Whenever I’m asked about when I knew I wanted to be a pastry chef/baker, I always answer, “birth!” My maternal grandmother lived with us and she loved to bake; I was playing with dough as soon as I was old enough to stand on a chair next to the kitchen table. After college I faced a crisis: graduate school or culinary school – I chose the latter and I’ve never looked back. Adding teaching and writing to my love of baking led me to travel, taste, research, and learn new techniques and recipes to share. It’s a passion from which I’ll never retire.
Maida’s Book of Great Desserts is the first of many books by her, and the one that influenced me very early in my developing love of baking and desserts.
I was privileged to know Maida for the last 25 years of her life and was able to teach several classes with her. Although all her books were masterpieces, she would most often pick recipes from this book to teach.
Some of my (and Maida’s) favorites include Queen Mother’s Cake (a recipe shared by a musician who claimed to have received it directly from the Queen Mum), East 62nd Street Lemon Cake, Old Fashioned Peanut Butter Cookies (simply delicious), and Black and White Cheesecake.
Cedric Grolet, the enfant terrible of Parisian pastry circles, astounded the world of desserts when he started preparing his fabulous life-like molded fruit desserts at the Hotel Meurice.
Soon after, a tiny retail pastry shop opened in the hotel, and now he has a full scale shop, Opera, a few blocks down from the actual Paris opera house. Fruit was his first book and though it details some of his most elaborate creations in the form of natural fruits, the book also concentrates on his personal twist on basic preparations such as pastry doughs, fillings, and presentations.
Some classic pastry books are happy to accurately chronicle how specialties were prepared in the past, but here is a book that shows the contemporary up-to-the-minute version of so many recipes recreated by a true pastry genius.
Innovative recipes for all types of croissant variations, astounding presentations of fruit tarts, and elaborate eclairs and other French pastries abound.
Cédric Grolet is simply the most talented pastry chef of his generation—he was named World’s Best Pastry Chef in 2018. Food & Wine called his work “the apotheosis of confectionary creation.” He fashions trompe l’oeil pieces that appear to be the most perfect, sparkling fruit but are, once cut, revealed to be exquisite pastries with surprising fillings. They are absolutely unforgettable, both to look at and, of course, to eat.
This lush cookbook presents Grolet’s fruit-based haute-couture pastries like works of art. The chef explains his techniques and his search for authentic tastes and offers a peek into his boundless…
An Italian Feast celebrates the cuisines of the Italian provinces from Como to Palermo. A culinary guide and book of ready reference meant to be the most comprehensive book on Italian cuisine, and it includes over 800 recipes from the 109 provinces of Italy's 20 regions.
I first met Ciril Hitz at a pastry chefs’ conference in Las Vegas where he was conducting a demonstration workshop on laminated doughs like croissants. Swiss-born and American-educated, his articulate explanations of this complex branch of pastry-making, helped me to understand them more fully than ever before.
I rejoiced when I received a copy of his first book about bread with a unique approach: Ten master formulas, each elucidating a different type of bread dough, cover the main techniques for producing delicious – and beautiful – breads accurately every time.
Baguettes, focacce, brioches, croissants, whole grain breads, pizzas, bagels, sandwich bread, and challah, are all here with further variations on shapes and flavors. Having started my career with an exclusively pastry background, I had to learn about bread on my own.
This book gave me a firm foundation of knowledge that enabled me to create my own individual approach to bread making.
Bread enthusiasts are more aware of the diverse array of high-quality breads than ever before and are seeking out handmade artisan products at local farmers' markets, organic grocery stores, specialty shops...even the Internet. "Baking Artisan Bread" will show that finding these specialty breads is as easy as looking in your own kitchen! "Baking Artisan Bread" provides a simplified, formula-based approach to baking bread at home, making the mixing, the rising, and the baking itself more approachable and less intimidating. With step-by-step full-colour process shots and clear directions, chef Ciril Hitz will show you how with just 10 formulas you can…
In Good and Sweet, Brian Levy takes a radical approach to preparing delicious desserts – he uses no refined sugar but finds the necessary sweetness of his desserts from fruits (dried, juiced, or fresh), grains, dairy products, and nuts.
Before I tried any of the recipes, I have to admit that I was somewhat skeptical, but one taste of any of the recipes I tried made me realize that there are other ways to sweeten besides refined sugar. My favorites include Blueberry Biscuit Cobbler, Cherry Coconut Clafoutis, Figgy Cheesecake, Rosemary Lemon Shortbread, and Spiced Pumpkin Pie.
Levy also incorporates whole grain flour when appropriate as high-quality flour provides a sweetness of its own.
ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR: Los Angeles Times, Serious Eats
Groundbreaking recipes for real desserts—sweetened entirely by fruit and other natural, unexpectedly sweet ingredients—from a pastry cook who’s worked at acclaimed restaurants in New York and France.
Brian Levy spent years making pastries the traditional way, with loads of refined sugar and white flour, at distinguished restaurants, inns, and private homes in the United States and Europe. But he discovered another world of desserts—one that few bakers have explored—where there’s no need for cane sugar or coconut sugar, for maple syrup or honey, or for anything like…
After writing The Flight To Brassbright, I realized that my characters spent a lot of time enjoying a wide variety of foods and beverages. I suppose it couldn't be helped since their author is such a foodie.
I thought it would be fun to spin off a cookbook with…
Before it was a book, Cocolat was a small chain of wildly popular chocolate dessert shops in and around San Francisco.
Its founder and author, Alice Medrich, had spent some time in France, and had learned some enticingly delicious chocolate recipes there. Back in San Francisco, she started experimenting with quantity baking and the first Cocolat shop was born.
Chocolate cakes, large and small (and fabulous cupcakes), soft-centered truffles, and individual chocolate pastries, are only part of the picture as there are also detailed instructions for chocolate fans and ruffles, and for sculpting delicate chocolate flowers.
I’ve long admired Alice’s expertise with chocolate and her example helped me to up my game with that most popular ingredient.
James Beard Foundation 1991 Cookbook of the Year! "Cocolat is to chocolate what Tiffany is to diamonds." — Gourmet magazine. One of America's leading chocolatiers and the founder of the famous Cocolat shops shares the secrets behind her decadent, European-style desserts in this beautifully illustrated, easy-to-follow guide. Alice Medrich founded the first in a chain of chocolate shops in 1976, introducing legions of Americans to the joys of chocolate truffles. With the guidance of this lavish book, home cooks and budding pastry chefs can make their own renditions of the shop's sophisticated confections. Each fabulous recipe features detailed instructions that…
How to Bake is a book for both beginning and experienced bakers. The recipes in each chapter teach a variety of techniques that make readers proud of their baking success!
After writing The Flight To Brassbright, I realized that my characters spent a lot of time enjoying a wide variety of foods and beverages. I suppose it couldn't be helped since their author is such a foodie.
I thought it would be fun to spin off a cookbook with…
A groundbreaking culinary work of extraordinary depth and scope that spans more than one thousand years of history, A Mediterranean Feast tells the sweeping story of the birth of the venerated and diverse cuisines of the Mediterranean. Author Clifford A. Wright weaves together historical and culinary strands from Moorish Spain…
