The cake bible
2017 inductee into the IACP Culinary Classics Hall of Fame. "If you ever bake a cake, this book will become your partner in the kitchen." -- from the foreword by Maida Heatter This is the classic cake cookbook that enables anyone to make delicious, exquisite cakes. As a writer for food magazines, women's magazines, and newspapers, including The New York Times,Rose Levy Beranbaum's trademark is her ability to reduce the most complex techniques to easy-to-follow recipes. Rose makes baking a joy. This is the definitive work on cakes by the country's top cake baker. The Cake Bibleshows how to: Mix a buttery, tender layer cake in under five minutes with perfect results every time Make the most fabulous chocolate cake you ever imagined with just three ingredients Find recipes for every major type of cake, from pancakes to four-tiered wedding cakes Make cakes with less sugar but maximum flavor and texture Make many low- to no- cholesterol, low-saturated-fat recipes
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What Hacker News says
- I think Lebovitz "wrote" the Dean & DeLuca cookbook, didn't he? I love that book.
[edit] Nope, David Rosengarten
Anyway, as long as we're making suggestions, my two favorite dessert books are
The Cake Bible, Rose Levy Beranbaum. Had it for at least 30 years and was one of the first cookbooks I ever bought.
Classic Home Desserts, Richard Sax. Borrowed from a friend and after she warned me not to get anything on it (was one of her favorites), I got my own copy. Still in frequent use 25 years later.
- As long as we're doing recommendations :-) Before the days of Alton Brown, I lived by The Cake Bible https://www.amazon.com/Cake-Bible-Rose-Levy-Beranbaum/dp/068... I'm amazed that it still costs about the same that I paid back in 1988!
Classic Home Desserts (https://www.amazon.com/Classic-Home-Desserts-Treasury-Contem...) seems to be back in print!!! Yay!!! Not as theoretical as The Cake Bible, but it has interesting notes about the origins of various recipes. Try the Jack Daniels Raisin Roll -- one of my favorites.
- If you are looking for a book that does this (explains why things are done) with baked goods, I recommend The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum. Hopefully it's still in print: I literally bought mine half my life ago.
- You should have one trustworthy cookbook
I'm late to the party, but wholeheartedly agree. My most read cookbooks are:
The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum. Had it since graduating college 25 years ago and every page has butter/chocolate/etc stains.
The Dean & Deluca Cookbook David Rosengarten. Simple recipes, good explanations.
Classic Home Desserts Richard Sax. Amazing collection of sweets over the last 200 years.
Rick Bayless' Mexican Kitchen A lot of people think he's a blowhard. Whatever, the food's great.
I have lots more, but those are probably the most thumbed-through.
OK, one more :-)
The Village Baker's Wife too lazy to get up and look up the author, but it's a fair to good pastry book.
The really important thing about the above books is that they build a knowledge base. Once you have that, along with some experience, it's much easier to evaluate online recipes and see if they even have a chance of being good.
- I can't wrap my head around learning to cook online. Maybe it's because I started cooking around age 10, but it's something that responds best to actual doing as opposed to simulation.
Get a simple recipe and cook something. Learn from the experience. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
Two of the best books I have that "explain" how cooking works (albeit in a very minimal sense) are David(?) Rosengarten's Dean & Deluca Cookbook and Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Cake Bible (now over 20 years old and very, very well thumbed and sticky :-) I'd recommend them to anyone.
- Years after I married her, I discovered that my wife had partially paid for college by baking cakes for weddings and other events. Yes, she used the Cake Bible. I saw some of her Polaroid pictures she had taken of some of the cakes she had made, based on those recipes.
I kid you not, her cakes looked better than the ones shown in the book. And the ones in the book looked pretty good.
