REVIEWS BY SYBIL PRATT

Nancy Baggett, who gave us The All-American Cookie Book, is back with The All-American Dessert Book, another red, white and blue winner that goes way beyond the confines of the cookie to explore our sweets culture from sea to shining sea. And, she reports, that culture is "vibrant, complex and uniquely American." Baggett crisscrossed the country bringing home regional treasures, testing and tweaking them in her own kitchen—she went through 370 pounds of sugar, 130 pounds of butter and more than 1,100 eggs in the process—and added a few family favorites and gems of her own. You'll find a magnificent take on Mississippi Mud Cake, Nancy's mother's tangy Pineapple-Lemon Buttermilk Sherbet, a simple, simply pleasing Appalachian Apple Stack Cake and sensational Southern Banana Pudding among this extensive repertoire of easy-to-follow recipes.

The All-American Dessert Book
By Nancy Baggett
Houghton Mifflin, $35
448 pages
ISBN 0618240004

If chocolate is your year-round passion, as it is for Alice Medrich, the only three-time winner of the James Beard Cookbook of the Year Award, Chocolate Holidays, a rewarding revision of A Year in Chocolate, is your ticket to tempting, darkly delicious treats for every season and every reason, with almost-edible full-color photos for each of the 50 recipes. Start the New Year with Chocolate Blini with Berry Caviar, fill chocolate Easter baskets with truffles, make chocolate-dipped Boardwalk Bananas next summer and keep the recipe for Fastest Fudge Cake close at hand for those moments when only chocolate will fill the bill.

Chocolate Holidays
By Alice Medrich
Artisan, $15.95
160 pages
ISBN 1579652905

'Tis surely the season to bake, but like millions of us, you don't have time. Take heart and take Linda West Eckhardt's baking secrets into your kitchen. They're all in Cakes from Scratch in Half the Time and she promises that with her new, streamlined three-pronged method, perfected after "being hip-deep in cake batter for two years," you'll be baking cupcakes in 10 minutes and layer cakes in 15. A bonanza for the home baker, from elegant Framboise-soaked Génoise with Lemon Buttercream to elemental Brown Sugar Loaf Cake—just think what you can do with all the extra minutes you'll save!

Cakes from Scratch in Half the Time
By Linda West Eckhardt
Chronicle, $24.95
224 pages
ISBN 0811842401

Positively pasta
You may remember Wanda and Giovanna Tornabene, the masterful mother and daughter team whose two previous cookbooks opened up their Sicilian kitchen, with all its earthy exuberance and special succulence, to Americans—and earned two James Beard Awards along the way. 100 Ways to Be Pasta: Perfect Pasta Recipes from Gangivecchio, their latest, is a paean to pasta, the very heart and soul of Sicilian and Italian cuisine. Pasta, says Giovanna, is "what we reach for to comfort ourselves and our loved ones in the happiest of times and in the saddest. The food we identify ourselves with as Italians." But, we know for sure that you don't have to be Italian to love pasta, and that, with the guidance of cooks like Wanda and Giovanna, you don't even have be Italian to cook like one and revel in the pleasures pasta provides. Open to any page, pick a recipe, and you'll be in pasta paradise—Rigatoni with Swordfish Ragu; Bavette (you can use linguini) with Pistachio Pesto and Shrimp; Ziti with Lamb, Lemon and Rosemary; Quick Tagliatelle with Fried Zucchini and Parsley. And if preparing pasta is not part of your genetic code, it will seem as if it is once you've absorbed all the little "tricks" the Tornabenes sprinkle through these pages. Buon Appetito!

100 Ways to Be Pasta: Perfect Pasta Recipes from Gangivecchio
By Wanda and Giovanna Tornabene
Knopf, $24.95
208 pages
ISBN 140004104X