Sweet Enough: A Dessert Cookbook

by Alison Roman

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A simple, stylish cookbook full of desserts that come together faster than you can eat them—from the author of Dining In and Nothing Fancy .

“Filled with no-fuss recipes perfect for quick and easy baking projects . . . blissfully effortless.”— People
 
ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED COOKBOOKS OF 2023: People, HuffPost, Delish, Tasting Table
 
Casual, effortless, These are not words you’d use to describe most desserts. But before Alison Roman made recipes so perfect that they go by one name—The Cookie, The Pasta, The Lemon Cake—she was a restaurant pastry chef who spent most of her time learning to make things the hard way. She studied flavor, technique, and precision, then distilled her knowledge to pare it all down to create dessert recipes that feel special and approachable, impressive and doable. In Sweet Enough , Alison has written the book for people who think they don’t have the time or skill to pull off dessert. Here, the desserts you want to make right away, you can make right away. 

Alison shows you how to make simple yet sublime sweets with her trademark casualness, like how to make jam in the oven, then turn that jam into a dessert—swirled into ice cream or folded into easy one-bowl cake batter. (Opening a jar of jam is more than fine, too.) She waxes poetic on the virtues of frozen fruit and teaches you the best way to throw your own Sundae Party. There are effortless cakes that take just minutes to get into a pan. And there are new, instant classics with a signature Alison twist, like Salted Lemon Pie, Raspberries and Sour Cream, Toasted Rice Pudding, or a Caramelized Maple Tart. Requiring little more than your own two hands and a few mixing bowls, the recipes are geared towards those without fancy equipment or specialty ingredients.

Whether you’re a dedicated baker or, better yet, someone who doesn’t think they are a baker, Sweet Enough lets you finish any dinner, any party, or any car ride to a dinner party with a little something wonderful and sweet.

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Food, Nonfiction, Reference, Culinary, Foodie

304 pages, Hardcover

Published March 28, 2023

About the author

ALISON ROMAN is the author of the bestselling cookbook Dining In, a bi-weekly columnist for the Cooking section of The New York Times and a monthly contributor at Bon Appétit Magazine. Creator of #thestew and #thecookies, her highly cookable recipes frequently achieve massive popularity in both home kitchens and on the internet. A native of Los Angeles, she lives in Brooklyn until she moves upstate like everyone else.

(source: Amazon)

Reviews

[Hirondelle (not getting notifications) · Rating 2 out of 5]

March 2024 revising opinion:

We are now on hiatus, Alison. This book just does not seem to work. Text is entertaining, the type of food is interesting enough (though not dazzling, neither classic nor original), and I guess I stopped thinking including anchovies in a dessert cookbook funny.

Recipes just do not seem to work and seem sloppy. I am sorry but a lot of the optionals are just insane, spices can be optional but things adding 2 mashed bananas changes consistency of batter a lot and hence cooking times and well everything - it is not optional, just make your mind of what it is. Also too much turmeric.

So this book turned out to be a dud, and I got much better dessert books at around the same time which are proving fantastic and reliable.. (Specifically 100 Desserts to Die for: Quick, Easy, Delicious Recipes for the Ultimate Classics and One Tin Bakes: Sweet and simple traybakes, pies, bars and buns )

May 2023 first impressions
Mostly read (skimmed some of the most egregious bits of just Alison being Alison rambling about stuff or reminiscing about american branded food). And my rating of cookbooks always gets revised as I cook from them...

And OMG, american cookbooks now often include metric quantities, and that is so so important for me. I do not mind converting one unit if I have to (like oven temperatures, though admittedly I will not bother and just do whatever I think right unless recipe author is very emphatic about it being an unusual temperature or important ...) but I got no instinct for what a stick of butter is to a cup of flour, and I do know what 200 grams of butter is 200 grams of flour versus 100/250 and so on and can relate it better to other recipes and so on.

About the food itself, almost totally a sweets recipe book, though a couple of savoury recipes are included. I am not calling it a baking cookbook, because a few recipes are more of an assembly things together recipes like sour cream and berries (which sounds great, and she does have some technique points. I am just giving away my version here which is rather than sour cream use half quark cheese and half greek yogurt, it is fantastic) or some icecream cakes with bought icecream and cookies (I am totally doing that. No sneer from me. And it has interesting twists). It is very much an Alison Roman cookbook, it is full of her personality, and it is very New York, very trendy (or trendy in NY, did not make it to less trendy places yet) food, and I think the author can be a bit irritating sometimes (particularly if you read cookbooks cover to cover). Mileage may vary on this.

