Pie or pastry, fruit or frozen, homey or haute cuisine--160 recipes for sweet treats from the legendary James Beard Award-winning chef.   For over four decades, French culinary master Jacques Pépin has been delighting taste buds and teaching home cooks how to dazzle their loved ones with classic and innovative recipes alike. Now collected together in one volume are Pépin's best confections from his long and luminous career in cooking.   Essential Pépin Desserts is filled with unbelievable treats, from Fruit Desserts (such as Apple Fritters and Cold Peach Soup); to Puddings, Sweet Soufflés, and Crepes (including Chocolate Mousse and Baked Alaska); to Cakes, Cookies, and Candies (like Orange Tuiles and Candied Citrus Peels); to Tarts, Pies, and Pastries (with Tarte Tatin and Croquembouche); to Frozen Desserts (featuring Blood Orange Sorbet and French Vanilla Ice Cream). Sprinkled with Pépin's time-honored tips on how to master each technique, this is the dessert cookbook every baking aficionado needs in his or her collection.