Customer Reviews

Art Of The Cake

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is an excellent pastry cookbook, it covers everything from theory and structure of cakes to methods and recipes of more than 100 tasty confections. The only down side it is short on picture's something I always look for in a cookbook. The Art of the Cake is authored by Bruce Healy, a former professor of theoretical physics who left teaching for his passion for French pastry, and Paul Bugat, a distinguished pastry chef and culinary artists in Paris. Their mission in part is to simplify yet explain the science behind baking cakes.

But how to produce beauties like the Moka or Marquis? Healy and Bugat explain, '"The only way to really understand French cakes is to break down the subject into manageable pieces. All cakes are made by putting together building blocks or components.'" The first part covers plain cakes, sponge and meringue, bavarians, charlottes, mousse cakes, logs, and more. They next section offers more than 40 recipes for fillings, frostings, and finishes. There are lots of notes on ingredients ( their secret for moist cakes is potato starch), and discussion on equipment (they recommend using low cost tools from hardware stores to decorate cakes, for example plasters), technique and lots of resources. More than 400 step-by-step illustrations to help readers assemble a sponge log or pipe meringues.

In the culinary world, baking is often categorized as a science, but this cookbook successfully illustrates that baking is in an intriguing layered cake of science and art.

Please note carefully the sub-title of this book: Modern French Baking and Decorating. French cakes have little in common with American ones. Like its predecessors on pastry and cookies, this baking book on cakes is about the types that you will find in classic, pastry shops in France, and not their American cousins. It is also aimed at the serious amateur pastry chef, not the casual home baker. If you are looking for a book to tell you how to make and decorate a chocolate birthday cake for your children, this is not the book for you.

French cakes are both simple and very complicated; they are also amazing and can be heavenly like nothing else in patisserie that comes in a bewildering array of choices. Simply, a French cake is a cake base cut into layers flavored with syrup, sometimes with a flavoring agent between the layers, a filling and frosting of buttercream (but can also be flavored whipped cream, meringue, etc.), plus many decorative touches. The cake bases used are few in number and not that difficult to make. With simple variations in flavoring and decorations, the cake becomes totally different in taste and appearance. So, once you learn how to make one type of cake, you also know how to make at least a dozen other, totally different cakes. This book is a more or less complete guide for making most of the important, popular varieties of French cakes. I should also note that many of these cakes are ones that Americans will actively dislike. For example, succès brushed with flavored syrup is a French favorite, but is also a sugary, chewy, soggy thing that the average American will probably spit out with the first bite.

The organization is logical and also rather sophisticated. Each chapter starts out with a thorough description of a basic technique, and all the recipes in that chapter are based on that technique. For most recipes, you will also need procedures and recipes in other parts of the book, but the author always gives the page number to go to. The chapters are also arranged from easy ones to the more sophisticated ones; it assumes that you will proceed through the book sequentially, and not skip around. The chapters are: Simple Cakes, Round Sponge Cake Gateaux, Round Nut Meringue Gateaux, Meringues, Rectangular Gateaux, Bavarians (also Charlottes and Mousse Cakes), Logs and Leaves, Filling and Frostings, Finishing Touches, Basic Preparations, and a hundred or so pages of reference information. This is definitely not your mother's cake book (unless she grew up in France).

Sadly, making and decorating French cakes is difficult to do properly, and requires patience and practice. It will probably take you several tries to become successful at any one recipe. The techniques described in this book are very similar to professional ones, and, rightly speaking, are the only way you will have a chance. They have done a good job of describing these professional practices and explaining to the amateur chef how to do them. If you pay attention to what the author says and practice, you will succeed. I do have a few quibbles here and there (potato starch did not seem to improve the pound cake recipes; a flat icing spatula will not lay down an even layer of buttercream inside a cake ring; I find American cake circles to be perfectly acceptable, but have never used or seen a French one), but the information is reliable and of the highest caliber.

It's a bit wordy, but not always to the point. Perhaps an experimental physicist would have written a better, more concise step-by-step instructional book than a theoretical one. Plus, some of the important basic preparations are missing. For example, recipes that call for chestnuts are redirected to a short paragraph on buying French chestnut products. It is not that difficult to make your own chestnut puree and spread, the authors could have at least offered an alternative with a few lines of instruction on how to roast, peel, candy, and puree chestnuts instead of asking you to buy a jar of French chestnuts for $20, which probably has been sitting on the store shelf for a decade. Besides, with that kind of cash, you probably can buy a chestnut tree and get 100 lbs fresh chestnuts each fall; I guess not everyone has a professor's salary to burn.

The pictures of finished cakes look fine except some of the layers, fillings, and glazes are applied unevenly. Some of the topping designs are less professional, and lack the elegance and artistic looks of modern desserts.

Anyway, overall, it's an ok book, but I would suggest you to get a pastry book that is written by a real professional pastry chef, such as Bo Friberg's "The Professional Pastry Chef."

If you want to learn french cake making techniques, this book is for you. The first part teaches how to make each kind of cake (pound cake, sponge cake and flan) and then the later chapters show you how to embellish the basic cake. The recipes go from rather simple to quite complicated. I found it extremely helpful in terms of learning how to make a good meringue and different kinds of buttercreams, how to use utensils, how to frost cakes properly,how to prepares various fillings, how to make many kinds of decorations for a cake.
This book is not for someone who plans to buy the book today and whip up a birthday cake for tonight. It will require study and patience but the results are very well worth it and in the process you learn a lot about the art of the cake.

