Rating: 
Summary: Kimball provides both an education and great recipes
Review: Christopher Kimball has produced a number of great cookbooks, I think we have them all. This book, like the others shows his great attention to detail and tireless efforts to create the best recipes and then compile the best recipes possible. His incredibly useful charts regarding products and which product produces the best results for the particular recipe is invaluable. Plus, his discussion regarding the science/chemistry of cooking helps to encourage those of us not inclined to follow a recipe to the "T" to reconsider our ways in some areas. We learn that subtle differences in temperature, hot or cold, or types of product used can mean an enormous difference in the end product. Plus Chris has a very nice way in his writing. Thanks to the Kimballs and their contributors we have some delicious meals here in Boston. (We love the magazine)
Rating: 
Summary: Recipes sound great - too bad they don't work
Review: I bought this book last fall and finally threw it away in frustration. The recipes simply don't work. I've spent hour after hour on these (often curiously complicated) recipes, only to throw out batch after batch. As an accomplished home baker, I haven't had results this consistently bad since I was a kid learning to bake. It's too bad, too, since these recipes sound so great on paper...
Rating:
Summary: Recipes sound great - too bad they don't work
Review: I bought this book last fall and finally threw it away in frustration. The recipes simply don't work. I've spent hour after hour on these (often curiously complicated) recipes, only to throw out batch after batch. As an accomplished home baker, I haven't had results this consistently bad since I was a kid learning to bake. It's too bad, too, since these recipes sound so great on paper...
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Summary: The Dessert Bible: dessert heaven
Review: I have had The Dessert Bible for a number of weeks now, and have meant to write a review for at least as long, but each time I sit down with the book to gather my thoughts, I get lost once again in the crisp writing, the tips, and the odd bits of knowledge and inside information that Christopher Kimball provides along with his excellent recipes. This book is terrific simply to sit down and read for pleasure and edification (how can I resist such things as Case # 48 on beating egg whites, entitled "Better Whipping Through Chemistry"?), but it is also great for hands-on cooking. I am not a very accomplished cook, and not a particularly brilliant baker, but the recipes I have tried from this book have come out really well, without the pain and angst than I might have thought necessary. In part this is due to the fact that the recipes (delicious) have been thoroughly tested and improved upon, in part it is due to the general guidance provided by the author, and the theory he offers to support his practices and methods; I find knowing how and why things work or don't contributes to my sense of confidence in cooking, and especially in making desserts, which is for me esspecially daunting. I particularly love the charts detailing his experiment results, and the "What Can Go Wrong?" sections, and I find the drawings and illustrations of techniques to be a welcome relief from posed pictures of beautiful food that taunt one with their perfection!This is an excellent dessert cookbook, aptly named a "bible," and it would make an inspired Christmas present for a thoughtful, creative person, regardless of his or her talent in the kitchen. Highly recommend it.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but...
Review: I like this cookbook. I feel like a more educated cooker no matter what I'm cooking. I appreciate the input as to what can go wrong with each recipe. I also like the author's commitment to making these attainable for the home cook. That being said, I have a couple of gripes about the book: First, I really wish there were pictures to help us beginners out. For example, when making chocolate mouse one day it occurred to me that since I have never beaten egg whites before, I didn't know how "stiff" the peaks could get. Therefore, it was hard to judge what the heck a "soft peak" was. The other gripe is about one of the recipes, the double chocolate cookie recipe (with the melted chocolate in it). For whatever reason, this recipe did NOT work for me at all. I intend to try it again, but I can't imagine what went wrong. Oh I guess I have one more: Although this is aimed toward the home cook, the recipes frequently call for ingredients we are not likely to have on hand. Well, I don't anyway. Molasses, bourbon, grand marnier, etc.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but...
Review: I like this cookbook. I feel like a more educated cooker no matter what I'm cooking. I appreciate the input as to what can go wrong with each recipe. I also like the author's commitment to making these attainable for the home cook. That being said, I have a couple of gripes about the book: First, I really wish there were pictures to help us beginners out. For example, when making chocolate mouse one day it occurred to me that since I have never beaten egg whites before, I didn't know how "stiff" the peaks could get. Therefore, it was hard to judge what the heck a "soft peak" was. The other gripe is about one of the recipes, the double chocolate cookie recipe (with the melted chocolate in it). For whatever reason, this recipe did NOT work for me at all. I intend to try it again, but I can't imagine what went wrong. Oh I guess I have one more: Although this is aimed toward the home cook, the recipes frequently call for ingredients we are not likely to have on hand. Well, I don't anyway. Molasses, bourbon, grand marnier, etc.
