Rating: 
Summary: Excellent
Review: Great book. Covers: pound cakes, butter cakes, fruitcakes, cheesecakes, genoise+buscuit, sponge, and chiffon cakes, plus some breakfast stuff like waffles and zucchini muffins. Overview of the ingredients and how they are used, overview of scaling up the cakes to wedding or party proportions, and overview of how to decorate the cakes. I haven't actually tried any recipes out yet, but the Genoise recipe is very similar to the one used for the chocolate ruffle cake in "baking with Julia" (I've tried that recipe, it's good) and the Cheesecake recipe is similar to another one (I forget the source) that I've made before, except that Rose uses sour cream. The format of the cake section is Rose basically goes through and starts with a basic cake (say the Genoise) and modifies the recipe, telling you why. For instance, to make it chocolate, add cocoa powder, and remove butter (because of the cocoa butter) and remove some flour. I think it's an excellent book, a good resource for beginners and intermediates alike. As a beginner you learn all about terminology and whys and hows. As an intermediate, you learn some neat tricks with how to decorate a cake, and learn some of the reasons behind the actions that you probably knew. It's also good to get different ideas on cake assembly. I think once you learn the things in this book you are fully armed to go and create your own cake - after all cake is just a cake, frosting/custard, maybe fruit or nuts or something, plus some optional decoration. This book gives you the foundation to do all of these things.
Rating:
Summary: Throw your other cake cookbooks away
Review: This book was recommended by the instructor of a cake baking class I took at a local culinary academy. If the instructor, a professional baker for more than 35 years, could learn from this book, I figured I could too. And I have learned from the exacting directions, thorough explanations, and personal anecdotes provided with each recipe. She provides instructions to make basic cakes in any size from 6" layers to 18" layers by multiplying a base recipe to produce any size cake you need. I've never seen this in any other cookbook, and is by itself worth the price of the book. I have had perfect results from the butter cake recipes (even chocolate cakes which I had never had much success with before), and the method of mixing is so much easier than the standard way that most cookbooks describe. Weights are provided for all recipes, adding convenience and much easier clean-up. Since I bought this book, I haven't even looked at any of the other cake books I have. There just isn't any need for them.
Rating:
Summary: Love the Cake Bible, outstanding!
Review: I spent the first three days I had the book just reading it from cover to cover. My sister owns the cake bible also. We have both made many of the recipes, such as the Downy yellow butter cake and the white cake, domingo chocolate cake and the wedding cakes, and must not forget the delicious cheese cake. The lemon curd is to die for. We both loved all of those. I did not like the egg based butter cream at all. It tasted like I frosted the cake with a stick of butter, and had a nasty after taste. My sister and I have made three special occasion cakes that served 100-150. We received rave reviews by our friends. The cakes all disappeared which did not happen before we started using the cake bible. I have incorporated some of her methods in my other baking as well with improved results. I like the fact that she explains the why's and what for's of baking. She has an excellent trouble shooting guide on page 476. One thing I found was that you need to use the size and depth pans that she recommends. I started with three inch deep pans, since then I have purchased the 2" deep pans that all most all her recipes call for. Make sure you have a good oven thermometer and that you use the exact temperature she recommends. If you don't have a 5 quart stand mixer you will be frustrated with these recipes. I started out with a kitchenaid 5 speed hand mixer. My first cakes tasted great but all fell in the middle. It was rather frustrating. My sister bought me a kitchenaid stand mixer and since then my cakes have been beautiful. (With Rose's help) I have ordered the Bread Bible and the Pie and Pastry Bible as well. I hope my results with those Books will be as good as I have experienced with the Cake Bible.
