First Choice: "Dessert Person"

What sparked the start of this blog was receiving Dessert Person by Claire Saffitz in the mail two weeks ago. Before the downfall of Bon Appetit video, Claire was easily my favorite of the hosts to watch. I discovered Gourmet Makes at a point in my life where I was feeling down a lot of the time and watching Claire try, fail, then try again to replicate treats we all know and love always put me in a great mood.

As I watched more of BA's general cooking videos and started getting the magazine, I grew to simply love Claire's recipes. She put out recipes that were fun to make, used techniques I wasn't already familiar with, and everything I tried was delicious. In the earlier days of quarantine when I saw that Claire was releasing a cookbook I preordered immediately.

On my first flip through Dessert Person I decided I would try it all. There are a lot of recipes that seem comfortable to me, a lot that have something completely brand new, and a few that I thought you basically had to go to pastry school to learn (this is mainly referring to croissants, which I think I'll save for last). Claire has set up this cookbook to be used as a learning tool. Every recipe is rated on a difficulty level from a scale of 1-5 and charts all recipes on a matrix of difficulty vs. time. It's easy to look at each recipe and assess if it's something that will a weekend project or will be an easy Tuesday night dessert to try.

I'd love to start at the easiest and work up, because it seems like the most logical way forward, but I think it might end up more random than that. Some depend on holidays - pumpkin pie, fruitcake, etc. Others are based around peak season apples, blueberries, blood oranges and lots of other produce. I'll bake whatever feels good, whenever it does.

I don't think this will be a straightforward experience. I'm sure there will be cakes that won't rise and cookies that turn out wrong. There are some recipes I am not *super* excited about. But, hopefully, the good will outweigh the bad and I'll end up with a hundred new recipes to love.

Here's to baking my way through!