Wintersweet: Seasonal Desserts to Warm the Home

by Tammy Donroe Inman

Who says the winter months have to be bleak and barren? Author Tammy Donroe sees this season as an opportunity to stay inside, fire up the oven, and produce decadent desserts from the bounty of wholesome winter ingredients. Wintersweet encourages readers to make use of fresh, local ingredients for warming seasonal desserts. While summer farmers' markets are always overflowing with ripe produce, there's plenty to be had from November to squashes and pumpkins, parsnips and carrots, apples, pears, citrus of all types, and feel-good ingredients like nuts, cheese, and chocolate.
The fresh and rustic recipes in Wintersweet push the envelope of traditional winter desserts like pumpkin or apple pies with such delicacies as Pear Cranberry Clafouti, Spicy Prune Cake with Penuche Frosting, Tangelo Sorbet, and Goat Cheese Cake with Dried Cherry Compote. Each chapter is devoted to different ingredients, ranging from Persimmons, Pomegranates, and Cranberries to Citrus, Cheese, and Dried Fruits, allowing readers to experiment with new and exciting ingredients for complex and delicious flavors. They taste even better when they can be found near your own backyard; Donroe provides resources for finding the best local farmers' markets and agricultural centers near you. Perfect for holiday gatherings or to warm the belly on a cold night, Wintersweet is the perfect dessert companion to make the year's coldest season a bit more festive.

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Nonfiction, Food, Foodie

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Tammy Donroe Inman is the author of NEW ENGLAND DESSERTS: Classic and Creative Recipes for All Seasons, which was just released by Globe Pequot. Her previous cookbook, WINTERSWEET: Seasonal Desserts to Warm the Home, was praised by The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and The Boston Globe. She also wrote TWITTERATI CRYPTOGRAMS: 350 Snarky Ciphers for Social Media Junkies, which contains hilarious coded word puzzles featuring comedians Eugene Mirman, Kristen Schaal, and Rob Delaney, as well as writers for top TV shows like Family Guy and Late Night With Seth Meyers. She lives outside Boston with her husband and two sons.

Reviews

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m back in the kitchen and ready to review this cookbook by Tammy Donroe Inman from Running Press.

This is a cookbook I picked up several years ago because in my quest to eat seasonally I was struggling with winter and winter fruits in particular. It is loaded with gorgeous photographs and I really like the matte finish of the pages. I like the layout of the book overall with chapters like:
Apples
Pears &Quince
Nuts & Chocolate
Persimmons, Pomegranates & Cranberries
Citrus
Roots, Tubers & Gourds
Cheese
Dried Fruits
Dairy & Fresh Eggs

The start of each section gives a nice little history and description of foods used in the chapter. This is how I learned all about Persimmons…both Fuyus and Hachiyas, astringent vs non-astringent and how to pick them out, when they are ripe…and how to prepare them. I am always looking to add to my education in the kitchen and thought this was a nice addition to the cookbook.

Now to the recipes…which are a little bit of a mixed bag, but overall very good (several making it instantly in to our pink book and a couple becoming real seasonal favorites!). There are plenty of recipes still to try and I am looking forward to trying them.

One highlight we found in the book was the recipe for Persimmon, Pistachio, and Coconut Rice Pudding Parfaits on page 117. The dish is not only pleasing on the eyes (it makes a great dish to serve for a dinner party), but it tastes amazing (the combination of salty and sweet is delightful) and is surprisingly simple to prepare. Thanks to the author’s suggestion we have tried it with several combos and one of our house favorites it mango, pomegranate and pistachios. This makes for a great salty-sweet balance and the crunch of both the pistachios and the pomegranate arils contrasts nicely with the rich creaminess of the coconut rice pudding. It also makes great leftovers as long as you keep the layers separated until serving. Big five star win at our house that has been on the menu since January of 2016.

The Persimmon Pudding on page 118 was delicious! It has a nice texture and with the added spices was almost like eating pumpkin pie without the crust. It was nice having a warm dessert in the winter and we paired it with a vanilla ice cream.

The Grapefruit Buttermilk Cake on page 138 is reminiscent of Starbuck’s glazed lemon loaf…except it is made with grapefruit. You soak the cake in a grapefruit syrup and make a grapefruit glazed frosting to drizzle over the top. It was lovely and would probably freeze well (to bring out for unexpected company). My imagination is running wild with this one and I would really like to try some other combinations like orange or lemon and I would like to do the grapefruit syrup with a little raw ginger. …like Goldilocks said this cake was just right! It was moist, flavorful and sliced beautifully.

Mexican Lime Pie on page 139 was another big winter winner. I love Mexican or key limes…tasty with few ingredients it reminded me of my time in Mexico and well worth making.