Rating:
Summary: Expanded Version of Other Kimball Dessert Sections
Review: I'm an avid cook and, while I no longer subscribe to "Cooks Illustrated" magazine, I respect Chris Kimball and his expert kitchen team and have had good luck, more or less, with their recipes which, if followed EXACTLY, are virtually foolproof. I also never fail to learn something from their informative kitchen commentary. All in all, his recipes and advice are beneficial to both novice and experienced cooks. That having been I have to point out that taste is, of course, subjective. For instance, I've found, from trying a number of Kimball's recipes, that he is a salt-a-holic. I prefer to cook with little or no salt, as I find the taste harsh and unpleasant, and if I followed Kimball's recipes exactly I'd be drowning in the stuff. I prefer pepper and tend to double or triple the often meager amounts Kimball calls for in his recipes (usually he calls for four or fives times more salt than pepper, and I tend to reverse those ratios). The recommendations too, are, of course, all one man's opinion. He speaks harshly of Le Creuset, which is my favorite cookware, despite the expense (don't listen to Kimball: the enamel service is as good or better than non-stick), and frequently raves about plain cast iron which, while I'm sure can be great, takes a great deal of patience to properly season (I've NEVER had any luck doing so), can't be washed in a dishwasher (big downfall, in my opinion) and can easily destroy an induction cooktop (something Kimball fails to even mention). All of Kimball's cookbooks follow the same basic format: a long-winded, but often interesting, discourse on how Kimball views the "perfect" version of whatever it is he's showing you how to cook, including a lengthy explanation of variations he has tried, followed by his "Master Recipe" for the food. I recommend carefully reading the introduction, focusing on what Kimball considers "perfection," before attempting the recipe, because whether you agree with Kimball's definition of "perfection" is very important as whether this recipe will be a hit with your or not. In short, if your taste is the same as Kimball's when it comes to a particular food his well-researched and thoroughly-tested recipes will be amazing. But if you don't feel the same way, the "master recipe" won't really work for you. For instance, I like my cookies more "blonde" and chewy than Kimball and his team, so his cooking times/methods aren't exactly to my specifications. But my biggest problem with Kimball cookbooks is this: If you have one, you have them all. He lifts whole passages and recipes and uses them in multiple books. "The Yellow Farmhouse Cookbook," and the "Cook's Bible," for instance, have at least 50 identical recipes, not to mention verbatim introductions to each section and cookware recommendations repeated word-for-word. "The Best Recipe" features ALL of the recipes (as far as I can tell) from the "Cook's Bible," with the same commentary, which is, in turn, lifted in whole chunks from past issues of "Cooks Illustrated." I'm sure this saves Mr. Kimball a great deal of time when compiling his cookbooks but it leaves little reason to own more than one edition of his work. The "Dessert Bible" follows this same somewhat annoying pattern, featuring duplicates of basically every recipe in the "Cook's Bible" and "The Best Recipe." I'd say at least half, maybe more, of the recipes are duplicates--something you should be aware of, especially if you already own one or both of the above cookbooks, before you buy. That having been said, the "Dessert Bible" does expand enough on Kimball's earlier works for me to recommend it to cooks with serious sweet toohs. Occasional kitchen goers would probably be better served with "The Best Recipe," Kimball's best cookbook to date.
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Summary: Another winner from the Cook's Illustrated kitchens...