This book is the most detailed cookbook that I have used. The cakes are totally delicious and edible (of course). One of my favorite cakes is the Lemon Marang Eul Log. I know all of the people who wrote and worked on this book. I have made and helped my dad make many of the delicious recipes!

I would give this book a million stars if I could. Just amazing. This book is written by 2 professionals, one American, the other French. After I checked out their first book from a library, I was incredibly happy to find a new book they published. (that first book is out of print) The details in this book are great and I believe we owe this to Mr. Healy. I've long wanted to own an authentic French Pastry cookbook written in comprehensible English. And the recipes... A gold studded, mysterious looking Alhambra (read chocolate heaven), the cake in the cover, a russian strawberry cake brushed with a glistening glaze, a pink art deco piece with sour cherries embedded in its layers.. many beauties and wonderful techniques. This is no Colette Peters, or Slyvia Weinstock kind of baking, this is taste AND art.

My only, only suggestion is for more pictures. Don't get me wrong they already have a few very good pictures , but I wish there was more since many people are not familiar with these cakes and it's always easier to have a picture in front of you. There is a pink cake (can't remember the french name it's got an almond paste covering) the authors have illustrated the steps needed to put it together which I also found very helpful. At the end of the book they have a 2 page pronunciation guide for Americans which is very nice. I am just going to suggest that they add more words cause it doesn't cover many in the book.

I've seen french pastry books going for 100-200 bucks, ingredients measured in liters, grams, forget about them. Start out with this one. This is not a lightweight, nor a suffocating tome, you get a good introduction to french style of cakes. And friends, please throw out that Angel Food Cake Mix, it's time to layer and glaze an Alhambra!

My only wish is that these 2 gentlemen continue writing on this subject. Loved it, highly recommend it to people who have an interest in cooking.

I recently obtained this book, and it doesn't disappoint me at all. I admire the two authors' effort to teach the readers to bake GOOD CAKES. This book is so knowedlegable and explains detaily to my any question. I am an experienced baker,and I am tempted to try all the receipes right away because it is so beautifully written. I am also into some cake decorating the Wilton's way. I have questions about the tools this book mentions, such as the wood grain tool for chocolate. I just don't know where to get it. This book has very clear drawing illustrations by Paul Bugat. But sometimes, I wish it has some more PHOTOGRAPHS than just the cakes' photos so that I know what to look for. After purchasing this book, I try to buy "The French Cookie Book", which is also by Bruce Healy and Paul Bugat. I am very disappointed to find it out of print. I just loooooove their (Bruce and Paul) work --- ph.D for pastry.

I applaud the authors of this book for bringing the art of French cake making down to an approachable level. Once confined to master chefs, French cakes should and can be enjoyed by everyone. The collection of recipes are well varied and comprise a selection of cakes that one really would find in France. Some recipes are very complex and time consuming, but the authors have done their best to explain everything and outline the processes step by step. I can attest that the time spent is well worth the effort. Some readers may object to the lack of photos, but that did not bother me.

Decorating is also well covered because after all, a grand dessert deserves an even grander presentation!

This is a rather large book, a serious baker will return to it many times. For me, it has become one of my favorites. I have yet to find a better collection of beautiful cakes anywhere

Covers: pound cake, sponge cake (genoise and variations), meringues, bavarians, charlottes, logs, frostings+fillings, ingredients, techniques, equipment.

Wow, what a comprehensive book. What I like about this book is that it covers everything for a beginner, yet has a lot for the intermediate baker. It tells you a lot making and designing cakes without skimping on information about equipment and techniques, and ingredients. It tells you all the basics of how to decorate cakes, prepare pans, separate eggs, all of these very basic but vital things. Yet at the same time, it goes through step by step how to do things like creating charlottes, roll-type charlottes, put together complicated rectangular-layer cakes - all of these more intermediate techniques, and it does so in a way which makes it all seem easy. There are lots of step by step descriptions and (hand drawn) pictures of how to put each cake together. It really breaks down how to do everything.

Edited addition - I've reread this book after becoming a much better pastry chef, and like it much more. The main selling point of this book is that it teaches you pastry techniques the "French" way - but does it in a way that doesn't assume you have endless time to make things and/or endless money to buy specialized equipment and ingredients. For instance, it tells you recipes for almond paste and praline (some books assume you have it in jars), and suggests using simple paint scrapers to make lines of Joconde decoration (rather than buying a ~$60 scraper from J.B. Prince). It skips many long tedious steps (making Joconde wrappings) and there are not many exotic ingredients (such as lavender, cocoa beans, passion fruit, etc..) that you find in some books. It's aimed at the intermediate who wants to learn French pastry technique.

Overall great book. This book was a finalist for the IACP award in the baking category.

The most amazing cookbook I've ever bought. It breaks down a seemingly most complicated subject - French Cakes - into their constituent components. These component pieces (genoise rounds, heavy syrup, almond paste) can be made ahead and stored. These parts are then used to assemble the finished cake. The book contains detailed information on exactly how, and for how long, to store each component. Buttercream, for example, can be frozen, in single cake sized portions, for up to 3 months. Heavy syrup will last a similar amount of time, at room temperature. While the structure of most, but not all of the recipes in the book will admittedly leave you with these "leftover" portions, this does not mean that you will waste them. If you only bake a cake once a year - this is not the book for you. If, however, you want to make a showstopping cake at least every other month, there is no other book I could possibly recommend more strongly.

As far as the text goes, detail is definitely the word here. This is the most comprehensive, yet easily readable and understandable book I have ever read on any subject - and I'm a librarian!