To understand this lovely book you only need the first sentence:
I believe that every great Saturday night in the history of Saturday nights has been preceded by or followed by brunch.
And so this book, devoted to “irresistibly sweet, salty, gooey, sticky, fluffy, creamy crunchy treats,” does begin with a Brunch chapter filled with dining delights like:
Lemon-Poppy Seed Pancakes
Sour Cream Scones
Cinnamon Sugar and Dark Chocolate Croissants
Cinnamon-Sugar Pull-Apart Cake
Roasted-Potato Breakfast Nachos
French Onion Quiche
Mango-Watermelon Tequila Sunrise
Any of these dishes might make your brunch better. Take three or four, assemble them on your table or counter, and you have just the greatness in food that Joy Wilson so devoutly promotes. Joy has the wonderful, and very popular, website joythebaker.com, and is a prominent writer and photographer. Her photos have appeared in Food & Wine, Redbook, The Atlantic and Forbes.com.
She has this passion and vast talent to conceive a great recipe, describe it in words to perfection, and photograph it with the ultimate seduction. When you “see” one of her recipes, the immediate reaction is “I’m making that.” She is the ultimate communicator.
When we are done with brunch, it is time to march on to dessert treats and the remaining chapters of Homemade Decadence are each treasure houses of desserts intense in flavor, texture, and satisfaction.
Cookies, Brownies and Bars offers:
Oatmeal Sandwich Cookies with Creamy Peanut Butter Filling
Melt-y Chocolate-Truffle Cookies
Pumpkin, Cranberry, and White Chocolate Cake Cookies
Peach, Brie and Dark Chocolate S’Mores
Pies, Crumbles & Cobblers is filled with ideas to turn an empty round pie dish into the best thing you’ve had all week. It begins with her famous Buttermilk Pie Crust, the perfect container for the pies to come. You’ll find:
Lemon-Buttermilk Pie with Maple-Cranberry Sauce
Chocolate Pudding Pie
Pear-Cranberry-Pecan Crumble
Apple Pie with Cheddar-Bacon Crust
Peanut Butter Banana Cream Pudding Pie
If you are more a cake than crumble person, then you love the chapter Layer Cakes, Cupcakes & Skillet Cakes. There are standards here and then Joy’s “pile it on” flavor extravaganzas:
Basic Three Layer Yellow Cake
Maple Orange & Ginger Cream Cheese Cake
Chocolate-Peanut Butter Pretzel Layer Cake [the book cover!]
Maple-Apple Upside-Down Cake
And in Ice Cream Social her personal fascination with Ben & Jerry’s is given many exclamation points:
Double Peanut Butter Ice Cream
Mocha Fudge Sauce
Caramel-Swirled Sweet Corn Ice Cream
Honey-and Pistachio Frozen Yogurt
Peach& Buttermilk Milkshake
The recipes in Homemade Decadence amplify the book’s title. Yes, you can make these at home. And, yes, after enjoying any of these treats you will be filled with a sense of decadence. Joy is in love with chocolate and peanut butter and pretzels and buttermilk. That’s a pretty good start if sweets are in your bloodstream. I think Joy’s bloodstream is streaked with chocolate. How else could she have articulated all these truly sweet ideas? Along the way, she proves that decadence is not a bad thing at all. It’s just delicious.