The Pie and Pastry Bible [Hardcover]

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.

If you like the Cake Bible, you will love this one about pies and pastries. It is just as complete and thorough. If you a serious home baker, you will find this cookbook indispensable. If you are a professional baker, it is an excellent resource; for example, she describes half a dozen very saleable Danish pastries from the same dough. For the rest of us, however, I must cast a disapproving eye. I doubt that the average home cook will be able to successfully pick his/her way through the material in this cookbook.

Like its predecessor (for which, see) on cakes, it is extremely finicky. It contains an astonishing 75 pages just on pie and tart crusts. The procedures for the former involve an unusual process that makes the dough in a zip lock plastic bag. The recipes are so long and complete, that it is easy to get lost while following the recipes, since this involves quite a bit of jumping around in the text. Also, the layout of the ingredient table is not always clear: some recipes have multiple components, and the division between them in the ingredients' table is not always clear just by looking at them (often, you have to read the recipes to see where the divisions are). The pictures have page numbers for the matching recipes, but the recipes do not have page numbers for the matching pictures.

It does have some nice touches. The ingredient lists both volume and weight, leaving not doubt as to the correct amounts. There is a brief but enlightening exposition on the similarities of puff pastry, croissant, Danish, brioche, strudel, and fillo. The chapter on Equipment has many useful tools and insights not found elsewhere.

On the down side, there are a few editing mistakes: on page 204 there is a reference to page 627 (the correct page is 672), the Creamy and Spicy Crab Tartlets does not list a substitute for tobanjan, the ancho chile powder for Baked Empanadas can be bought premade, the directions for roasting bell peppers for Roasted Red Pepper and Poblano Quiche could be better, Love for Three Oranges says not to use Seville orange zest but a subsidiary recipe she calls for this exact ingredient, the instructions for slicing salmon for Coulibiac needs a diagram, the duxelle mixture for Beef Wellington probably does not require the listed 60 minutes, a proof box for Whole Wheat Croissants can be made easier by simply inverting a large cardboard box over the dough, and the chapter on Ingredients needs to be re-edited and re-organized with more titles (for example, vanilla is in the Thickeners section, but does not appear in the index, gold leaf appears under the Gelatin section and is not listed in the index either). Also, a more detailed Table of Contents would make this book a much more valuable reference. For these reasons, I recommend waiting for a second edition of this book that (hopefully) will have these mistakes corrected.

Like the real Bible, it contains a mountain of information of which only a tiny portion will ever be used, but will be used extensively. If you are developing recipes for publication, or one of those people who supplies all of the pies to the county fair, then this book is for you: an extensive and reliable manual for the assembly line production of baked goods. For the average home cook, I suspect that this book is a little too much. It is, however, a welcome reference to the troublesome task of baking and pastries. They say that one can never have too much information, but in this case, I am not so sure. On the other hand, your chances of success following these recipes are very high.

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.