Semi-Homemade Desserts by Sandra Lee, Mary Hart (Introduction)

From the Publisher

    Sandra Lee—author of the New York Times bestseller Semi-Homemade Cooking—returns with over 100 quick and delicious recipes for everyone's favorite course—dessert.

Sandra Lee shares her Semi-Homemade technique of combining fresh ingredients with specially selected store-bought items—from cake mixes to Cool Whip. You can now create desserts that are as simple to make as they are sensational to eat. Each Semi-Homemade treat tastes as if it were made 100% from scratch—but is created in a fraction of the time.

Semi-Homemade Desserts even includes a chapter with fun-to-make recipes from your favorite celebrities as well as a bonus chapter to help you host the most incredibly creative gatherings for your friends and family. The best part is you can do it all in minutes, with products right from your cupboard.

About the Author:

Sandra Lee is an internationally acclaimed author and lifestyle expert with a devoted following in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, Asia, and South Africa. Her signature Semi-Homemade approach to cooking, home decorating, gardening, entertaining, beauty, food, and fashion offers savvy shortcuts and down-to-earth secrets for creating a beautiful, affordable lifestyle. Her first book Semi-Homemade Cooking was a New York Times national bestseller.

Sandra has shared her time-saving tips, tricks, and recipes on NBC's Today, Entertainment Tonight, CNN, ABC's The View, and on local news programs around the country. A regular lifestyle contributor to Parade, Sandra has also been featured in such publications as W Magazine, Newsweek, Woman's Day, Redbook, and Readers Digest. She is currently in development for a Semi-Homemade television series. She lives in Los Angeles.

Publishers Weekly

In this newest by Lee, author of the bestselling Semi-Homemade Cooking, a typical ingredients list reads like an index of advertising sponsors-Duncan Hines, Nestle, Carnation. According to Lee, that's the idea. Why buy fresh ingredients when you can buy mixes and prepared foods that allow you to skip a few steps? The gimmick-buy name-brand food items and transform them into glorious dishes-is a good one, but the results are often less than satisfactory. (One additional downside with this approach-aside from the chemical and additives involved-is that many of these dishes emphasize attitude rather than flavor.) Recipes such as Pastel Petit Fours, which are relatively time-intensive, look much better than they taste. This is less true of the Frozen Oreo Cake, but the Easter Bunny Cake (which requires eight name-brand ingredients) is not only overly sweet, but somewhat unattractive. Of course, some of the recipes appeal to the palate by virtue of the ingredients alone. Who doesn't like whipped topping, especially if it's mixed with fruit-flavored gelatin? For the reader who tends to purchase items like the ones used herein, these recipes are sure to appeal. Perhaps unnecessarily, headshots of television stars accompany many of the recipes, something that suggests the recipes either come from or are favorites of well-known people-e.g., there's Sex and the City's Kristin Davis's Savvy-Simple Limewhip Angel Food Cake and Katie Couric's Early Morning Raspberry Crescent Ring. (Oct.) Forecast: This cookbook caters to a very specific, very large niche market-so large that Miramax is backing it with a 100,000 first printing and a $250,000 marketing campaign. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Product Details

• Table of Contents
• Read an Excerpt

Table of Contents

Read an Excerpt

Pecan Caramel CheeseCake

Pecan pie or cheesecake? Try a bite of both with this no-bake New York-style cheesecake smothered in caramelized pecans. The inspired combination of creamy cheesecake, gooey caramel, and crunchy pecans is a two-in-one treat, perfect for parties, special dinners or starting a new Thanksgiving tradition. Be generous with the caramel -- and don't be afraid to let it drip down the sides. It just looks more homemade. 

Serves 12 to 16

2 boxes (11.1 ounces each) real cheesecake dessert mix, Jell-O No Bake® 
3/4 cup butter, melted 
1/4 cup granulated sugar
  2 tablespoons water 
2 1/2 cups cold whole milk
  1 cup butterscotch caramel sauce, Mrs. Richardson's ® 
1 cup pecans, toasted, chopped 
1/2 cup golden brown sugar, packed 

Prep time: 10 minutes
  Chilling time: 5 hours 

Preparation:

Line bottom of 9-inch-diameter springform pan with parchment or wax paper.
  Mix 2 packages of crust, melted butter, sugar, and water in large bowl until well blended.
Reserve 1 cup of crumb mixture for topping.
  Press remaining crumb mixture onto bottom of prepared pan (not up sides). 
Combine 2 packages of cheesecake filling and cold milk in another large bowl. 
Beat for 3 minutes, or until smooth and thick.
  Fold 1/2 cup of caramel sauce into cheesecake mixture.
  Pour mixture into crust-lined springform pan.
  Mix reserved crumb mixture with 1/4 cup of caramel sauce, pecans, and brown sugar. 
Sprinkle atop cheesecake.
  Refrigerate cake at least 5 hours, or until set.
  Run warm knife around pan sides to loosen cake; remove pan sides.
  Transfer cake to serving platter and drizzle with remaining 1/4 cup of caramel sauce. 
Serve cold.

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Frozen English Toffee Cake

Serves 12 to 16

Cake:
1 box (18.25-ounce) devil's food cake mix, Duncan Hines Moist Deluxe® 
1 1/3 cups water
  1/2 cup vegetable oil 
3 eggs