Dessert Disaster or Why You Shouldn't Try a New Dessert on an Important Night

I've made a half dozen of the recipes in Regan Daly's spectacularly good dessert cookbook In The Sweet Kitchen. While I was confused, her description of the caramel pecan cookies ended up being spot on: people fought over them, sneaked them, and lied about them. Yes, they were that good.

I have had it in mind to make the Sweet Polenta Crostini since I bought the book. The picture makes you lust after it - it's a beautiful dessert. Now, finally after 8 years I thought I'd tackle it.

Maybe it's just me, but I couldn't get past the tortilla chip flavor of the polenta crostini. I didn't even bother to assemble the rest of the ingredients, it was that bad. And this is a dessert that I might have tried to serve to guests, because of its elegant presentation. I'm so glad it was an experiment for just us.

And I'm glad it wasn't the first recipe I tried from In The Sweet Kitchen, because I might have missed the opportunity to discover the other wonderful, fantastic desserts featured in that book.