[.ca] The Pie and Pastry Bible (ISBN 0684813483)

From Amazon.com:
Reading about the ins and outs of baking the perfect, flaky pie crust is a little like reading about how to achieve the perfect golf swing: the proof is in the doing. And it often takes a remarkably intuitive reader to understand exactly what the author is getting at. Not so the work of Rose Levy Beranbaum, the author who gave us The Cake Bible. If ever there was a cookbook author who could place her hands on top of yours, putting you through the proper motions, helping you arrive at just the right touch, Beranbaum is the one. The Pie and Pastry Bible begins with the crust. The author confesses right up front that 21 years ago, when she first began her quest for the perfect crust, "it was a complete mystery to me." She wasn't looking for a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but something she could consistently turn out at a moment's notice. The ideal pie crust, she writes, "has light, flaky layers, but also ... is tender, and nicely browned, with a flavor good enough to eat by itself." In a book that stretches to about 700 pages long, her favorite pie crust is the first recipe: Perfect Flaky and Tender Cream Cheese Pie Crust. Typically, Beranbaum lists the ingredients by measure and weight for three separate sizes of pies, then gives instructions for the food processor or by hand. After 70 pages of pie crusts, tart crusts, and crumb pie crusts of every imaginable make and combination, Beranbaum starts with fruit pies. Her first (of many) detailed charts shows exactly what her ratios are of fruit to sugar to cornstarch. Then each recipe (start with The Best All American Apple Pie) includes pointers for success as well as several variations on the theme. Under the headline "Understanding," Beranbaum goes that extra mile by taking the trouble to explain just why something works the way it does. If you are only going to own one cookbook for pie and pastry recipes of every imaginable stripe and combination, you can't go wrong with this one. It's the Bible, after all. --Schuyler Ingle

Thank you, Rose!:
I discovered RLB when I decided to make my own wedding cake. After finding The Cake Bible, I never looked back. My guests still tell me it was the best wedding cake they ever tasted. While chatting online one day, I admitted that I wasn't very good with pastry. Someone teased me about it; I got ticked off and decided to make myself a pastry expert. Whom else would I turn to but Rose? Thanks to this book, my pies and pastries are flawless now. And do try making your own strudel using Rose's instructions; thanks to her detailed instructions, it's easier than you'd think. Once you've mastered it, your friends will love you and your enemies will fear you. To echo other reviewers, this is not a book for those who want something quick and easy, but for the cook who wants to know how and why things work. If you're willing to put in the time and effort, you will be rewarded with superior results.

Such a good book the pages are falling out!:
First of all, this is NOT a book for those wanting to make something up quick. If you want a quick and easy dessert, go somewhere else. If you enjoy the process of baking and (even more so) the pleasure of eating homemade goods, this book is for you. The piecrusts (as other reviewers have noted) are not the easiest. But, they do come out very well. It is possible to use the freezer bags as noted (only one is necessary per piecrust recipe). On the crusts, I recommend using the food processor method. Also, I noticed that it takes a lot less time to bake the crusts than the time recommended in the book. I have never had them become soggy either. Brushing on the egg white after you bake them helps to prevent that. As for the time-consuming quality of the recipes, be prepared to spend a long time on any one of these. On the Strawberry Lover's Chiffon Pie (my first pie ever to bake and the first from this book), I spent around 9 hours over a two-day period. I just made the Apple Crumb Pie, and it took probably five hours though a lot of that was dead time (i.e., baking or chilling times when I could be doing something else). Before making any of these recipes, carefully read the instructions to get an idea of how long they take. And, the photography is excellent. It makes you want to make every single one in the book. The Pumpkin Pie and Honeycomb Chiffon Pie are coming up next (that is, after some recipes in her Cake Bible). The recipes are meticulously detailed. If you follow them EXACTLY, you should get good results. If you take shortcuts or decide that something isn't necessary, you'll get less than perfect results. The recipes range from traditional favorites like cherry and apple pies to more exotic pies (like the Honeycomb Chiffon pie and Tiramisu). Recipes for savory pies (like Shepherd's Pie and Chicken Pot Pie) are also included. This is my second favorite cookbook after Rose's The Cake Bible.

My kind of cookbook:
This is a cookbook for the perfectionist. If you like to understand exactly why things work the way they do so that you can be in control of your baking projects, then this is the book for you. If you get excited at the thought of being empowered to create pastries more delectable than the very best you have ever tasted at the finest gourmet pastry shoppes, then you owe it to yourself to get this book. If you'd rather not be bothered with too many niggling details and just want something quick that reliably comes out OK, even if you use the wrong type of flour, then stick with the Fannie Farmer Cookbook. Be warned. These recipes generally don't have much margin for sloppiness built into them, the way ones from other cookbooks do. That's why they taste so good when they are done correctly. You should read all of the background information on a topic before you start baking. Rose's backgrounders are interesting, helpful, well-written and will make you a better baker. At the absolute minimum, you must follow the recipes to the letter. No substitutions or shortcuts whatsoever can be allowed unless you've read all the background information so that you know *exactly* what you are doing. I can see only two legitimate grievances. The structure of the book is sometimes a bit scattered, which often makes it necessary to flip through to a half-dozen different places to get through a single project, and, (although this is not a concern for me) Rose makes no mention that I can see of what sort of adjustments one might make to achieve perfection at 9000 feet above sea level, and I could see how someone up in the Rockies might run into some difficulties. I can only think of one other "downside": Your own baking will spoil you for anything else.

