Anybody who loves ice cream knows there's nothing better than a scoopful of homemade. Nothing, that is, except star pastry chef Emily Luchetti's fabulous recipes for making your own. This gorgeous cookbook doesn't just have all the crowd-pleasers, it's bursting with flavors you'll never find in the store. Even better, because sometimes a spoon just isn't accompaniment enough, there's a host of beautiful dessert recipes featuring ice cream in all its lusciousness. There's chocolate, strawberry, and butter pecan; there's orange-cardamom, root beer granita, and pomegranate sorbet. There's popsicles, floats, and parfaits. And then there's Coffee Meringues with Coconut Ice Cream; Blackberry Sorbet Filled Peaches; and Chocolate Crepes with Peppermint Ice Cream. But wait...There's Shortcake and Rum Raisin Ice Cream Sandwiches; Sauternes Ice Cream and Apricot Sherbet Cake; and Chocolate Cupcakes Stuffed with Pistachio Ice Cream. Aficionados needn't worry if their tastebuds are more deluxe than their ice cream maker because all of these treats can be made with a modest handcrank model or the fanciest machine. And to top it all off, there's a chapter on making sauces from scratch and a handy chart that lists the ice cream flavors alphabetically for easy reference. The reason homemade ice cream tastes so much better than store-bought is because you use fresher ingedients and less air. That means it's richer, creamier, and tongue-tingling with flavor. The reason Emily's recipes taste so good is because she's a genius when it comes to desserts. If proof were needed, ice-cream fans need look no further than these mmm, mmm, mmm, melt-in-your-mouth recipes.

Award-winning pastry chef and cookbook author Emily Luchetti honed her skills at the celebrated Stars restaurant. Her books include A Passion for Desserts, as well as the much-praised Stars Desserts. The recipient of the James Beard Outstanding Pastry Chef Award, she currently practices her dessert magic at Farallon in San Francisco. Her work has been featured in numerous publications, among them Bon Appetit, Newsweek, People, and Food & Wine. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Sheri Giblin is a San Francisco–based food and lifestyle photographer. Her previous work includes the cookbooks Grilled Cheese (0-8118-4129-4) and Everything Tastes Better with Bacon (0-8118-3239-2).