So Sarabeth

In the beginning, Sarabeth Levine made fruit spreads, jams and preserves, and sold them in specialty shops. Shortly thereafter, she opened a bakery and café "on what was then a distinctly inelegant Amsterdam Avenue on Manhattan's Upper West Side."

These days, the James Beard Award-winning pastry chef has grown her brand and her business significantly, running bakeries and restaurants in a number of New York City neighborhoods as well as in Key West, Florida.

Food writer Mimi Sheraton, among her longtime fans, considers the shop's rugelach "the best rugelach in New York and the best I have ever had this side of my grandmother's kitchen."

In her first cookbook, "Sarabeth's Bakery: From My Hands to Yours," Levine gives a brief introduction to Sarabeth's history and describes the baked goods and sweet treats she and her staff now produce regularly. There are substantial chapters, for example, on morning pastries, muffins, breads, pies, cakes and cookies.

Although recipes that call for homemade puff pastry or croissant dough (e.g. Apple Turnovers, Pains au Chocolat) might prove too complicated for average home cooks, they could provide a decent challenge to those eager and ambitious to up their overall game.

Sections on spoon desserts such as crème brulee, chocolate pudding and bread pudding; ice creams and sorbets; and so-called spreadable fruits, the items that helped Levine launch Sarabeth's three decades ago, also add to the great appeal of this comprehensive volume.

(A version of this review appears in Publishers Weekly.)

Sundae Sunday

A peppermint and chocolate ice-cream sundae from Fentons. Because the diet can start tomorrow.