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Summary: Baking at its best
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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Summary: There He Goes Again!
Review: In his inimitable, folksy way as he does in his previous books, Chris Kimball anticipates problems even those of a seasoned (pardon the pun)veteran cook. He answers questions I was afraid to ask because some are so basic I felt I should have known better.His "What Can Go Wrong" section accompanying the recipes makes everything go right.I couldn't wait to re-try an old favorite that sporadically wasn't quite right: The Chocolate Souffle on page 294.Aha! "It is important to FULLY beat the yolk mixture." Voila! Perfection! No more "sporadic souffles." Basic hints like how to skin a peach. I now can do it without any pitfalls (pun intended).What great timing for this informative, original "bible" to appear! Just in time to suit so many on a Christmas or Chanukah list.Keep the "Good Books" coming!
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Summary: A Dessert Lover's Bible
Review: In his newest book, The Dessert Bible, Christopher Kimball has given us much more than a collection of mouthwatering recipes. He has provided the reader with an all-encompassing source of information about the best way to create desserts. I always feel confident that my baking will come out right the first time because Kimball has done all the testing for me. He doesn't only tell you how to do it, he tells you how not to do it. The book is cleverly organized into easy to understand dessert categories, with useful hints throughout. The result is that one ends up with a real understanding of the baking process. It is this no-nonsense approach that makes The Dessert Bible a must for the inexperienced and serious baker.
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Summary: A Dessert Lover's Bible
Review: In his newest book, The Dessert Bible, Christopher Kimball has given us much more than a collection of mouthwatering recipes. He has provided the reader with an all-encompassing source of information about the best way to create desserts. I always feel confident that my baking will come out right the first time because Kimball has done all the testing for me. He doesn't only tell you how to do it, he tells you how not to do it. The book is cleverly organized into easy to understand dessert categories, with useful hints throughout. The result is that one ends up with a real understanding of the baking process. It is this no-nonsense approach that makes The Dessert Bible a must for the inexperienced and serious baker.
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Summary: The Bible?
Review: It is a very good book,indeed, but the dessert bible? definitely not. It is more of a collection of the classical and modern dessert recipes adjusted to the author's taste than the bible of dessert. Europian recipes taste a bit too american but the american ones are just fine.The book will do a good job with the beginners
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Summary: A joy to read and use!
Review: Most cookbooks are not a good read--but this one is an exception! I curled up with it for a week to savor Mr. Kimbell's thoughtful prose. It is like a private lesson with a kindered spirit and master artist. Even expert bakers will find this book full of interesting insights and instructions. Bakers--at heart--are creative. Since baking requires a constant adaptation to everything from humidity to substitute ingredients, this book invites you to experiment. If you love to bake--this book will inspire you. The first week I had this book I baked until I dropped! . . . and enjoyed every bite!
Rating: 
Summary: Fundamentally flawed
Review: Much fine work goes wasted in "The Dessert Bible" because author Christopher Kimball, the current Dean of American home cooking and a self-described slave to experimentation, refuses to precisely quantify his flour measures. Kimball acknowledges that "any sort of baking can be difficult, since small changes in ingredients...can affect the outcome." This is true, and flour is the most difficult ingredient to measure repeatably. You cannot expect reliable results from carefully crafted recipes until you get this variable under control. He even demonstrates on page 14 how two people given the same instruction -- measure a cup of flour using the dip and sweep method -- could get radically different results. (BTW - "Case 2 - Sifting, Spooning, and Sweeping" must have involved cake flour, because the only way he could have measured 3.85 oz. from a cup of all-purpose flour is if he conducted the test on a planet with a lower gravitational constant.) Yet in spite of his own data, he still refused to express flour in units that can be repeated. It is an inexcusable error and one that affects nearly every recipe in the book. His excuse is that most home cooks don't have a scale. OK, then tell the reader to get one. A decent digital scale costs under $40, far less than the Kitchaid mixer he suggests people own if they ever expect to make brioche. So, as much as I love Kimaball's approach (I swear we were separated at birth), I cannot wholeheartedly recommend his book. If you measure your ingredients, particularly flour, differently than he does, his recipes won't work as he intended.
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Summary: A Must Have for all beginners...
Review: So far I love this book. I am just starting to really get into cooking and I think this is a must have. The recipes are great and easy to follow.
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Summary: FOOLPROOF RECIPES!
Review: The next time someone asks "What's for dessert?" you will answer with enthusiasm and confidence. The Dessert Bible is a clearly written hefty 400 page cookbook. Hints and tips for every stage of making and assembling a dessert make this the dessert cookbook I rely on exclusively. No longer do I waste precious time checking through several cookbooks comparing one recipe against another unable to visualize what I'm aiming for. Christopher Kimball allows you to see at a glance exactly what is required and when. I found inserts on food history, ingredient comparisons, equipment, and answers to the "how come?" of chemical reaction between acid foods and stabilizers. The presentation of each recipe is easy to follow and accomplish, guaranteeing success for cooks at any level. The Dessert Bible was a gift to me and I have bought copies to be given as holiday, hostess, house-warming, bridal shower and wedding gifts.
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Summary: Knowledge is power
Review: The two best things about this book are that I can understand the reasoning behind the instructions and that ALL of my favorite dessert recipes are finally in one book. I have 1/2 a dozen dessert cookbooks, each having a few recipes I really use and like. In this book, they are all here and there is enough information that I can make it right everytime. About the flour measurement mentioned in another reader's review: the issue didn't even occur to me as I cooked my way through this book. I read the instructions on flour measurement and that seems to have done the trick. I made the pie crust recipe in both a low-elevation humid climate and a high elevation dry climates, with success each time. Kimball tells me what is important and what isn't, so I decide whether I can make do with what I have on hand or not. I'm not a culinary whiz, and these are recipes I can count while I try new things. I even cooked a new recipe for guests without worrying whether it would work. Besides, who can resist a cookbook with recipes like Apple Pandowdy, fallen chocolate cake (which tastes better than you can imagine), and mango sherbert all in one place? It's all here. It's hugely readable. You'll learn something. And the best part is: you get to eat it at the end. All my other dessert books are being donated to the library tomorrow.
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