me. This book is a great tool for any home cook, and can help elevate your dishes into something stunning.

The first thing that struck me in this cookbook is the photography. As my regular readers know, if a cookbook doesn't have pictures in it, I'm highly unlikely to even give it a second glance. That was definitely no problem here. Between the photographs of the food and the shots of the estate, this book is aesthetically pleasing from cover to cover.

Another aspect of this book that I found a bit unique is that in lieu of listing recipes in order of course, this book is divided into the four seasons. I found this far more helpful. With fall just around the corner, I was able to flip to that section to find new inspiration for the upcoming weeks and harvests.

And then of course, there's the recipes themselves. They sound (and when pictured, look) stunning. The instructions are easy to follow, and each recipe has room for additional notes, so that you can make your own adaptations or changes. Each recipe also includes a little back story of the dish, and why it is included in the book. This helped to give the cookbook that warm, hearth-y feeling of home. The desserts that popped out to me the most in this book were the orange-chocolate pots de creme, diablo food cake, lemon lavender squares, and concord grape pie. It should be noted that there are several basic but delicious recipes for things like the perfect pie crust, cookies, and yellow cake.

If you enjoy cooking or baking, this is a great collection of recipes to own. The recipes are homey and delicious, and run the gamut from basic to complex in a way that is easy to follow and understand. Thank you to Netgalley and Rodale Books for my copy.