It was August, and I hadn’t made a single pie.

I hadn’t made a single batch of ice cream or sorbet, either; but the cardinal sin was with the pie.

Pie is my favorite dessert. I make one for my birthday, or when I want to impress a man, or when a man I’ve impressed breaks my heart. And this summer I hadn’t made one. 

But then I saw huge stalks of rhubarb in my hometown grocers. Rhubarb that was far too girthy for its own good, and so late in the season that I couldn’t nearly call it “peak”. But rhubarb none the same. I also had some really beautiful black plums from a farmers market in NYC. And I had Brooks Headley’s Fancy Desserts on my brain.

It came out October 1st, but I had it mistakenly launching on my schedule on the 20th, so this little post is a touch late. Brooks had kindly sent it to me after we’d barely missed each other at a mutual friend’s restaurant anniversary party; a black-and-white copy with notes someone had scribbled on random pages.

Now, I’ve never worked with Brooks. I met him when he was celebrated as a 2013 Dessert Professionals Top Ten Pastry chef, where we’d been introduced by Niko of Dessertbuzz (that link is for the 2014 celebration, because I love the photo Niko took of me with my favorite sweet pea of a pastry chef, Ron Ben-Israel). I had planned to work with Brooks in my interview column, but first he was busy writing the book and then my column ended. I still have yet to work with him, as I’m saving up my “wanna work on…?” request for something meaty. But the book had landed magically in my mailbox after the post Brooks-is-walking-away-from-this-party email exchange.

And it’s f***ing awesome.

The Book:

I say (type) this is a writer, reader and person who likes to cook. It’s entertaining. It’s got a really down-to-earth tone. It includes essays by producers and musicians Brooks worked with in his many years as a professional drummer in various rock bands, and stories from his time on the road and the journal he kept on tour… a journal less about music and more about the food he was eating as his criss-crossed the states. It has some really complicated recipes, and some really easy ones. He shares what he’s learned under Del Posto’s Chef Mark Ladner, and “Why Alex Stupak Scares the Shit Outta Me.” As someone who knows Alex relatively well, I admit that sometimes he still intimidates the shit outta me, too.

What I particularly love about this book is how un-holier-than-thou it is. Don’t have a scale?! You’ll live. Wanna mix a little of this and a little of that? Go wild. Things don’t have to look perfect; they just have to taste good. And most of the time that happens when you keep your fingers outta the mix as much as possible.

I got sucked in most easily by his love songs to fruit, since fruit is so delightfully seasonal and versatile and beautiful without a lot of messing with. And so batches of his roasted fruit and quick jam started coming out of my kitchen late this summer, and I finally got down to making the lone pie of August, 2014.

This Recipe:

To pull together this badass book, my NEEDTOMAKEAPIE angst, those weird stalks of rhubarb, those black plums and the fact that I’ve been dreaming about this peach frangipane from a recent trip to Cincinnati that I could only visually admire, I mashed them all together.

Using Brooks’ Strawberry Quick Jam recipe as a guide (in my draft copy it’s on page 37 but I sorta hope yours is different so I can feel “in the know” and cool for once), I made a jam from the fruits and layered it between my basic pie crust (blind-baked in a tart shell) and the fragipane recipe below.

Now, I was gonna do this over again before posting because, in my mind, it needed expontentially more fruit jam (I may have eaten some of the batch for dessert over plain goat milk yogurt the night before… highly suggest you try it). But my roommate loved this. To me it’s not a complete dessert; it needs something creamy or crunchy and, personally, I’d still vote for twice the fruit. But it was perfect for breakfast, and wouldn’t scream at a dollop of ice cream or some of Brooks roasted fruit poured on top (instead of sacrificed to the yogurt). Think of this as a starter to a dessert recipe. The crust is buttery, the frangipane is really light and nutty, and in its entirety it screams for adaptation.

Go nuts. And if the book inspires you to smash some sweet shit together before you eat it, I say go ahead… Food should be fun.