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Summary: Be an Instant Pastry Chef!!
Review: I have used this book on several special occassions. I don't even have to do a trial run before I present the final dessert, because I am confident that every recipe in this book will turn out just as promised. Easy to follow instructions, and ingredients that you find at your local grocery store---what could be better! By using Rose's recipe book, I have become the automatic dessert maker in my family....especially when it comes to pies.
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Summary: Complete and authoritative
Review: While I have found Rose Levy Beranbaum's other major tome "The Cake Bible" a source of nearly unending frustration, "The Pie and Pastry Bible" is a triumph. I can think of no other pastry book that comes close in either breadth or depth. Every pastry topic is covered in detail, and most recipes work as advertised, at least in experienced hands. Like the author's other books, everything is spelled out in glorious detail, and ingredient measures are given in both weight and volume. Most important, the formulations seem battle-tested, and I approach them with far more confidence than the recipes in "The Cake Bible."The pie crust recipes are outstanding, and I like the fact that the finished pies are designed to slip out of the pan so you can serve them from a cutting board. The fruit pies are innovative and an extensive table takes the guesswork out of adding starch thickeners. The puff pastry, croissant, and Danish formulas work as advertised, and they produce a final product that simply cannot be bought. [Note: The King Arthur Green Mountain Gold flour recommended for the croissants is no longer available.] The food processor-based cream puff pastry is a wonderful improvement on the classic. Of course, there are a couple of clinkers (I wouldn't make the Buttermilk Chess Pie again), but my batting average with these recipes is higher than usual. As other reviewers have noted, potential buyers should be aware that this is not a book for beginners. Pastries are among the most demanding of kitchen products to begin with, and the recipes in this book are often complex. As the author herself points out, pastry is a matter of technique. It's far easier for someone to show you how to make puff pastry than it is for a book to adequately describe it to you. In addition, yeast pastries, like croissants and Danish, take a more advanced kitchen than that required for other baked goods. Heat and humidity are principle players -- not just the ambient weather, but the fact that one moment you need a cool spot with low humidity to roll dough, and the next you need a warm spot with high humidity to rise it. That's not an easy combination to achieve in the average home kitchen. Add to these inherent difficulties the author's willingness to espouse any technique and ingredient that will enhance the product, and the result is a collection of recipes that are often challenging, even to the well initiated. Simpler pastry recipes can certainly be found, but my experience is that something is usually lost in the process. Therefore, I recommend this book highly, but with qualifications. Experienced bakers will profit, but beginners could well find these recipes, and the kitchen requirements for following them, maddeningly complex.
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Summary: Too Time Consuming
Review: I'm a housewife who has all day to bake if I wish to but the results should be perfect. I followed all of the instructions perfectly for the apple pie. After several hours of preparation, using a baking stone covered with foil, a temperature of 425 degrees (preheated for 20 minutes), etc., the pie was just okay. The bottom crust browned but was soggy, the filling tasted good but was undercooked. I reduced the liquid from the macerated apples to just above the 1/3 cup recommended. However, it never bubbled out of the top of the crust and didn't thicken in the pie (I used the cornstarch on the apples as instructed). If I had cooked it any longer (10 min. longer than recommended didn't help), the pie crust on top would have been shoe leather. The top crust was delicious and flaky and looked beautiful. I did learn to fill the pie pan with the crust and refrigerate it before cooking to prevent shrinkage and produce flakiness. I plan on trying another recipe in this book in the future but I know now to devote my entire day to each recipe. I can't imagine baking tons of holiday pies with so many steps to take for each one. I have been looking for the ultimate pie crust secrets and this book is good for providing information on flours, chilling factors, etc.. Cooking is my hobby so as a textbook, it will be extremely helpful.
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Summary: Chocolate Cream Pie Error
Review: This is a wonderful book -- I just wanted to call attention to an error in the Chocolate Cream Pie recipe. The ingredients list calls for 3 cups of milk, divided. In the recipe it says to add 1/4 cup milk to one part of the recipe, and use the remaining 3 and 3/4 cups for another part. Obviously, this would equal 4 cups rather than the 3 listed in the ingredients list. We have no way of knowing which is the right amount. I am hoping the author or publisher will answer this review with a correction. In the mean time, if you want to make this pie (fabulous and easy, by the way), I split the difference, using 3 1/2 cups of milk in total, and it came out wonderfully.
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Summary: I love this book!!
Review: I never thought of myself as a truly serious baker, although I've always preferred baking to actually "cooking"--but this book has made my reputation--to the point where I've now been asked to bake a cake for a friend's wedding (so of course, I've just ordered the Cake Bible!) I think the scientific explanations are interesting, but just skip them if you don't have time to read a treatise. Also, I found it REALLY helpful to carefully read the recipe--the day before you start baking, if possible--so that you're not stuck waiting for butter to freeze or fruit to macerate when your guests are starting to arrive! The results are spectacular--the pear tart was perfection and I've never had any of my attempts fail, which is more than I can say for both Bon Appetit and Gourmet recipes.
