Cookbook Watch

Last year, New York’s Le Cirque 2000 pastry chef Jacques Torres came out with the cookbook “Dessert Circus: Extraordinary Desserts You Can Make at Home,” a companion to his PBS series “Dessert Circus.” This year, for the show’s new season, there is “Dessert Circus at Home: Fun, Fanciful, and Easy-to-Make Desserts” (William Morrow, $28).

Focus on the words “extraordinary” and “easy-to-make” for a clue to the differences in the two books. In the first cookbook there were several whimsical desserts that closely matched Torres’s high-end restaurant style; in the new book there are many cute desserts that wouldn’t be out of place at a children’s birthday party. Ingredients are largely supermarket-friendly. Indeed, Torres seems to have developed a deep affection for M&M;’s Mini Baking Bits--they go on a homey version of his Le Cirque 2000 Clown Hat, on brownies, on the nose of a chocolate Rudolph--and names Dove Promises chocolate several times and Valrhona not once. Still, these are serious recipes. His chocolate birthday cake, for instance, is grown-up stuff: not an M&M; in sight.

Of course, if you prefer an uncompromising chef vision in your dessert books, try “Charlie Trotter’s Desserts” (Ten Speed Press, $50), the latest volume in his visually decadent cookbook series. It’s a fascinating glimpse into the cooking obsession of one of America’s best chefs. But even Trotter can try to adjust his vision for home cooks. He wrote the gourmet cooking volume in IDG’s “Dummies” series, and word is that his next series of cookbooks will be obsessively accessible.