Rating:
Summary: Best Cookbook Bar None
Review: If you are the kind of person who loves boxed cakes with Crisco icing that's so sweet it burns your teeth, don't bother with this book. If on the other hand you actually possess working taste buds, you will find that this cookbook offers the finest selection of cake recipes in existence. Although there are some very elaborate recipes in this book, the heart and soul of it is in the basic cakes and icings. Ms. Levy has gone back and actually taken the trouble to figure out what makes cake work and has therefore been able to improve on recipes and methods. Most of the recipes in this book exchange sweetness for flavor. Therefore the chocolate cake has a deep, intense chocolate-y taste that requires a complimentary icing (or at least a glass of milk). That's the way cake is supposed to be (before they added all the preservatives and moisturizers). If anyone disliked the buttercream icing they either didn't make it right or they are out of their mind. I personally don't care for icings made with egg yolks (too rich) but the icing made with beaten egg whites is pretty much the best thing you could ever frost a cake with and (as stated in the book) flavors magnificently. Ms. Levy's raspberry sauce is better and more intense than most of the sauces I've had in the best restaurants and the same holds true for most of the other fillings. If anyone doubts that this book is a treasure I offer the simple fact of wedding cakes. To wit, how many times have you seen people actually eat and enjoy a wedding cake? Usually most of it is left over to be thrown out (appropriately). When I have made wedding cakes using this book there has never been a crumb left and people talk about it for years afterward. Baking is tricky, it's not like cooking where you can make adjustments to fix things. I'm quite surprised when a baking recipe works right off the bat, I expect to blow it the first time out. This book is not about following a few simple steps and cranking out a good cake. This cake is for people who love to bake, love cake and want to become a better baker and learn how to make the types of cakes that suit their palate. Properly used this book can give you the tools to create your own style of cakes that will in time become identified with you by everyone who experiences them. The Cake Bible is one of the foundational cookbooks in my collection and by far the most often used. I agree that the binding could be better but who needs photos of plain chocolate cake? Books with pictures are for coffee tables, this book is for the kitchen. I would recommend it to anyone with a passion for baking.
Rating: 
Summary: Finally, High Altitude Recommendations!
Review: I live at an elevation of nearly 5,000 feet and this is the first book I have found that addresses baking at high altitude! I have been trying to teach myself to bake cakes for about 4 years now and they have been a disappointing 4 years--until I found this book. I searched many baking books only to be disappointed with their lacks of high altitude recommendations. As soon as I read the section of recommeneded adjustments for baking at high altitude in The Cake Bible I quickly made the sour cream cake and it turned out FABULOUSLY! The crumb was perfect! I decreased the leaving and increased the flour. Finally, success! No more wet cakes that cave in the middle. There are soooo many cakes I want to try in this book and now I have the tools necessary to bake with success. Thank you Rose!
Rating:
Summary: "Too much butter?" Yes, it is possible...
Review: This book is the source of the single-most-baked-cake in my household: the white chocolate whisper cake. Rose Levy Berenbaum shows her genious in this one simple recipe. Not only does the white chocolate add wonderful flavor, but because it melts at a different temperature than butter, it stands up better to icing and cutting while still melting in your mouth! This cookbook is full of such wonderful gems--recipes that produce not good cakes, but *amazing* cakes. This book is aimed at someone with a bit of experience in the kitchen. Pretty much everything is measured by weight, as is normal with professional pastry chefs since it's much more accurate than measuring dry ingredients by volume or eggs by number of eggs. Some of the more complex creations will require experience, an artistic hand, and/or specialized equipment, but even if you don't want to make those, the basic recipes are stupendous. The fruit sauces meant to go with the cakes, for example, make us swoon! Try serving that white chocolate whisper cake, for example, with a raspberry sauce. My one complaint about this cookbook is the icings. Buttercream icings, in my experience, come in three varieties: lots of shortening (blech!), lots of butter, or lots of sugar. I'm really not fond of the lots-of-butter variety, as I find that it unpleasantly masks the flavor of the cake beneath. Unfortunately the buttercream frostings in this cookbook are of the lots-of-butter variety. Do keep in mind that many of the recipes in this cookbook are *not* aimed at beginners. It's a great primer, though, for anyone who wants to make a true exploration into the world of cake-baking!