Review: I've said before that the gang at Cook's demonstrate the nicest, most useful possible deployment of mass obsessive-compulsive disorder, and here's another user-friendly manual for the home cook. If you follow these instructions as written, barring acts of G-d, you simply can't go wrong. That said, some Amazon reviewers have asked others to give the positive and the negative aspects of cookbooks, rather than an unqualified rave or boo. Okay. Some of these recipes also appear in Kimball's "The Yellow Farmhouse Cookbook," but without quite as much detail. You might not care what the addition of corn syrup, light brown sugar, or for that matter, iron filings (I'm joking), will make to your pecan pie. However, the charts are a great way to acquire kitchen wisdom without suffering the failures that go along with experimenting. Even old hands in the kitchen will learn new tricks. Only recently did Kimball confirm for me how important the specified temperature of butter before mixing is to the successful outcome of cake batters. And he can barely contain his excitement when his "silly" method of adding flour to a batter turned out to be the best way of all. Kimball is not particularly interested in low-fat or even lower-fat recipes. He appears to burn off calories with the efficiency of a Bessemer converter, but that's not true of most of us. Using heavy cream or half-and-half in a simple vanilla pudding is too rich for my palate, and whole milk is plenty good. He gives offhand permission to substitute regular milk. The reader should realize that in some recipes--a delicate cake or pastry--deviation is treason. However, I'd like to see Kimball suggest a few more workable options than he does, especially for dairy-free baking. Other Amazon reviewers appear dismayed at all of the equipment called for by some very comprehensive cookbooks, including Kimball's. Allow me to say that you should begin comfortably from where you are and what you can afford, without apology. I baked quite well long before I owned a standing mixer, food processor, blender, high-quality knives and an electric sharpener, or a bread machine (which I use exclusively for mixing yeast doughs). Even the low-budget, low-tech cook can bake with fresh flour, butter, oil, nuts (taste them first!), and can spring for such not-too-costly niceties as parchment paper (which can be washed, dried, and reused), a balloon whisk, and an instant-reading thermometer. A pound bag of yeast costs far less per recipe than using individual packets, and it keeps well in the freezer for a year. A bench knife, or dough cutter, costs about five bucks and allows sticky dough to be scraped off the counter, folded over, and kneaded without adding too much flour. And yes, Mr. Kimball, I HAVE made perfect brioche by hand that way!
Rating:
Summary: Another winner from the Cook's Illustrated kitchens...
Review: I've said before that the gang at Cook's demonstrate the nicest, most useful possible deployment of mass obsessive-compulsive disorder, and here's another user-friendly manual for the home cook. If you follow these instructions as written, barring acts of G-d, you simply can't go wrong. That said, some Amazon reviewers have asked others to give the positive and the negative aspects of cookbooks, rather than an unqualified rave or boo. Okay. Some of these recipes also appear in Kimball's "The Yellow Farmhouse Cookbook," but without quite as much detail. You might not care what the addition of corn syrup, light brown sugar, or for that matter, iron filings (I'm joking), will make to your pecan pie. However, the charts are a great way to acquire kitchen wisdom without suffering the failures that go along with experimenting. Even old hands in the kitchen will learn new tricks. Only recently did Kimball confirm for me how important the specified temperature of butter before mixing is to the successful outcome of cake batters. And he can barely contain his excitement when his "silly" method of adding flour to a batter turned out to be the best way of all. Kimball is not particularly interested in low-fat or even lower-fat recipes. He appears to burn off calories with the efficiency of a Bessemer converter, but that's not true of most of us. Using heavy cream or half-and-half in a simple vanilla pudding is too rich for my palate, and whole milk is plenty good. He gives offhand permission to substitute regular milk. The reader should realize that in some recipes--a delicate cake or pastry--deviation is treason. However, I'd like to see Kimball suggest a few more workable options than he does, especially for dairy-free baking. Other Amazon reviewers appear dismayed at all of the equipment called for by some very comprehensive cookbooks, including Kimball's. Allow me to say that you should begin comfortably from where you are and what you can afford, without apology. I baked quite well long before I owned a standing mixer, food processor, blender, high-quality knives and an electric sharpener, or a bread machine (which I use exclusively for mixing yeast doughs). Even the low-budget, low-tech cook can bake with fresh flour, butter, oil, nuts (taste them first!), and can spring for such not-too-costly niceties as parchment paper (which can be washed, dried, and reused), a balloon whisk, and an instant-reading thermometer. A pound bag of yeast costs far less per recipe than using individual packets, and it keeps well in the freezer for a year. A bench knife, or dough cutter, costs about five bucks and allows sticky dough to be scraped off the counter, folded over, and kneaded without adding too much flour. And yes, Mr. Kimball, I HAVE made perfect brioche by hand that way!
Rating:
Summary: A Must Have for all beginners...
Review: If you are familar with Cooking Illustrated you know the name Christopher Kimball. This book is a wonderful educational guide in baking. He investigates each recipe and variations on it completely. Before the actually recipe he suggests proper baking equipment, food ingredients, and where you can obtain all of these products. This book contains a wide variety of recipes for cookies, cakes, pies, puddings, and so much more. I like this book because it carries with it a nice cross section of all types of desserts rather than being just a book that specializes in pies, or cakes. The recipes are excellent, and it makes a nice read as well.
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