The Olives Dessert Table: Spectacular Restaurant Desserts You Can Make at Home

The dessert names alone can run almost as long as the average list of ingredients for those traditional ""country"" recipes that English either enhances or overdoes, depending on your palate. The chef-owner of Figs and Olives, two Boston-area restaurants, English isn't shy about piling on the flavors or textures--whether he's taking on custards, souffl s, tarts, ice cream or cakes. Sometimes it seems as if all categories are present and accounted for in a single concoction (e.g., Double Chocolate Souffl with Deep, Dark Chocolate Ice Cream and Chocolate-Chocolate Chip Cookies and Chocolate Anglaise), but not all the 43 desserts presented here are as involved. Nectarine-Blueberry Crisp with Oatmeal Crumble and Buttermilk ""Ice Cream"" sounds positively low-key, while Apricot and Goat Cheese Tart in a Pistachio Shell brings a continental luster to the table. The food is sumptuously described, while the recipes themselves are given somewhat briskly (perhaps too briskly for the casual baker). Best of all, however, is the compartmentalized approach the authors (Retus is the Olives pastry chef; Sampson co-authored The Olives Table) have taken to dessert making, where certain simpler components of more elaborate concoctions, such as the oatmeal shortbread shell in the Silky Chocolate Cream Pie, can stand alone, in this instance as a delectable cookie. (Nov.)