My Mother's Southern Desserts : More Than 200 Treasured Family Recipes for Holiday and Everyday Celebration

Rating:
Summary: A praiseworthy compilation.
Review: "My Mother's Southern Desserts" is a praiseworthy compilation of recipes from Jim Villas and his mother, Martha Pearl. Her repertoire of sumptuous sweets is organized by holidays and special events. And each recipe has a side-panel, in which Martha Pearl pens an engaging bit of background on the dish at hand. Being both Southern and a dessert lover, I perused this volume with a growling stomach. A handful of dishes that I wanted to bounce up and bake included Chewy Peanut-Chocolate Chip Drop Cookies, The Delta Queen's Pralines, Chocolate Pecan Pie, and--believe it or not--mango ice cream! The book's layout is superb: Simple red dots and lines seperate the recipes' titles, comments, and lists of ingredients. And there are 16, full-page color pictures at the center of the book. Southern food lovers will crave this work.

Rating:
Summary: Rich, Southern-style favorites that are elegantly simple.
Review: Having not had the good fortune to be born a Southerner, I at least had the good taste to marry one! But because the cuisine of North Carolina is so different from my native Western Pennsylvania, I have been learning as much as I can about Southern cooking so that my spouse and I can enjoy the flavors of both regions. For desserts, Miss Martha Pearl and Mr. Villas have put together a staggeringly beautiful array of sweets for every conceivable occasion. The only reason I didn't give this book 5 stars is because some of the recipe directions are a little unclear: the Easter Moravian Sugar Cake, for example, tells you to dissolve yeast and sugar in water in a small bowl but never gets around to telling you when you should incorporate that mixture into your larger bowl of batter dough. While I didn't have any problems decipering the directions myself since I've been baking since I was eight years old, I think of the baking novice whom might get a little frustrated by the lack of detail. That said, this is a beautiful and exciting book made even more enjoyable by the anecdotes regarding family and friends. My only regret is that their first book, My Mother's Southern Kitchen, is out of stock and I can't find a copy anywhere! Kudos to Miss Martha Pearl and Mr. Villas for their wonderful offering.

Rating:
Summary: Features Delicious and Impressive Desserts
Review: Having not had the good fortune to be born a Southerner, I at least had the good taste to marry one! But because the cuisine of North Carolina is so different from my native Western Pennsylvania, I have been learning as much as I can about Southern cooking so that my spouse and I can enjoy the flavors of both regions. For desserts, Miss Martha Pearl and Mr. Villas have put together a staggeringly beautiful array of sweets for every conceivable occasion. The only reason I didn't give this book 5 stars is because some of the recipe directions are a little unclear: the Easter Moravian Sugar Cake, for example, tells you to dissolve yeast and sugar in water in a small bowl but never gets around to telling you when you should incorporate that mixture into your larger bowl of batter dough. While I didn't have any problems decipering the directions myself since I've been baking since I was eight years old, I think of the baking novice whom might get a little frustrated by the lack of detail. That said, this is a beautiful and exciting book made even more enjoyable by the anecdotes regarding family and friends. My only regret is that their first book, My Mother's Southern Kitchen, is out of stock and I can't find a copy anywhere! Kudos to Miss Martha Pearl and Mr. Villas for their wonderful offering.

Rating:
Summary: Rich, Southern-style favorites that are elegantly simple.
Review: I am really big on Martha Pearl Villas's recipes because there is an elegant simplicity in her tastes, and this is true even of the richest desserts in this book. Often amusingly bossy and opinionated, she is absolutely adamant about not "tarting up" a dessert with extraneous flavors or ingredients. I tried her Confederate Peach Cobbler recently, and it was a real success with my family, including my thinks-he-is-a-food-critic husband. The fresh peaches were cooked just right -- not too sweet and neither too firm nor too soft -- in a crystal-clear filling that let the marvelous peach flavors come through, unobscured by unnecessary spices and extracts. The rich biscuit crust made with heavy cream was scrumptious, the perfect counterpoint to the simple filling. Another great example of such elegant simplicity is the Pineapple Upside-Down Cake, which also came out utterly delectable when I tried it recently. This upside-down cake was not cloyingly sweet like some, for it had just the right amount of brown sugar and butter glazing the pineapples and cherries, and the cake underneath was a simple sponge that was the perfect foil for the rich, caramelized glaze. Though definitely highly caloric, this cake, with its clear fruit flavors and light sponge base, seemed so light that I, surprisingly, felt I could have finished the entire cake in one sitting. I am looking forward to trying all of the recipes in this book. In short, you will find that Martha Pearl Villas does not "re-invent" (i.e., adulterate) the old Southern favorites just to sell a cookbook; these recipes are the real thing. I highly recommend (and own) all of Martha Pearl Villas's cookbooks for their very Southern emphasis on good, true flavors.