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Summary: Help for lemon meringue pie from the author!
Review: I have only just discovered "reader reviews" and want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for the wonderful thoughts you have shared about my work. I also want to address the people who are having trouble with one of my all time favorites--the lemon meringue pie. There is no mistake in this recipe. More yolks result in a thicker filling not a thinner one UNLESS they are not brought to a temperature of over 160 degrees fahrenheit to destroy the amylase--an enzyme which will, within hours, thin out the filling. Since the rest of the filling is boiling hot when contacting the yolks, this should ensure that the yolks get heated adequately but evidentally in some cases this must not be so. Perhaps the yolks were cold from the refrigerator. SOLUTION: As a safeguard, after adding the yolks, bring the mixture back to a boil. I promise it will not thin out if you do this! The cornstarch in the mixture will protect the yolks from curdling so don't be afraid. It's too good a pie to miss! All the best, Rose Levy Beranbaum
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Summary: Another incredibly detailed offering
Review: Like The Cake Bible, this is a very detailed, incredibly researched book. Ms Berenbaum tolerates nothing short of perfection. If you're interested in EXACTLY how to make the perfect pie crust or puff pastry, this is for you. If you find analyses of Heckers flour vs King Arthur mind-numbing, you might want to pass it up and go back to the baking chapter of The Joy of Cooking. Although it's geared towards the more serious baker, it's useful for novices too, as the instructions are very detailed and she goes to great lengths to explain why she does everything she does (this is good for bakers of all abilities, because some of her techniques are nontraditional). Many of the recipes are time consuming, but they are worth it--gorgeous to look at and delicious to taste.
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Summary: ONLY IF YOU HAVE A LOT OF TIME
Review: This book can be great but only if you have a lot of time to invest in making a pie or tart. And, while Rose does do a masterful job of teaching the fine art of pastry making (and it is an art!) I think complete novices would be better off making do with a simpler book for awhile. But for those really serious about pastries and pies this book can be terrific. There are many recipes for different kinds of pastries as well as many different kinds of pie fillings. The directions are detailed and the illustrations mouth-watering. I enjoy it more than The Cake Bible because I don't find the recipes quite so exotic and so am able to use more of them, more often. Just be prepared to spend the entire afternoon or evening making one pie. On the plus side, if you follow Rose's directions, the time will certainly be time well spent.
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Summary: If you want to learn pastry-making ¿
Review: ...put this book on your shopping list, but then LEAVE it there for a while, get yourself a more pedestrian introduction, and practice for a while before presuming you are ready for this tome. I recently thought to teach myself pastry-making from scratch using this book. Mistake! Halfway through another night of carefully cutting unsalted butter into ¾" cubes, wrapping them individually in plastic wrap, putting 2/3rd of them in the fridge and the rest in the freezer, all the while muttering "Ours is not to reason why...", Ms. Beranbaum's lovely photo on the back cover got decorated with a short moustache that makes her look a little like .. eh ... let's be polite and say "Charlie Chaplain." I'll leave it to others to sing this book's well-deserved praises. If you just want to get dinner on the table, it is not for you. I recently spent eight hours over three nights making her chicken pot pies. The result? My wife fainted clean away, and my teenager actually lifted her head out of her plate and pronounced (as close as I can approximate): "Snumpf!" A month later, my wife still gets a bit wobbly when she thinks of those pies, but I mostly remember the two nights of fish sticks that preceded them. It is not really fair to judge this book harshly because it didn't suit my purposes at the time, but there are some other real problems with it. Most glaring are the mistakes. In a book as PRECISE as this one, the many mistakes really should have been weeded out before publishing. I've only made 5 recipes so far, but 3 of them had mistakes ranging from "orphan" ingredients to nonsensical instructions. The biggest disappointment is the dearth of savoury recipes. Completely lacking a sweet tooth, 90% of the book is of no interest to me. Yes, it is an American book, but anything calling itself a Bible should be more inclusive. Where is that glory of British cuisine (oh pipe down, you bloody Colonials...), Grosvenor Pie? Enough badmouthing, though. When my nest empties in a few years, I'll delight in taking a whole weekend to explore a recipe or two (hopefully using a new, error-free edition), and in the meantime, I now at least COMPLETELY understand what I was doing with those cubes of butter.
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Summary: The Pie and Pastry Bible
Review: Rose has pie and pastry baking down to an exact science. Her recipes are very exact, they specify ingredients frequently by brand name, baking techniques, and even which bakeware to use. I find that if I follow her recipe EXACTLY, the results are spectacular. However, following her recipe exactly takes a lot of time, if you take any shortcut, or delete a setp, then the results are less than average. I recommend this book for people who want excellent results and are willing to invest a lot of time, effort, and money in their baking. Rose's instructions are very precise, so I think all levels of cooks could use this book successfully. I would not recommend this cookbook for anyone who wants to spend less than an afternoon baking a pie or pastry.
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