Sweet Tooth

Gesine Bullock-Prado's cookbook Sugar Baby is a fantastic tome of all things sweet. It's one of those cookbooks that are full of recipes but you can also read like a book. She separates the chapters based on temperature, because as she teaches you, sugar does totally different things and takes completely different forms depending on the temperature to which you heat it. From rock candy to macarons, simple syrup to pastry cream, Gesine gives detailed instructions on how to make the most delicious and pretty confections. She also makes you want to hang out with her-and not just for the sake of eating all of her amazing creations. She seems so fun, her writing style is seriously entertaining, and her passion for all things sweet really shines through. Plus the book is definitely one of the prettiest that I own. So inspiring-makes me want to run out and get a candy thermometer!

Front cover with cotton candy and macarons

The table of contents showing you what sugar will become based on temperature

Back cover. Fun fact: Gesine is actually Sandra Bullock's sister! She looks so happy- I would be too with that handful of sugar!

YUM-rock candy

YUM-Parisian macarons-need to work up the courage to try this out!

Creme brulee-one of my favs! With that hard sugar shell on top...drooling.

 

Fruit gummis-mmmm

 

The Guimauve-aka, pretty pink marshmallows.

Gesine seems really cool. She used to work as a big shot executive in Hollywood, but she left to follow her passion and open The Gesine Confectionary in Vermont. How AWESOME is that? I want to live in Vermont and run a confectionary! She writes about it in her first book, My Life from Scratch: A Sweet Journey of Starting Over, One Cake at a Time, and also on  her blog. I highly recommend Sugar Baby if you're interested in a different take on a baking cookbook-this is the first one I've come across that deals exclusively with sugar work, and I found it to be unique and enlightening!

photos taken by Jackie for York Avenue