To her followers, Olson's story is a known and familiar one. Bay Street investment banker by day, closet cook by night, she chucked the suit for a mind-clearing drive across the US, shortly finding herself at Vail, Colorado, enrolled in Johnson & Wales University's culinary arts program. After working at various American restaurants, she returned to Canada and became pastry chef for the restaurant at Inn on the Twenty, in the Niagara region. While there, she met and married the restaurant's chef, Michael Olson. Together, they've penned the aptly titled national best-selling cookbook Inn on the Twenty, followed by Anna and Michael Olson Cook at Home.

 

Sugar (the book) maintains the physical feel of its parent television show: white, bright, and beautifully styled. There are fewer than two dozen photographs, but each one is beautifully and simply composed, reserving colour for food that's plated on white. The recipe directions are equally spare—untinted pages with clean, black lettering, and important bits (titles, yields, notes) highlighted in what I think of as Tiffany's box blue.

 

The book is divided into eight sections, including a baking basics chapter which covers important advice and recommendations on ingredients, tools, and techniques. The rest of the book is devoted to recipes under broad headings such as fruit, citrus, sugar, chocolate, and dairy; within each section, Olson’s recipes feature a single key ingredient. Think of it as a play—each act (or section) is divided into scenes with a particular key ingredient in the spotlight.

 

As with everything in Sugar, the layout echoes the show. Each main ingredient (for example, grapefruits, butterscotch, cocoa) offers three recipes. Well, two-and-a-half actually. The first recipe is easy-peasy and introduces the key ingredient in an "anyone-can-do-this-because-everyone-has-the-ingredients-on-hand" fashion. The next, her signature "switch-up" (what I call the half-recipe), gussies up the first recipe. And the third one is the show-stopper—you effortlessly retrieve from the fridge what appears to be a difficult or ornate dessert such as a Frozen White Chocolate Soufflé or an Orange Bavarian Torte to your guests’ oohs and ahs as they marvel at your perfect ability to attain domestic goddess- (or god-) hood. The method is well-written and logically paced. After each recipe, Olson provides a set of notes suggesting substitutions or explaining techniques and methods. I think it's very important to note that the recipes are honest—I didn't have problems with times and what I effortlessly whipped up (and I do mean effortlessly) was simply delicious.

 

I like this book for a few reasons: I know that if I come home with some beautifully ripened nectarines or sale-priced ricotta, I can open Sugar and find something to do with them. Olson doesn't attempt to mask her enthusiasm for either the recipes or the ingredients; the book is permeated with the unspoken affirmation that desserts don't have to be complicated to be wondrous. A prime example is Honey Roasted Fruit, which is merely fruit tossed in a spiced honey and roasted in individual ramekins or cups—how simply perfect is that? But most of all, this book grows with the cook, and can take someone whose only dessert-making experience is plopping a scoop of chemically-bound vanilla on a slice of packet-mix devil's food all the way to churning their own ice cream and narrowing down the best cocoa to use in a decadent home-made gateau.

 

Normally when trying out a cookery book, I test four recipes: something I do often; something I do every once in a while; something I haven't done in years; and a soup. For this book, pretty much everything is something I make on a regular basis, so I bent the rules a bit and picked cookies and a cake.