Review By Susan Schenck

Author of The Live Food Factor

Ani is a master—no, a PhD!—of desserts! And with these guilt-free tantalizers, DESSERT no longer means DESERTing your diet!

As the author of a raw food book myself, I have over 20 raw food recipe books and I must say, I am very impressed with this one!

By far the best part of the book (next to the recipes) are the mouthwatering photos which inspire us to hurry up and make the food so we can eat it! (And hurry we can, because most of the recipes include only 4-6 ingredients, making them simple and fast.) These stunning colored photos of her masterpieces are enough to lure any eater of standard American diet (SAD) into raw cuisine! As I looked at the glamorous photos, I caught myself thinking, “These look just like REAL versions of the recipes! This looks like a real peach cobbler, real fudge cake, real chocolate truffles, etc.” Then I smiled as I reminded myself, raw natural food is the real deal, and the processed, refined, chemical stuff we grew up on is the fake, cheap imitation stuff.

Raw cakes leave cooked cakes in the dust, and make them taste like dust. Everyone raves if a cooked cake has a hint of moisture, maybe a tiny bit of pudding inside, but raw cakes are pure moisture! And Ani gives us not one, but 3 recipes for raw cheese cakes! I have a weakness for carrot cake, and her recipes for that with the cream cheese frosting are the simplest carrot cake & frosting recipes I have seen in any raw food books.

Are you tired of paying for overpriced raw chocolate bars? Ani teaches you how to make a liquid chocolate that you can form into molds. You can do all sorts of things with that, including a chocolate-covered frozen banana (which sold for 6 bucks at the Raw Spirit Festival!), truffles, and chocolate-dipped strawberries. I am embarrassed to say I have some white raw chocolate (known as cacao butter) sitting in my freezer for years now. I had no clue what to do with it until I read p. 74 of her book, which shows that you can make your chocolates withstand the heat like a processed cooked chocolate bar can, if you use this instead of coconut oil in the liquid chocolate recipe.

The book covers a whole host of dessert lines, not only cakes and chocolates. There are separate chapters for the following categories: frozen treats, crisps & cobblers, cookies, puddings & parfaits, fruit, sun-baked treats, sauces & creams, and even sparkling desserts with wine & champagne. Yes, folks, wine and champagne are raw, and (if organic), they can be enjoyed in moderation on a healthful diet.

This book is not just about recipes, but informs the reader of a raw food diet, its importance in ecology and health, and includes definitions of many unique raw ingredients such as goji berries, maca powder and mesquite powder. The equipment and tools are defined and illustrated as well. The book is interspersed with side bars and short articles such as info on natural cleansers, the power of certain foods such as acai berry, how refined carbs accelerate aging, how to “green” your frig, etc.

I think the book could be improved in only one way: give us lower glycemic options of using stevia instead of agave. This comes in handy for those with candida, weight loss or blood sugar issues, while also reducing the calories—making the recipes even more guilt-free!

This is the premium raw gourmet recipe book. Any chef worth her Himalayan salt would be proud to use this book as her main dessert uncook book!

Ani's Raw Food Desserts: 85 Easy, Delectable Sweets and Treats (Da Capo Press/ Apr 2009) by Ani Phyo

Book Review: The Live Food Factor by Susan Schenck

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