The Sweet Spot: Asian-Inspired Desserts

If you thought Asian desserts were limited to bland fortune cookies and watery rice pudding, this book will open your eyes and tingle your tongue. Lushly photographed and intelligently written, it features a wide variety of recipes from cakes and cookies to puddings, candy and drinks. The recipes are much more than Asian riffs on western classics. The author, a talented chef, truly integrates the flavors and styles. I think that fusion has gotten a bad name largely because it dumbs down the joined cuisines. I found the recipes doable notwithstanding the fact that many are rather lengthy. There is not excessive usage of exotic ingredients and the ones he does use are fairly accessible in metropolitan areas or over the internet. Additionally, he suggests substitutions, such as using light brown sugar for palm sugar. One word of caution if you are not partial to ginger or coconut be advised that he uses both liberally. The recipes I've tried so far have been successful. His condensed milk pound cake is rich and moist while the sweet potato beignets with roasted apple filling are a fall delight. There are pineapple turnovers that look like tangerines complete with a stem of clove. Both the banana cream pie and the coconut cream pie are phenomenal and the walnut cookies are a nice treat. The Vietnamese coffee tart is rich and the avocado shake is a silky sensation. Be sure to try the spring rolls filled with kumquats and bittersweet chocolate---decadent, delicious and easy. This book is truly a feast for the senses. It is a great read, beautiful to look at and the recipes taste wonderful.

Absolutely delicious and unique twists from diverse influences. Had the pleasure to eat some of its incarnation at Spice Market in NYC which inspired me to get the book itself.

Im a pastry chef at a pan asian restaurant, so naturally this book was natural to pick up. The recipes look great, the pictures are fantastic (im a huge fan of pictures) however most of the recipes I have tried havnt been true to the book and have lacked crucial information. for instance, the lemon twinkie cupcakes he describes as needing only approx 10 minutes baking time. What he fails to mention anywhere in the book is that the baking time is in a convection oven. (I found this out after emailing him) another problem recipe is the coconut flan. 1. I could not get palm sugar to 350 degrees without WAY over carmalizing it. 2. he failed to mention to cover them while baking, or risk over carmalizing the mixture. However, I will give him credit, once you do decipher his recipes, the flavors are pretty fantastic. I tried the poached pears (which do not take 1.5 hours, 1 hour should be more than enough) which were very yummy, and our chef, who despises poached fruit liked the desert. So if you buy this book, be wary, but have fun.

The book gives you a good insight into creating great Asian sweets and adapting it to western creations too. Have just finsished reading the receipes cover to cover with a visual treat of pictures of the authors creations. Definetly a good book.

I really love this book, i have been making recipes regularly from this book and so far have not been disappointed in any of them. Top + to me, being a professional pastry chef is that he includes the measurements in grams which is more accurate and easier to multiply recipes if you want to make a larger batch! Pichet Ong is awesome this book is well worth it!

Pichet is one of the great pastry chefs in nyc. he adds unusual things a little bit in his recipes, and his creation is amazing and tasty. at home i can make somethings that i eat at restaurants in nyc.

Used lots of recipes in this book. my friend and I had a themed party and these recipes were great. Most were easy and "special" ingredients were very easy to find at my local Asian market.

As others have said, there is some value here if you are only looking for inspiration or pretty pictures, but the recipes themselves are completely unworkable. As a professional baker myself, I was intrigued by a lot of the ideas here, but after trying the disastrous recipe for almond fortune cookies because I was curious how a heavy dough could produce a light and crisp fortune cookie (spoiler: it can't), I scanned through the rest of the book and found several more errors so egregious that they were apparent on the page. Might be a good gift for cookbook collectors who won't actually use it, but sadly I'm trashing my copy so no one else will be misled. Better to waste the paper than to waste good ingredients.

interesting

was a gift. She loved it

The desserts looks /sounds delicious, I look forward trying them. You'll find classic desserts with a bit of asian twist.