BUT I still think her cookbooks are very much worth it for me because she has great taste in taste literally (or more honestly her palate-taste matches mine a lot of the time...), and she has an eye for simplifying recipes, going to the essential and writing about it in a logical, clear, trustworthy way.

Reading recipe books particularly for desserts is a very soothing thing for me somehow...

[Isabelle✨ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Her writing voice is so so so annoying!!! So stuck up and like she’s better than everyone else for not having “perfect” recipe outcomes or trying to be as lazy as possible. I agree to a certain extent but it was just so off-putting. Some of her ideas I agree with but some are a personal affront.

Also, random savory recipes in a DESSERT cookbook?

The way she writes I don’t even want to try any of her stuff. Insufferable millennial vibes (coming from a gen z).

[Miss✧Pickypants ᓚᘏᗢ · Rating 5 out of 5]

The copious amounts of mouthwatering photos in Sweet Enough: A Dessert Cookbook had me salivating and craving every single dessert from page one. I enjoyed the author's cheeky, unapologetic diatribes and directness about her way of doing things. The mini essays and headnotes caused me to laugh out loud multiple times, not something I expect going into a cookbook. After disparaging scones in general, it was nice to see the little shout out to Tandem Bakery in Portland ME as an exception for their scones.

Recipes are extremely well crafted and each one is accompanied by "do ahead" and "eat with" tips. This marvelous book is worth adding to your collection if you're someone who loves to make desserts. It's meticulous instructions are well suited for cooks just starting out while seasoned ones will appreciate the creativity of the recipes (like the Caramelized Onions and Anchovy Tart, yes, there's a recipe in this dessert book using anchovies, it may sound odd but it is in the chapter on savory dishes that when taken in context of the book in it's entirety made perfect sense).

My only gripes were for the small red-orange font used to list ingredients that made it hard to read in certain light and the use of embedded recipes (where you have to turn to another section to find the referenced component of the dish). Despite these minor faults, it is still a stellar book worthy of 5 stars.

[Lora · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of course I love this book. How could I not?

This is my first glutinous and dairy baking book I've bought since my child was diagnosed with anaphylaxis allergies. I will have to modify most of the recipes to have them in my house. Was this a silly purchase then?

NO.

It was a wonderful purchase. Everything we come to want and love from Alison and more. She doesn't sugar coat her past mistakes (see what I did with that baking reference there?), she keeps her same low maintenance and simple approach to entertaining and cooking, and she even works in my love of all time anchovies.

Love how the recipes suggest pairings on the side and keep the same make-ahead rules as her other cookbooks. She is honest. She is fun. She is making food that my friends and I want to make and cook through the entire book. (FYI we've totally made every recipe in her previous cookbooks because that's just what you HAVE to do with Alison Roman cookbooks.)

I'm so glad she's back in print form. Let's not go so many years. Next cookbook ASAP please.

PS Her youtube is releasing these recipes on video and they are fab. Go watch them. You're welcome.

[Hayden Casey · Rating 5 out of 5]

read this sitting at my kitchen table, cover to cover, like a novel. laughed out loud, marked several* recipes that i simply cannot live without and will make soon.

this is the perfect book for me, as somebody who loves complex flavor, spins on classics, and stuff without so much sugar it'll skim off a layer off my teeth. (not that i don't also love stuff with so much sugar it'll skim a layer off my teeth – but i want more stuff that isn't that way!)

(although i will say, her lack of interest in "warm-out-of-the-oven, ooey-gooey" cookie moments is something she should work on.)


*37. 37 recipes. i simply do not have time to make all of these. how will i do it?

[Luke Hillier · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are plenty of delicious sounding recipes here, complemented well by gorgeous food photography, that I'm really looking forward to trying. My baking experience is pretty limited, so I was pleased to find that in some ways that made me the target demographic. I will say that I felt less intimidated by most of the techniques detailed here than I'd feared, and anticipate it will do a good job empowering me as a cookbook should. Three stars is a little nitpicky, but I guess this just felt a little flatter than Nothing Fancy? Maybe some repetitiveness is inevitable for a dessert cookbook, but even the blurby anecdotal headnotes started to feel a little phoned-in compared to her hyper-voicey writing there. I'm also knocking some the recipes towards the end of the book that just felt too simple, almost as if she'd run out of steam but had to fill ten more pages. That said, this is a review of my reading experience of the book –– here's to hoping it's a treasured five-star resource once I start baking from it (and I could very well see it becoming one)!

