Retro Desserts: Totally Hip, Updated Classic Desserts from the '40s, '50s, '60s, and '70s

by Wayne Brachman

In Retro Dessets, Wayne Brachman, executive pastry chef at New York's Mesa Grill and Bolo, presents the desserts you loved as a kid--only better. It's time for a trip down to memory-lane bakery, where the old fashioned desserts of yesterday have been revamped for today's kitchen. Imagine homemade cream-filled chocolate cupcakes (you know, the ones with white squiggles on top) or big, fluffy coconut layer cake that Mrs. Cleaver would be proud of. Or impress your guests with a totally hot and cool baked Alaska. They're all here in all their retro glory. These desserts may be fun, but they have been created with a professional's eye and palate--they taste as good as they look and vice versa. Instead of the little packaged boxes of instant ingredients that were the start of many midcentury desserts, in Retro Desserts you'll find homemade gelatin salads (come on, admit you love them) made with real fruit juice and fresh fruit, comforting puddings, and marshmallows. Now you can fill your cookie jar with homemade versions of Chocolate Sandwich Cookies with Vanilla-Cream Filling, Vanilla Wafers, and Animal Cookies. Wayne gives the best-ever recipes for classics such as Strawberry Chiffon Pie, Banana Pudding (made with your fresh-baked Vanilla Wafers), Chow Mein-Noodle Haystacks, and Diner-Style Strawberry Shortcake. Retro Desserts is as much a cultural history of the American sweet tooth as it is an indispensable cookbook. It's a blast to read and jammed with outasight recipes. Ever find yourself dreaming about a big fluffy coconut layer cake like the one Mom might make if you lived in Leave It to Beaver -land? Or Cream-Filled Devil's Food Cupcakes that don't taste like the plastic and cardboard they are wrapped in? Well, now you can bake these cakes and eat them, too. Wayne Brachman, executive pastry chef for Bobby Flay's popular New York restaurants, presents this totally hip collection of recipes, Retro Desserts . Inspired by classics from the '40s, '50s, '60s, and '70s, these fabulous desserts look just as great as you remember, and taste even better. It's a trip down to memory lane bakery, where kitsch desserts of yesterday have been revamped for the sophisticated kitchen of today. Updated classics include Chocolate Blackout Cake, Checkerboard Cake, Baked Alaska, and Cherries Jubilee. Other recipes include wild creations based on old-fashioned flavors, like Chocolate-Dipped Frozen Banana Bon Bons, Rum and Cherry Cola Marble Cake, and Caramel Apple Chiffon Cupcakes. Showcased by retro-style full-color photography and artwork, headlines and excerpts taken from vintage magazines and cookbooks, these are well-tested, seriously fun desserts that really work in your home kitchen, making Retro Desserts a valuable addition to every home baker's cookbook collection.Ever find yourself dreaming about a big fluffy coconut layer cake like the one Mom might make if you lived in Leave It to Beaver -land? Or Cream-Filled Devil's Food Cupcakes that don't taste like the plastic and cardboard they are wrapped in? Well, now you can bake these cakes and eat them, too. Wayne Brachman, executive pastry chef for Bobby Flay's popular New York restaurants, presents this totally hip collection of recipes, Retro Desserts . Inspired by classics from the '40s, '50s, '60s, and '70s, these fabulous desserts look just as great as you remember, and taste even better. It's a trip down to memory lane bakery, where kitsch desserts of yesterday have been revamped for the sophisticated kitchen of today. Updated classics include Chocolate Blackout Cake, Checkerboard Cake, Baked Alaska, and Cherries Jubilee. Other recipes include wild creations based on old-fashioned flavors, like Chocolate-Dipped Frozen Banana Bon Bons, Rum and Cherry Cola Marble Cake, and Caramel Apple Chiffon Cupcakes. Showcased by retro-style full-color photography and artwork, headlines and excerpts taken from vintage magazines and cookbooks, these are well-tested, seriously fun desserts that really work in your home kitchen, making Retro Desserts a valuable addition to every home baker's cookbook collection.

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Food, Nonfiction

224 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2000

Reviews

[Greta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great cookbook if you: a) appreciate retro style, b) were attracted to the diners and desserts on Twin Peaks c) have fond memories of grandmothers cooking. Retro desserts has a hip/camp type flair that reminds me of the desserts on David Lynch's Twin Peaks. Author has fun sense of humor. Book has nice visual style, and the desserts have an attractive retro look. I think that you need have a base of consumers that will appreciate things like homemade marshmallows, oreos, grasshopper pie, and cream stuffed Devil's Food Cupcake...(these desserts may seem too wierd or out of fashion for the unenlightened). Banana's Foster excellent and easy. The hot fudge is excellent!!

