Reviews for The cake bible
Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Out of food-writer and cooking-school owner Beranbaum's search for ""a book that would demystify and reveal all the basic and classic cakes, buttercreams, icings, fillings and toppings in their simplest form and show how to create any cake imaginable"" comes her own almost inexhaustible offering. Directions are straightforward and very detailed. Volume, ounce, and gram measurements for all ingredients eliminate the chaos of conversion; and the instructions, assembly and storage instructions, and a section called ""Understanding,"" could hardly be more thorough. ""Understanding"" explains chemical processes, and answers recipespecific questions--e.g., why cocoa instead of chocolate, why arrowroot over cornstarch, and how butter works as a ""cake tenderizer."" Beranbaum's extensive repertoire ranges from ""Simply Delicious Foolproof Cakes,"" ""Techniques [and proportional charts] for Making Large Wedding Cakes,"" and over 50 recipes ""with no cholesterol and low saturated fats,"" to such icing delights as food processor pouring fondant, stabilized whipped cream (holds for 24 hours), and 38 variations on the classic butter-cream. A valuable manual for both the amateur and the aspiring professional baker. As Maida Heatter predicts in her foreward, ""this book will become your partner in the kitchen. Copyright ŠKirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.
For the serious cake baker, Rose Levy Beranbaum's magnum opus answers just about every question imaginable and provides inspiration for a lifetime of cake design and decorating. Those familiar with Beranbaum's work from her numerous magazine articles will be less surprised by the recipes themselves than by the exhaustive presentation. The author lists all ingredients in tabular form, providing traditional volume measurements as well as weights in both ounces and grams. Her approach to cake baking emphasizes the chemistry and physics that underlie all baking processes. This book will prove invaluable to libraries for its tables of measurements of cake pans, ingredient analyses, and portion charts. Professionals will consult its wedding cake guides, and amateurs will simply enjoy baking Beranbaum's cakes (e.g., Holiday Hallelujah Streusel Brioche or Chocolate Oblivion Truffle Torte). Highly recommended. Bibliography; to be indexed. MK. 641.8'653 Cake [CIP] 88-1369
Library Journal
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Beranbaum, a talented baker and former owner of a New York cooking school, has produced a definitive work that will excite accomplished cooks and beginners alike. She covers basic, ``foolproof'' cakes as well as showcase cakes, accompanying these with pages and pages of adornments of all types; her instructions are impressively precise but unintimidating. She also includes lengthy discussions on ingredients and equipment and concludes with a special section on the chemistry of cake baking and on making a professional wedding cakes. An essential purchase. JS (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