[Lauren Tennet · Rating 4 out of 5]

I trust Alison. I believe in her unfussy, fun, naked and sensuous approach to cooking. I agree with her on putting a few savory and plenty of breakfast recipes in this book. And, maybe more than anything, her palette and preferences mesh so well with my own. Except on cookies. I can’t believe she isn’t a cookie person. Oh, well.

[Naomi Ewert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can’t wait to bake all the recipes in this book!
Made lemon cream pie already and it was so good.

[Wei Tchou · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have been cooking my way thru this book since May and every recipe is a banger

[Kayci Pharaon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m sorry to be the annoying person who marks a cookbook as “read.” But this one is too lovely and funny not to!

[Mia · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 because 2/3 recipes I’ve tried required a tweak, but the tiny strawberry galettes were phenomenal.

[Janet · Rating 2 out of 5]

Chock full of weirdly angled photos of the author and her friends, long awkward/pretentious ramblings about the author and food and a few tasty- sounding recipes.

[Debra · Rating 5 out of 5]

I immediately went to the section entitled "I've got all this fruit, now what?" Roman maintains that she wishes the entire book was entitled as such and I tend to agree. I would like more of the recipes found in this section.

So, let me stop and talk about her recipes. Some look traditional but have tweaks and tips that could totally revamp the dish into another non-recognizable recipe. She encourages modifications, creativity and experimentation.

Interspersed throughout this section are full pages of large type; this large type almost seems like shouting and perhaps she is. It is important information.---things like how to know when fruit is ripe and how to season a fruit salad. She does not supply a recipe for said fruit salad but instead offers lots of Dos and Don'ts:

Do season with salt and pepper (and maybe even red pepper flakes).
Add sweetness with honey or maple syrup.
Add acid with fresh citrus juice.
Do not use "regular" grapes---"they're rarely remarkable"(221).
Do use Concord grapes.
Your salad does not have to have "all the colors of the rainbow...embrace monochromatic combinations" (221).
Don't make your salad boring by cutting all the fruit into uniform cubes.
Skip a few more pages and you'll find a non-typical fruit cocktail (in the same screaming large type). Roman takes her fruit cocktail literally: "To make a fruit cocktail you only have to have fruit and alcohol" (221).

She suggests the following combos:

Figs and pears and amaro
Plums, sour cherries, blackberries and cassis
Peaches, apricots, oranges and Lillet
Blackberries, raspberries, sweet cherries and red vermouth
Simply splash the fruit with enough booze to pool at the bottom of the bowl. "Then, let it sit, or not" (231).

"I've got all this fruit, now what?" would not be complete without some preserve recipes. She includes some for stovetop jam, oven jam, and marmalade.

I am so going to make her hard-roasted pears (217) at some point. I adore the aromatics she uses in this recipe (vanilla bean, fresh ginger, citrus zest, rosemary and warming spices). White wine and a bit of molasses merge for the poaching liquid. Finally, apples or pears can be used. LOVE.

Sorry I went to what many would call the boring chapter of a dessert book so please note there's sections on pies, tarts and galettes; cakes; "things called puddings;" cookies; frozen desserts; and "morning time, snack times." Roman starts with tips like "read a recipe start to finish before making it" and the rationale for such a statement (which I usually totally ignore) and wise talk on ingredients, temperatures and tools. To round out Sweet Enough, she includes "staples and extras" at the end of the book. Don't skip this final section because there's a few delicious caramel recipes as well as some basics like pie crust and a 50/50 whipped cream (half heavy cream and half Greek yogurt).

Even though this is touted as a dessert book, there's some delicious savory recipes: "a very tall quiche with zucchini and greens" (72-73), tomato tart (76-77), creamy cauliflower galette (81), and "many mushrooms pot pie (84-85),

Even though this was a "best of 2023" book, I'm adding it to my wish list for 2024!

