Great Cakes
by Carole Walter
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Book Summary Information
Author: Carole WalterEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1998-04-07
ISBN: 0609603078
Number of pages: 592
Publisher: Clarkson Potter
Book Reviews of Great Cakes
Book Review: Learn How to Bake a Cake
Summary: 5 Stars
There are an awful lot baking cook books available these days, but few are worth anything. This book is one of the few truly helpful books that actually shows you how to properly bake a cake. Many baking books feature a famous chef on the cover, along with casual recipe instructions and the admonition that this really is easy to do; usually, this is a lie. This book fills in all the details, and is really the only cake cook book you will need.
Please note that this is not a "throw it together and bake" kind of cookbook; for these, I suggest books like The Fannie Farmer Baking Book, or Pillsbury's Best of the Bake-Off. The chapters are arranged like a textbook. The author expects you to systematically bake your way through each chapter in order, gaining skill and experience with each chapter. You are not suppose to skip around at random, picking out a few appealing recipes. The first chapter has pound cakes, the easiest; last chapter has European tortes and gateaux, the most difficult.
It has chapters on ingredients, equipment, techniques, pound cakes, butter cakes, coffee / streusel cakes, cakes with fruit, sponge cakes, roulades, chiffon, angel food, american, cheesecakes, tortes and gateaux, filling, frosting, glazes, sauces and toppings, and decorations.
The quality of the cakes are very high. When I need a high caliber Sacher Torte in a professional setting, the recipe comes from this book. It has a rare and complete recipe for Genoise. It is also one of the few books that insists on clarified butter for the Genoise (the only other one I can think of is Beranbaum's Cake Bible). The only real complaint I have is the suggestion to bang Genoise batter in the cake pan on the counter just before baking (never do this; better a couple of small holes in the finished cake than a deflated cake). Her recipe for chiffon cakes produces more loft than conventional procedures. I also wish the author would use the classic European names for the recipe titles; it would make looking up certain patissiere classics easier. The last section tells you how to match frostings and fillings to the cake, some valuable and hard to find recipes for glazes, and a definitive recipe for creme anglaise. There is also information on substituting different baking pans, and a sufficient amount of information about cake decorating for the home baker.
The most vexing feature of this book is the format of the first part, which has critical information on tools, pantry, and techniques. This is a most important collection of information that is essential for baking, but is usually left out of most baking books. The bad part is that these three chapters do not have a listing of the subjects; if you need to find something, say how to fold an egg foam batter, you will have to leaf through the entire chapter to find it. All other chapters have a complete listing of recipes in the Table of Contents.
One can disagree with the author on a few points: unbleached flour does not have a higher protein content than all-purpose (this is brand dependent), the silly notion of melting chocolate in a 225 degree oven, and not supplying the flour measurements in weight as well as volume (she describes sift, spoon, and sweep, which is about 3 1/2 oz when I tried it). I also dislike her idea to dump out excess flour when flouring a cake into the sink; since flour tends to clog drains, I do it over a garbage can. The section on suggested equipment is comprehensive: 30 different cake pans are listed, about a dozen categorized as essential, and 50 different tools, about half categorized as essential. The pantry chapter has a good dissertation on the important ingredients and what to do with them. The chapter on techniques gives complete instructions for all of the important baking tasks, such as how to handle butter and fats, beating eggs, folding batters, lining baking pans, bain-marie, telling when cakes are done baking (it differs greatly depending on cake type), de-panning cakes, storage, and a fascinating section on freezing. The metric conversion table for liquids in the Appendix is wrong.
Summary of Great Cakes
Carole Walter has had a love affair with baking since she was a child. That passion has flowered into a professional career that has taken Walter around the world to study baking and the culinary arts with renowned chefs in Austria, Denmark, France, and Italy, as well as in the United States. For twenty years she has been sharing this wealth of expertise with her own students, and now she shares it with you.With Carole Walter at your side, you will be able to achieve professional results every time. Her clear instructions and invaluable tips will help you avoid the common pitfalls that every baker, no matter how experienced, faces from time to time.
Many of the cake recipes in Great Cakes can be baked in under an hour and don't require frosting or filling, yet they are attractive enough to serve to company. Here are recipes for Old-Fashioned Pound Cake and Streusel Lemon Torte, Chocolate Marble Cheesecake and Italian Purple Plum Cake, and more -- over 250 recipes in all.
You'll also find an array of basic butter cakes, jelly roll cakes, coffee cakes and cheese cakes, as well as cakes that have fruit, nuts, and vegetables as their main ingredients. Once you've mastered the basics, you can go on to fillings, frostings, glazes, and toppings for glorious results.
A complete compendium of cake recipes, this is the only cake baking book you'll ever need, the one you'll use again and again to make simple yet utterly delicious cakes for your family and friends. Great Cakes is more than a "cookbook" -- it's a baking course between two covers.
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