Dominique Ansel is a pastry chef, creator of innovative, tempting and delicious desserts such as the Frozen S'More or the cronut, a hybrid of a croissant and a doughnut. He is considered one of the world's best confectioners. It owns a network of pastry shops around the world. In this cookbook, for the first time, he presents his simple, proven, basic recipes for pies, cakes, cookies, jams, creams and other "building blocks" of desserts so that everyone can bake them at home in their kitchen. These basic products can be combined in a variety of ways: for example, the basic cake dough can be rolled out and cut into cookies, it can be baked into cupcakes or boats, which are then filled with cream, or it can be crumbled as an ice cream sprinkle. A cookbook that will inspire novice and experienced bakers alike to bake as inventively as Dominique himself.