Dessert Fourplay

The daring, innovative badboy of the American dessert scene is also a dedicated hard worker, an approach demonstrated clearly by his debut cookbook. The former pastry chef at NYC's Restaurant Daniel and Jean-Georges, he is also well known for serving as the head judge on Bravo TV's Top Chef: Just Desserts. 

Here, Iuzzini offers a series of mini desserts in quartets of complementary flavors and textures. Each can be served individually, but offered as a flight, they soar. One sample foursome: mango lhassi; coconut pain perdu with cream cheese ice cream and papaya-lime compote; flambéed bananas with rum-and-coke ice cream and peanut phyllo crisps; pineapple polenta cake with ginger-spice sauce. 

Professionals will quickly see that the flavor and texture ideas abound here and the book provides fertile ground for additional imaginative inspiration.

Hardcover. Color photographs throughout.