[Vicki · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't actually made anything from this book, so maybe it's not fair to give it stars at all, but it's just a visually appealing book. I think I've had some of these desserts at my Grandmother's house. I love to actually read cookbooks, and this one is fun -- it gives the history of some of the crazy iconic desserts of the fifties and sixties, and is really stylized and cool. Thinking I might give the grasshopper pie a shot...

[Andy Wolf · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven’t made anything from this book yet, but here are my opinions based off my first look through. I love the idea of bringing back retro desserts in an updated form that fits our modern kitchens and ingredients. The author provides a lot of useful tips for baking that is laid out in a fun informative fashion.
The only complaint I have is that since they are retro desserts, I feel every recipe should have a picture whether grouped with other recipes or by themselves. I could be spoiled in the age of the internet with pictures for each recipe or more recent cookbooks doing the same, but I feel images would help with these retro desserts.

[Shippseattle]

Tired of tiramisu? Good. Wayne Brachman to the rescue. He's the pastry chef for Bobby Flay at Mesa Grill and Bolo in New York City. For Retro Desserts ...more [close] Tired of tiramisu? Good. Wayne Brachman to the rescue. He's the pastry chef for Bobby Flay at Mesa Grill and Bolo in New York City. For Retro Desserts Brachman has culled food magazines, newspapers, cookbooks, leaflets, and the like from the 1940s to the early 1970s for the classics of American dessert kitsch, turning up one horrid treasure after another. The most frightening aspect of this book is the urge that comes with each turning page to get into the kitchen and start baking, stirring, cooking, and re-creating. Why would anyone want to bake a Crazy Craters of the Moon Cake with Moonrock Topping? (Miniature marshmallows--that's the secret of the topping.) But then Brachman shows you how to make your own marshmallow, reconstructing this entire processed dessert from scratch. "If you must," he writes, "go out and get store-bought cookies or crumbs [for pie crusts]. OK, it's extra work, but homemade cookie crumbs make a remarkably big difference in flavor." There are recipes for the home-baked equivalent of the Oreo and Cream-Filled Devil's Food Cupcakes, as well as Strawberry Chiffon Pie, Banana Pudding, Bananas Foster, Strawberries Romanoff, Lemon Bars, and Cornflake Macaroons--all illustrated with the kitsch of the time. Fun as they all sound, the recipes bear the integrity of a fine pastry chef who obviously likes a good time but is also serious about what he brings to the table. Those may look like Ding Dongs you are serving at your next dinner party, but wait until the flavor kicks in. --Schuyler Ingle [close]
date added 07-27-07 edit book

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[Auntie Raye-Raye · Rating 4 out of 5]

My late mother was born in 1948, so I grew up eating a lot of the desserts contained in this book. This was a very fun, nostalgic cook book.

The recipes are quite clear. The author's instructions are really helpful. It's written for the home cook, without being condescending. Some of the recipes were tweaked and/or slightly updated for modern times.

Even if you don't want to make the recipes, check the book out for the ultra fabulous photos!

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

This looked ok, but not totally exciting. The "updates" - eliminating raw eggs, or simplifying processes - sometimes change the desserts considerably. I'll take my chances with salmonella to enjoy a real 1950's French Silk Pie.

Overall, it's just a cookbook. A cookbook with a decent collection of recipes, but nothing exciting, and not nearly as kitschy as I'd expected.

[Shari · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book up from the library and it has the most amazing looking desserts ever. I haven't had the chance to make any of the desserts listed, but I plan on it as soon as I'm inspired to do so.
I think I may have to ask for this book as a birthday present, it's that good!

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got this from the library and made the yellow cake right away. Much better than some of the other recipes I have in my stash. Love the retro throwback though it would have been nice to have a few more photos, especially of some items I didn't know what it was.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

This will be an Amazon purchase eventually. Nice handful of dineresque delicacies from my childhood. For now, it was an entertaining browse with some yummy eye candy. Food as nostalgia.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

The photos remind me of the photos from my mother's old "technicolor" Crocker cookbooks. The recipe for Strawberry Chiffon Pie was dreamy! We devoured it in one evening.