Gand Gale - Gale Gands Short and Sweet: Quick Desserts with Eight Ingredients or Less

* My delightful husband, Jimmy, for thinking clearly when I cant, for having the power to calm me when Im anxious and on deadline, for brewing me another cup of tea, for always making me feel Im the most beautiful and greatest cook there is when our family sits down at the table to eat, and for holding my coat through our poetic, sweet, inspirational life together. You are such a gift.

* My lovely, funny, smart son, Gio, for enriching my life and bringing me such joy in and out of the kitchen.

* And my mother, Myrna, for the cold, precise hands you gave me that love and live to make pie crust after pie crust with Great-Grandmas rolling pin. Im doing it with Gio now using rhubarb from my garden, only Im you and hes meboy, do I miss you.

Thanks to:

* Julia Moskin for giving us a voice and for friendship

* Jane Dystel for watching over us and taking care of things

* Tim Turner for catching the beauty of food on film

* Roy Finamore for making the process easy

* Pam Krauss for adopting us

* Mary Anne Forness for testing and testing

* My dad, Bob, for working so hard to live so long to be here for us all

* Aunt Lana for never being all out of time

* Vita Seidita and family for cooking with me and sharing their family heirloom recipes

* Fran Seidita for all that Cameoware

* Grandma Elsie Grossman for leaving me her recipe card files, and so organized!

* Aunt Greta and Uncle Robert for supporting my cooking and the hamoh my God, that ham!

* Uncle Jack and Aunt Judy for digging up old family recipe cards and mailing them to me

* Rick Tramonto for being a great culinary partner

* Rich Melman for being a great business partner

* TV Food Network for making me feel more like a star than anyone deserves

* Julia Child for including me

* Judy Anderson, Karen Katz, and Ina Pinkney for holding my hand, always

* My entire staff and partners at Tru and Lettuce Entertain You, Enterprises

* Larry Binstein and European Imports for cheese and dairy products and selling my root beer

* Filberts Bottling Company for co-packing my root beer

* Swan Creek Farms and George Rasmussen for organic eggs, honey, and maple syrup for my pastries

* New Leaf and Bukiety for blooms for the book and our restaurant

* Tekla Incorporated and Sofia Solomon for beautiful cheeses

* Heartland Tradings American Cheese Collection and Giles Schnierle for farmhouse Cheddar and other wonderful things

* Farmer Jones and family for the best soil, the best herbs, and micro greens
Gale Gand

I still cant thank Gale enough for taking a chance on me four (!) books ago. This one is for Darren and for Billy, the best thing weve cooked together yet.
Julia Moskin

How often do you hear yourself saying things like: Im totally frantic today or Were having a crazy week! or Where does the time go? We all seem to be a little too busy these days. I try to remember that a complicated life is also a blessing. I love my family, my work, my house and garden, my friends, and my cats and dog! Even though all together, they make for a demanding life schedule, I wouldnt have things any other way. I suspect most of you feel the same way.

Like other working parents (and to me, that includes all parents), I struggle with having time for the things I have to do and the things I want to do. For many of us, cooking from scratch is no longer something we have to do. Our supermarkets are stocked with complete chicken dinners, precooked pasta, and huge salad bars. Bakeries provide us with fresh bread, cookies, and birthday cakes.

But home cooking is still something I want to do, for myself and my family. Youd think that as a chef, it would be easy for mebut my schedule keeps me out of my own kitchen as much as anyone. Believe it or not, I do understand how it feels to have no time to cook!

When I was lucky enough to become the host of a daily dessert show on the Food Network, my schedule really got pushed to the limit. I thought Id never have time for home cooking again. But I still want my son to eat cookies that I have baked just for him, not only the best ones I can buy. I want to sit down with my husband, even if its only once a week, to a meal that we have made for ourselves right down to the dessert. When I manage to bring a homemade sweet to a friends housewarming or baby shower, I like knowing I made the effort to bake it myself, even if its the simplest possible coffee cake or fruit crisp.

So, as my life has become more full and rich, my desserts have had to become more simple. At Tru, the elegant fine-dining mecca in Chicago where I am the pastry chef (and a partner in running the restaurant), my team and I still enjoy spinning wild variations on sweet themes. But for myself, and for the thousands of Americans who watch me cook on TV, home desserts mean simple desserts.

The good news is: Simple doesnt mean boring.

Simple doesnt have to mean the same old pound cake or chocolate chip cookies or a basic apple pie, good as those things can be. Simple can mean intense flavor and stylish presentations. Simple can mean a jolt of surprise, an oh, I never thought of putting those two things together moment that makes the easiest dessert taste fresh and lively. Simple means big flavor: making powerful tastes like coconut, cocoa, or peanut butter work for you, for example, or using buttery croissants as the base for bread pudding. Simple means making the most of the seasons, letting juicy-fresh peaches, pears, or figs speak for themselves with just a little prompting. Simple means buying top-notch ingredients, from chocolate to cream to raspberries, that need just a hug and a kiss to make them table-ready.

More good news: You dont have to have the knife skills or kitchen versatility of an Iron Chef to make desserts that beat the clock. Heres the main thing you have to do in order to cook quickly: Think ahead, whether its a matter of shopping in advance or making a dessert beforehand up until the final step. Thats what we chefs do. Making dinner for hundreds of people every night means that we have to make lots of things in advance, then finish them at the last minute. You can, too. In many of the recipes that follow, its those last five minutes that really produce the dessert.