Rating:
Summary: Cake baking primer
Review: This is a wonderful book and tho in possession of 2 bookshelves full of baking books, this is one i always return to. Her instructions are always very detailed, leaving no guesses for the beginner to the advanced baker. All her recipes that I've tried seem to be foolproof (and appreciated at all my german in-laws functions) and the range of cakes in this book (catering to bakers of all levels) lives up to its name - a real cake bible (unlike some other cake book authors). From basic pound cakes to cheesecakes, chiffon and angel food cakes to the more complicated tortes, Rose's got a variety for her readers to choose from. I won't trade this book for any other book in my shelf.After having this book, I won't buy any Sara Lee pound cake anymore - even when I'm screaming for time. Rose's pound cake tastes 10 times more heavenly. In fact, this book's so well-loved and used that I've got to get 2 more copies - one for my mom and another to replace a tattered copy.
Rating:
Summary: don't read if you're hungry
Review: I love to read cookbooks, and this one is one of my favorites. The author goes into great deal about why each cake the way it is, and gives wonderful directions for creating your own delicious desserts. Many of the cakes are far more work than I will ever want to put in, but I still enjoy reading about how to make such fabulous creations.
Rating:
Summary: A Partial Cake Bible
Review: There are many cake cookbooks available, but I am not comfortable with recommending any of them. The Cake Bible by Beranbaum is the only one I can recommend without reservation, as the recipes and techniques all work. On the whole, I like this book quite a bit and use it fairly often as a reference. The author has done wedding cakes professionally for many years, and this cookbook is a compendium of tried and true recipes that she has used. This is both good and bad. These are baking recipes that are battle tested and ones that you can rely upon, especially on special occassions. On the other hand, it is a very personal collection of production recipes, and you will not find several common cake types because she has not done them in her professional experience. Several recipe types, such as butter cakes, genoise, and buttercreams, are very different from the usual ones that you will find in other baking books. This is because they are a record of the author's efforts, and not just a mechanical recapitulation of standard patissierie recipes. The procedures at first seemed to be unnecessarily finicky, and had a few extra steps that did not seem to be necessary. On the other hand, I had no problems with any of the ones I tried. The procedures are often unique; while the results were not better than standard recipes, they can, in some cases, be slightly easier to execute than standard recipes, which are more prone to failure by the home baker. The arrangement of the cakes chapter is particularly useful. It assumes that you will work methodically through the chapter, baking each cake as you go, and not just pick out recipes at random. It lists pound cakes first, and ends up with genoise-type cakes, which makes more sense than the usual order, which is the other way around; foam-based cakes are the most difficult. Interestingly, only the first 160 pages of this 550 page book relates to cakes. 60 pages go to showcase cakes, 200 pages to decoration, fillings and frostings, 50 pages to ingredients and equipment, and 70 pages for professionals (including extensive insturctions of wedding cakes; I cannot vouch for this section, since I have never made a wedding cake). There are some criticisms, but they are mostly ones of omission. Many of the page references are wrong. I object to the suggestion of leaving eggs and chocolate in a warm oven overnight to get them to the proper temperature. Cornstarch is substituted for part of the flour in genoise, but this was not any better than just straight flour. The instructions for waffles are for an old-fashioned, stove top iron and not an electric one. The instructions for making the rose trellis are incomplete. The table of contents need to be more detailed. The chapter subheadings in Part III are used inconsistently. The flavor-cake-filling-frosting combinations the author suggests are not the classic ones; you will need another patissierie book if you need the traditional ones. On the positive side, all the wedding cakes described have pictures. There are several different recipes for chocolate genoise (including one without added butter), one of my favorites. There is also an old fashioned mayonnaise cake. The 2 pancake recipes are ones with whipped egg whites, but none with the plain old baking powder. The only reservation I have is that this book is not all that friendly or instructive for beginners. For them, I would suggest that you bake some cakes from the first 150 page section and ignore the rest of the book until you become more advanced, making sure that you go through this section in order rather than skipping around.
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Reference
Review: I won't cover ground already reviewed. This is an excellent reference for those experimenting with cakes, and certainly this woman is a master artist in the practice of decorating. I wouldn't buy this as a first cake book, though, as techniques are covered more thoroughly elsewhere. For people wanting to bake a cake for work, for a bake sale, etc., I'd recommend Bevelyn Blair's "Everyday Cakes", which isn't as fancy, but very practical. This is a great read, though.
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