Postscript: I must address the photographs. They're vibrant and beautiful Some a still shots, some are "action shots" (like the cover) and some are.... I don't know how to word this other than I believe the photographer was trying to create food porn. There's a few of a shirtless male and one of said male with very tight, short-shorts. Just sayin'

[Leane · Rating 5 out of 5]

With vibrant photography for each recipe, every entry in this well-documented and entertaining cookbook is a pleasure to read and will make your mouth water. Roman infuses her playful sense of humor and personal experience into her description before each recipe and throughout other parts of this instructive cookbook. Each recipe has a photo, very clear directions and an ingredient list plus suggestions for what it should be eaten with, and what you can do ahead, and other notes. Her chapter intros are well worth reading before each category, and I am a champion skimmer; but I found myself lingering and enjoying her prose and this also applies to her beginning Introduction, and the Read Me First Chapter. She gives a thorough overview of the tools and ingredients preferred. She covers Pies, Tarts, Galettes, Cakes, Things Called Pudding, Cookies, Frozen things, I’ve Got All This Fruit, Now What?, Morning Times, Snack Times, Staples and Extras. I cannot wait to try many of these recipes especially her array of dazzling fruit choices and the “Anytime Shortcake” entry. She quotes Mary Oliver on her publishing verso page: “Joy is not made to be a crumb.” Indeed. This is a book to give anyone who finds baking a joy but is also accessible to newbies. Try her previous cookbook if she is new to you: Nothing Fancy as well as others by Jessie Sheehan, Christina Tosi and/or Claire Saffitz.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is great. The recipes are really easy to follow. The best sections for me are the pies/tarts and savories. Part of that might be due to the time of year I read this, where we're coming into fresh fruit season where I live and I have uses for all these recipes. But the savory section contains lots of pizza-like appetizers that are just incredible. I also enjoyed her oven-jam, and chocolate sour cream pound cake. She gives lots of relaxed entertaining advice and ideas, that I find helpful. I even enjoy her asides - she seems like someone I know or could be friends with, so it's fun and interesting to learn more about her thought process. I felt some of the pictures were gratuitous (the ones with no food in the). Also, while her recipes are great, most of her cookie recipes are team crispy and I am team soft center. So, while I looked through them for ideas, I am probably not going to try any of her cookie recipes.

If you love to bake, or make deserts, this is a fun book to check out. The recipes are solid and tone is relaxed and fun.

[Dan Solomon]

Until recently. I had never read an entire cookbook from front to back. I always saw them as something to leaf through to find a recipe and extract the information I sought. This year, though, I contributed to a cookbook (essays, not recipes, for The Big Texas Cookbook from Texas Monthly) and watched as a friend of mine completed another, and realized that there is a great deal of work that goes into making a good cookbook a _book_, with all that entails, and that I was probably missing out just thinking of them as AllRecipes in paper form. I picked up Sweet Enough because Alison Roman’s recipes always make a lot of sense to my brain when I encounter them online (not everyone’s do), and it turns out this book is a delight, full of wit and a philosophy of baking that tracks a throughline for the entire length. It’s a fast read, obviously, since it’s full of photos and much of the prose is recipes, but there is plenty to appreciate here just in terms of thinking about food and baking, which are things I do frequently, and I’m glad I read it.

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Amazone

Disappointing
6/10

I’m a big Alison Roman fan— I’m an avid viewer of Home Movies, I own (and love) her other cookbooks, and I was super excited to crack this one open. Unfortunately, I find it lacking in substance.

There’s a whole lot of artsy photography and witty, “cool girl on the block” anecdotes (which is Alison’s thing, so I’m not mad at her), but not a whole lot of original or appealing recipes.

There’s a *lot* of fluff: for example, in the fruit section, there’s a whole two-page spread dedicated to raspberries mixed with sour cream, another two-page spread dedicated to berries with heavy cream poured over them, and another two-page spread dedicated to putting fruit in a ziplock bag and freezing it (seriously?).

Honestly, there are only a couple recipes in the book that I’m excited to make, and I kinda want my money back.

Overall, this book felt like it was more about Alison than it was about desserts.

Lauren

[Kuster · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25* I love listening to Alison Roman chatter away while she cooks and all of her cookbooks have this similar quality in its writing. It’s like hanging out with a friend who you find slightly ridiculous but love all the same (given that at times, I find myself ridiculous too).

Why did it take me a year to get through this one? Well, similar to Roman herself, I am very much a savoury eater with the very occasional sweet tooth, plus I don’t make desserts (much to the chagrin of my husband). So there wasn’t a delicious-sounding pork stew or grilled veggie dish to nudge me further along. I would simply sign this out from the library whenever it became available and read a few pages here and there as the fancy struck.

Like Roman’s other cookbooks, I enjoyed reading it cover to cover. Unlike the others, I don’t see myself trying any of the recipes (except maybe the banana bread) and will not be picking up my own copy.