Now for a couple recipes that I probably won’t be making again…mainly because I have better recipes in the pink book already: Butternut Squash Cake on page 169…this was a fairly basic sweet bread recipe…but I have one from down south that uses sour cream that blows this one out of the water. I will be using a technique I learned from this recipe that is in the cookbook on page 176 called “squishing Squash”. It was the authors way of roasting and preparing the squash…the technique was simple and required no peeling or chopping which I liked.

Another miss for us was the hermit bars or “hermits” on page 234. The recipe called for whole wheat and in spite all of the spices…you could really taste the difference between it and my all purpose flour pinkbook recipe.

Filled with recipes there are so many that I am still looking forward to making…like Rosemary Meyer Lemon Tart! This is a cookbook that I can highly recommend and look forward to many more years of cooking from.

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautiful cookbook with beautiful photography, and probably my favorite of 2013. The idea of building a cookbook around winter ingredients for baked goods is brilliant and much appreciated. There are chapters on nuts and squashes and citrus, to name a few.

Both recipes I tried were not dishes I had seen in other cookbooks, and had interesting flavor profiles. I made the butternut squash cake twice!

Butternut squash cake:


Cocoa Pomegranate Pavlova (I couldn't resist the striking color in this dish and the added ingredients of balsamic and cardamom made for a very sophisticated bite.)

[Carolyn Page · Rating 5 out of 5]

YUM. Seasonal desserts for winter that are creative and new yet use familiar ingredients and relatively easy to make? Yes please. I made the cranberry torte and it turned out delicious. Would buy for my own shelves.

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sweets are in order any season of the year. This collection of recipes uses a variety of fresh seasonal products for excellent results. There are some unusual recipes in this work.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got this from our library and would love to add it to my personal collection. The book is beautiful in itself and the recipes sound amazing; I want to try them all! I wish there was a picture for each recipe, but the pictures that are in there are very artistically presented and thought out.

[Hazel Leu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wish it had more pictures, but great recipes. Not too sure if I will be able to make anything from here.

[Amanda Bright · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely a bunch of recipes I'm planning to make this fall and winter!

[Juli Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really appreciate the fruit-forwardness of this cookbook, as well as the the way it was organized (by ingredient/flavor profile).

[Samantha | Midwinter Raven · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned so much from this book! filled with facts and tidbits of all sorts plus renditions on old recipes and new recipes alike. it is also well laid out and well designed.

[K · Rating 5 out of 5]

I admit I wanted it because of the beautiful pictures. There arent many inside though!

The book has nine chapters, each has its own main ingredient and gives a bit of tips and history, what kind of apple for pie, how to store chocolate... Then you get recipes with a little anecdote.
Baking with apples, pears, nuts, cheese, beets, parsnip, citruses, dates, persimmons- thats definitely not usual boring cookbook!!!
Quantities are in cups, ml, grams so no need for converting. The instructions are easy to understand.

I recommend it! Great for experimenting and discovering new flavours. It looks beautiful too :)

I tried chocolate&beets whoopie pie. Delicious. I never made any whoopie pie before or anything with beets so I had no idea what to expect- everyone loved it!!

[Elizabeth Kovar · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. I am vegan but love her recipes. The pictures are beautiful and I know these are classic recipes that are heavy in dairy, sugar etc. so someone can always alternate or swap out ingredients but for the most part I gravitate toward books that don't have secret or expensive ingredients.
I love how she gives history to certain fruits, veggies, nuts etc. and connects food to things like cultural experiences etc. I enjoy it because I am that person and cook too.

[Naomi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh my goodness, this book is in my Amazon cart!

This book was amazing with several types of recipes from the easy to prepare to recipes fit for entertaining. From citrus to chocolate and cheese recipes. There was basically a recipe for every occasion and desert lover.

I can't wait to try some of these recipes in The Pub and Grub Forum.

[Hilary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sumptuous spreads (food and photos!) with chatty text readers will devour! Recipes entice -- I wanted to make each one! Price ($30) made me borrow it from the library before deciding I need a copy of my own!

[Bett]

Pear Cranberry Clafouti?! Swoon.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd like to have a copy of this one day when I get a place with an electric oven. I don't trust gas.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I perused this one in the dead of summer while sweating profusely and all the warming desserts still sounded delicious. An indicator of how great this cookbook is.

[Bookish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful recipes, great instructions, attainable results. My one disappointment regards the paucity of photographs - more is always more with cookbooks.

[Julie Brock · Rating 4 out of 5]

BEAUTIFUL, looks delicious, but too much from scratch for my abilities. :(

[Renee Wood · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh. My. Bob! That was gooooood.