Baking with Sweet Addition's Karen Young: Elegant Pastries

While the enticing cover art promises instructions for creating exciting heart-stopping desserts (and with the amount of butter in these recipes, this could be taken literally), what viewers will actually find here is rather disorganized instruction from a pastry chef who lacks the style and confidence of her finished creations--which include such sumptuous treats as Layered Chocolate Armangnac Mousse Torte, White Chocolate Ginger Cheesecake, and Cranberry Walnut Crostada. Working quickly in front of a small class in her cramped kitchen, Karen Young, our somewhat frazzled host occasionally names the wrong ingredients, "saves time" by performing steps out of sequence (quite confusing for the viewer), and does not actually demonstrate the finishing techniques she uses to ensure each dessert will look like the breathtaking finale shown on the box--one example of which, a Chocolate Caramel Pecan Tart, is not even covered in the program! Still, even though this specialized (and somewhat frustrating) program is not recommended for novices, it showcases enough interesting creations to inspire seasoned culinary vets to design their own eye-popping pastries, and is therefore an optional purchase. [Note: two other programs are also available in the Baking with Sweet Addition's Karen Young series: Cakes and Pies.] Aud: P. (N. Plympton)