A True Baking Treasure. Very Professional.:
One would expect such an authoritative volume on baking to come from a chunky Frenchman with a very tall toque and an accent you can cut with a pastry knife, not from the ever so sweet and coy face smiling at you from the back of the dust jacket of this very large book on a very serious subject. But, this book from this author should be no surprise at all, as it is the middle volume on a trilogy that does for baking what Tolkein did for epic fantasy in 'Lord of the Rings'. Before I even start to talk about the virtues of the book, just consider the difference in content you are receiving from Rose Levy Beranbaum's three books when compared to Ina Garten's three cookbooks. For a 30% addition to the price, Beranbaum is giving you approximately 300% more information. Another comparison is to compare Beranbaum's 2000 pages with the very authoritative sounding 'King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion' weighing in at a mere 607 pages. That is just to put these works in perspective. To most newbies, cooking may seem relatively easy, but one glimpse at what you need to make a decent pie crust has most novices running to the megamart refrigerated cases for those premade Pillsbury pie crusts. First, you have to pick the right ingredients. Can I use all-purpose flour or should I use pastry flour. Can I use King Arthur or should I use White Lily? Should I use butter or vegetable shortening or lard? Should I add vinegar or not? Should I add an egg yolk or not? Then, you have to be concerned about the weather. Is the barometer rising or falling? Is the air humid or dry? Then comes the technique. Do I use a pastry cutter or do I use my hands? How long do I work the flour and fat before adding the liquid? How much do I work it after adding the liquid? How long do I rest it before rolling it out? How do I lay the crust in the pan to avoid shrinking? What kind of pan do I use to bake the pie? Do I blind bake the crust for this pie? How long do I bake? What do I look for to know the bottom crust is done? I'm exaggerating a little because many of these variables are usually well enough in control that they don't ruin a pie. But, every variable offers a way for things to go wrong. Now, millions of people, myself included, have successfully made good pie crusts without having read Ms. Beranbaum's book, but millions of people, myself included, have made pie crusts which just didn't make the grade. Rose Levy Beranbaum tells you why, and gives you all the information you need to avoid each and every problem. One of the very few problems I find with Ms. Beranbaum's work is that there is so much information, it is difficult to whip out a simple recipe or find the solution to a simple problem without literally studying the information for some time. But, the only thing that means is that this book, however good, may not be for everyone. For the casual baker of pies, I strongly recommend Wayne Harley Brachman's 'American Desserts'. Ms. Beranbaum's book is for the serious baker and for people who really like to read about baking in order to troll for ideas and projects. The depth of information exceeds virtually every other work I have seen so far. Where other books give you measurements by both weight and volume, Ms. Beranbaum gives you measurements in both Metric and English system units. Where others recommend a fat to use, Ms. Beranbaum explains why the fat of choice should be used and how to make intelligent substitutions with various kinds of ingredients. While I have not yet read Shirley Corriher's book 'Cookwise', Rose gives me the same kind of intimate knowledge of my ingredients and techniques as I would expect from Shirley. Rose even quotes Shirley's recipe for Southern biscuits as the model recipe for same. Speaking of biscuits, if I were to write a tutorial on pastry making, I would probably start with biscuits. As Beranbaum points out, the techniques and results when making biscuits stand you almost exactly halfway between pastry crusts and cake making. I would add that it also puts you very close to the bread baking world, with a product where the time between cracking open the flour canister and pulling the finished product out of the oven can be less than 30 minutes. This makes biscuit baking a perfect intro. to baking in general. Needless to say, Ms. Beranbaum covers biscuits with her usual thoroughness. I would very strongly recommend this and all of Ms. Beranbaum's books on baking as a perfect second book on their respective subjects. As a first book, get 'Baking with Julia' and follow the directions with the diligence of a Viennese pastry master. Very highly recommend to those in love with baking. How can you possibly resist so sweet a smile on Ms. Beranbaum's face as she kneads her dough on the dust jacket?

Too Much Of A Good Thing:
I have used Beranbaum's "The Cake Bible" for several years and once I got used to the lay-out \ointimidating to begin with\c found it really good for special occasion cakes. So I decided to splurge on "The Pie And Pastry Bible." First off, the reviewer who had trouble with the zip-lock bag technique is not alone: nobody can afford that many bags, and nobody can make ANYTHING decent in the kitchen at that level of frustration. I found the famous cream cheese crust came out dense and a bit soggy with fruit fillings, though it does work really well with Kulibiac \oCoulibiac\c. Mostly, though, I don't think Beranbaum's methods function as well in this book as they did in "TCB" - a birthday cake is an occasion in itself - I'll allow two days to make one. Apple Pie or any fruit pie is what I make for dessert while the roast is roasting or the stew is stewing. I don't want to spend half the afternoon whipping from one section to another under those circumstances. So for piecrusts I'll stick to Jacques Pepin, or Cooks' Illustrated.