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The Cake Bible

The Cake Bible

List Price: $35.00
Your Price: $23.10
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Best Cake Book Ever!!!
Review: All the recipes are delicious, precise & easy to follow. Add a little imaginative ideas of yours and you'll have cakes perfect for all occasions.
Truly the cake bakers' must-haves!!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Good and Bad
Review: The cakes are very good. The All American Chocolate cake recipe turned out great first time. I like the use of weights as well as volumetric measurements in the recipes. Now for the not-so-good: the buttercream frosting recipes are just awful.

This weekend we made five batches of buttercream frosting following the recipe instructions exactly and each time the frosting came out tasting like whipped butter; greasy and overpowering and ruining the taste of the cake. We used unsalted Land-O-Lakes brand butter.

While the cake recipes are worthwhile, the frosting section is so wanting that I would consider looking further if you need a book that has good cake AND frosting recipes.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: i'm the author!
Review: My new book, The Bread Bible, is finally out! This is the first time in several years that I have had time to visit this site and I am once again rewarded with such encouraging and interesting comments. I've also given the criticisms serious thought and one that I've taken most to heart was that the book falls apart through use. I'm sure there are many who will be happy to hear that I have won that battle with my publisher by offering to take a lower royalty in order to have a stitched binding! This also helps the book to lie flat. I'd also like to take this opportunity to point out that though Dean G. Bornstein is listed above as author, he in fact was not the author (that's me!) but the illustrator. Incidentally, next month the Cake Bible will be 15 years old! Thank you again for taking the time to give me such intelligent and fascinating feedback. I hope you will enjoy my new book as much as I have in writing it.
Warmest wishes,
Rose

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Worst cookbook I own
Review: The narrative tone of this book is really obnoxious and arrogant, and I'm put off every time I open it. More importantly, the recipes are just not good. I make lots of occasion cakes, and they come out much better from other recipes or when I experiment on my own. The special occasion cakes are mostly too fussy and time-consuming and contrived. I can't believe it's still in print. After 10 years of owning it and being optimistic every time I try something in it, I'm donating it to my local library. If you want a good cake/pastry cookbook, try Jacques Torres's books.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Supremely detailed; a perfect cake every time
Review: Do not be put off by the length of the recipes; they're not complicated but just extremely detailed, ensuring perfect results. I've made a few cakes from this book (lemon-poppyseed pound cake, buttermilk cake, chocolate oblivion truffle torte) and each one has been great -- especially the impressive chocolate torte.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: I'll Pass!
Review: I had been baking for some time when I bought this book. The cakes I made came out dry, although I was careful when following directions. The real disaster was the buttercream which a) used a ridiculous amount of butter, and b) iced my cake, the plate and then the countertop! It just did not set up at all. I think I'll find another source for cakemaking - like Kaufeehaus!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Bible Says It All
Review: They don't call this The Cake Bible for nothing. Rose is so long-winded with her details that the only way you could go wrong with these recipes is if you fell asleep reading them or your mind wandered off while reading them.

Her crustless cheesecake recipe is a standard in our house. We add food coloring to it for the different holidays. It is absolutely the best cheesecake, besides, if you do make a crust with your cheescake it is soggy the next day.

Anyways, check our her other books, too. If this is the only cake baking book you ever buy or receive, consider yourself quite lucky.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Cake Recipes Galore!
Review: This book has been hailed by professionals and amateurs alike in the realm of baking. It was even awarded The International Association of Culinary Professionals Cookbook of the Year.

The recipes are organized into Cakes, Complementary Adornments for all Cakes, Ingredients and Equipment, and a Special Section for Professionals and Passionate Amateurs. There is a Special Categories Index which lists recipes organized by special dietary needs, such as no cholesterol recipes, quick cakes, and even cakes for Passover. With the hundreds of cakes listed in this book, there are only pictures for 50 of the recipes.

I baked the Chocolate Bread Pound Cake recipe on page 28. All of the ingredients were readily on hand: cocoa powder, water, vanilla, eggs, flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and butter. The recipe listed the number of servings, ingredients by both measure and weight, an illustration of suggested pans, finished height, storage guidelines, adornment suggestion, serving temperature, and even pointers for success. This finished cake came out very dry. So dry, in fact, that I just threw it away. In the understanding section of this recipe, they suggest using a syrup for extra moistness. If I needed this recipe in the future, I would be sure to use the syrup with it.

I also used the Chocolate Ganache recipe on page 269. Her directions on using the food processor to prepare the ganache really saved time, and produced a perfectly smooth finished product. The recipe produces enough ganache to fill and frost two 8x1.5" layers or two 9x1" layers. The ganache is a delicious finish to a cake, and I use it often with dense chocolate cakes.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: False Advertising
Review: I have been so disappointed in this book that I am not sure where to begin. The recipes are awful. I have been baking for many years and I have never had any problems following recipes. I love Maida Heatter and have had great success with Martha Stewart and many recipes from Gourmet and Bon Appetit. I begged my husband to get me this book for Christmas because it is supposed to be THE cake book. Each cake recipe I have tried has turned out dry and flavorless. The buttercream frosting recipes leave a slick feel in your mouth that is hard to get rid of and my husband felt like he might as well just eaten whipped butter (they were not sweet, nor have flavor). I tried the ultra stabilized whipped cream recipe several times (you are supposed to be able to pipe roses with it) and it came out watery and less stiff than when I just whipped it up plain. I keep trying recipes in here thinking that there must be something to all the rave reviews and I have found no recipes that I would ever bake again.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: The recipes don't work.
Review: As an experienced baker, I found The Cake Bible very disappointing. The recipes just don't work. The cakes come out very dry, or not cooked enough in the middle, etc. The author gives very explicit instructions for each recipe, and I followed them all to the letter. My oven temperature is perfect. And after all that work, you come out with a cake that just isn't good. There are plenty of other books out there that are so much better (anything by Nick Malgieri or Carole Walter, for instance) yet The Cake Bible is always considered THE BOOK. Forget it!


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