[Lanette · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was the January choice for the library cookbook club. I made the berry scone recipe, which was basically a cake. The only person who liked it admitted she didn't like normal scones. The zucchini quiche recipe was fantastic, but tasted similar to a recipe I make that is 10x easier. The pumpkin spice cake/muffins and frosting were good, as were the spiced pears. The 'pudding' that went with the pears never set up. The chocolate pound loaf was good, but it was basically a brownie. Texture issues were definitely a thing. I may check this book out of the library to try another recipe or two, but I wouldn't buy it.

Also, can't unsee photo of short shorts dude. Unappetizing to say the least.

[Lu Montivero · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible book for anyone who enjoys desserts. If you love them, but are unsure of baking, this is the book for you as it gives you all the tips you might need to overcome your fear of baking. It also moves baking from that perfect place where everything needs to be tidy and without any cracks, smudges or imperfections, which is what anyone who enjoys sweet things wants. Just a dessert worth enjoying.

It has it all, from classics made easy and straightforward (and specially: delicious), to any way you might think of using fruit or making a pie.

I strongly recommend it to both advanced and new bakers, you won’t regret it!

[Rosalie Lochner · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a (mostly) dessert cookbook, that begins with a quote from Mary Oliver, “Joy is not a crumb.” My 9-year-old loved making the three ingredient Oreo cake. The waffle recipe and her ginger turmeric cake were just mehhh. Alison’s voice is causal and her recipes are fairly simple. Her notes about what she thinks you could do with a recipe are (I think) an attempt to pass the oven mitts onto the reader, but felt forced. I'm going to make her breakfast cake, homemade marmalade, and a few other recipes. It was good enough that I will checkout her other cookbooks. This book is best if you’re looking for ideas but is not a bible of any sort.

[Kris · Rating 3 out of 5]

First off: I hate the vintage-looking filters on every single photo inside! Whyyyy??! So unnecessary! I thought about returning this book before I started to dive into the recipes because I found it so annoying.

However! When I did dive into the recipes and try to skip over the photos I found some interesting ideas and things I would like to try to make, even if some recipes seem too simple to be in a cook book. Either way, I've earmarked a few things to try out. We'll see how it goes.

[Abbigail · Rating 4 out of 5]

This cookbook is 3 stars for me personally (very heavy on pie and I'm not a pie person, more acidity and tanginess than I like in desserts, etc.), but overall I think it's a solid four for other people. The photos are beautiful (i cant stop thinking about how many photos there are), I really like the interludes throughout, and I saved a few recipes. I'm disappointed because I absolutely love and cook from Dining In all the time, and i liked Nothing Fancy too.

[Fara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know how this showed up in the group of books I picked up from the library, but WOW!! If you want some easy hacks for fun things to do, please READ THIS! The best accidental book I ever picked up.

Of course, I never make desserts, but I can now tell other people what to do to make them for me! Great book. BTW, I do follow her on Facebook

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Better than I expected. While there are some desserts which really don't need a recipe (fruit salad, perhaps), Roman takes these a step further to make them a bit more interesting without making them complicated. Very doable book, both from the perspective of simplicity and ingredient availability. Seems like an excellent dessert cookbook when you want something comforting and quick.

[Lala · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can’t believe I actually read an entire cookbook. Like cover to cover, every single page, including the descriptions of metric vs imperial measurements, every ingredient, and the whole index?? But the pictures are gorgeous, the descriptions are all so vivid, and the recipes are truly mouthwatering. Holding back a star since I haven’t made anything yet, but I cannot wait ✨

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you aren't a huge dessert person but want to start somewhere this would be a good place: a dessert cookbook written by someone who explicitly admits how much she isn't a dessert person. But, I like the writing and the pictures. The recipes are fine, nothing groundbreaking or super original and some are adaptions of recipes in her previous books.

[Kathleen Intile · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved reading every page of this book. All the recipes look delicious and I loved that Alison included recipes for savory dishes as well. Get the book you won’t be disappointed you never are with Alison Roman!

[stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I sat and read the entire book on a dreary Sunday morning. I love cookbooks more than I love cooking.
My kitchen, still waiting to be rebuilt, is a shell and my oven unplugged.
I love Alison - can't wait to bake some of these recipes in the future.

[mol · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars, finished
super cute little cookbook! i’d love to work my way through these recipes, i like how they’re just unique enough to spark interest enough but not so much so that they seem impossible to execute or too out there to try.