Ready for Dessert, Revised: My Best Recipes [A Baking Book]

by David Lebovitz

Overview

A revised edition of David Lebovitz's bestselling collection of desserts, featuring stunning new photography and more than 170 mouthwatering recipes for pastries, cakes, cookies, and more

Professional cook and baker David Lebovitz is a master of perfectly pitched desserts and irreverent humor—a combination that has won him and his books hundreds of thousands of fans. This completely revised edition of Ready for Dessert is a compilation of David's favorite and best recipes. He serves up a tantalizing array of nearly 175 cakes, pies, tarts, crisps, cobblers, cookies, candies, ice creams, pastries, custards, soufflés, puddings, and even dessert sauces, fruit preserves, and homemade liqueurs.

Sharing a pared-down sophistication and a focus on fresh, pure flavors and seasonal ingredients, David's desserts range from simple to showy, light to rich, and classic to edgy, like Nectarine-Raspberry Upside-Down Gingerbread Cake, Apple-Quince Tarte Tatin, Lemon-Ginger Crème Brûlée, Buckwheat Chocolate Chip Cookies, Butterscotch-Pecan Ice Cream, Maple Tartlets, and a universally adored Salted Butter Caramel Sauce that can top just about anything.

Featuring several all-new recipes and photography shot on location in Paris by award-winning food photographer Ed Anderson, Ready for Dessert, Revised, offers showstopping treats that bakers of all skill levels will master with ease. And David’s trademark friendly guidance, as well as serving suggestions, storage advice, flavor variations, and tips will help ensure success every time. So if you’re ready for dessert (and who isn’t?), crack open this sweet and essential collection and let’s get baking.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593836293
Publisher:	Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed
Publication date:	09/30/2025
Edition description:	Revised
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	8.00(w) x 10.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

David Lebovitz has been a professional cook and baker for most of his life; he spent nearly thirteen years at Chez Panisse until he left the restaurant business in 1999 to write books. He moved to Paris in 2003 and turned his website into a phenomenally popular blog. He is the author of numerous cookbooks, including My Paris Kitchen, The Perfect Scoop, Ready for Dessert, and The Great Book of Chocolate, and two memoirs, The Sweet Life in Paris, and L'Appart. He was named one of the top five pastry chefs in the Bay Area by the San Francisco Chronicle. David has also been featured in Bon Appétit, Food & Wine, Milk Street, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Saveur, Travel + Leisure, Better Homes and Gardens, People, and more.

Read an Excerpt

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Editorial Reviews

Praise for Ready for Dessert

“If you’re looking for a new best friend in the kitchen, one that’ll stay a best friend for life, Ready for Dessert might just be the one for you.”—Epicurious

“Flipping through our copy, we were entranced by fudgy smudges on the plate under his banana cake, seduced by the simplicity of his red-wine raspberry sorbet, curious about the impression his chocolate chip cookies made on Parisians, and desperate to taste his best-ever brownies.”—Bon Appetit

“You’ll want to make everything in this book.”—The Washington Post

“Dessert Genius David Lebovitz’s Opus.”—Condé Nast

“The man worked as a pastry chef at Chez Panisse then moved to Paris. Need I say more?”—TheKitchn

“Ready for Dessert promises visceral satisfaction starting with the cover, which invites you to drag a greedy finger through a cake's thick chocolate icing.”—Associated Press

“I have a sweet tooth for Lebovitz, a terrific writer and dessert whiz who has updated his favorite recipes for this lavish book. If you bake, do yourself a favor and buy this book.”—Houston Chronicle

“With a bloggers tone and a skilled baker’s sensibility, pastry chef David Lebovitz shares his deliciously simple yet refined recipes in his latest cookbook Ready for Dessert. Sprinkled with endearing anecdotes, each recipe reveals Lebovitz’ compulsion with chocolate and seasonality. . . . a great book for beginners and experts alike.”—Los Angeles Times

“An absolutely gorgeous book filled with pages upon pages of recipes and photos that will motivate you to get in the kitchen and start baking.”—SeriousEats

“Bring any of David’s desserts forward at the close of a meal, and you’ll have a hard time remaining humble under showers of praise. But what I especially like about David’s book, aside from the results his recipes promise, is David himself—that he and his desserts are so approachable, relaxed, and friendly.”—Deborah Madison, author of Seasonal Fruit Desserts from Orchard, Farm, and Market

“If you already know David and love his simple, straightforward style and his full-flavored desserts, you’ll be delighted to see his favorites polished and brought up to the moment.This collection brings you the best of his best and hours of sweet pleasure.”—Dorie Greenspan, author of Baking: From My Home to Yours

“David has put into his fantastic new book all of the ingredients that make him so great: 1 part talented pastry chef + 1 part comic + 1 part great writer.”—Elizabeth Falkner, chef/owner of Citizen Cake and Orson and author of Demolition Desserts

“Given its breadth, depth, and accessibility, readers with a passion for baking will be hard pressed to find a better guide to desserts this year.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“David Lebovitz’s Ready for Dessert is a must. . . . His header notes are chatty, his directions thorough and supportive and his take on the sweet side of life inspired and inspiring.”—BookPage

From the Publisher