When it comes to baking what you grow, processing sugar feels like a hitch in the gears. But pastry cook and author Brian Levy (@bybrianlevy) tackles this question with "Good & Sweet," his inventive cookbook of thoroughly-tested dessert recipes that use no added sugar. Instead, everything is sweetened with a combination of fruit (fresh, cooked, dried, or freeze-dried) and other ingredients with natural built-in sweetness, like coconut flakes or chestnut flour, opening up doors of complex, flavorful possibilities.
Headshot by Kristin Teig
Links:
Babbo—
Ruth Reichl’s 1998 review
Pete Wells’ 2017 review
Eater’s article about Mario Batali’s sexual misconduct allegations
Eater article reflecting on Babbo and other big NYC restaurants in a “Post-Batali World”
Chestnut desserts, including Gina DePalma’s chestnut cake recipe (1999)
USDA FoodData Central Search Website
Food52 Brown Butter Waffle Cake w/ Sorghum Meringue Buttercream recipe
Nicola Lamb’s Kitchen Projects Newsletter - Brian’s vegan whipped cream recipe
Self-sustaining bakery thoughts: “So in thinking about an imaginary sustainable bakery, this locks in pretty neatly. It’s easy to imagine an orchard right outside the bakery windows; a forest of fruit and nut trees, bushes of berries, and maybe even a freeze-drying machine to take full advantage of the harvest. This book in particular does lean semi-heavily on dates, and date palms generally do best in warm climates, so I’d love to find out what regional substitutes would look like.”
Instagram: @regenerativebaking and @dresslerparsons