Rating: 
Summary: Flawless Recipes
Review: I have baked my way through this fabulous cookbook for the last couple of years and have yet to come across a better cookbook for baking. Actually, I have to respectfully disagree with the reviewer who recommends Rose Levy Beranbaum's Pie & Pastry Bible over Pastries from the La Brea Bakery. Though I love Beranbaum's Cake Bible, I have found the recipes in The Pie & Pastry Bible to be fussy and rarely turn out as promised. I consider myself a fairly experienced baker, but have always been intimidated by pastry. Yet I have tried several pastries from this cookbook and all have turned out beautifully (including the Pumpkin Pie, which is indeed the best I have ever had and got rave reviews from my Thanksgiving guests). The directions are clear and easy to follow and the sections on muffins, quickbreads, and scones will keep the novice baker busy for a while until she or he gets up the courage to try the croissants and tarts. Pity not the poor bride who gets this for a wedding gift --maybe her husband will give it a try while she's at work. One word of caution --get ready to spend some money on kitchen equipment if you get addicted to Nancy Silverton's fabulous recipes. Some of them require cake rings and molds most home bakers don't have on hand. However, lest you be discouraged by that warning, I also have to say that many of the recipes require basic pans and tools.
Rating: 
Summary: Hard to follow directions
Review: I recently purchased Nancy Silverton's Pastries from the La Brea Bakery and while I'm very excited and intrigued by many of the recipes and flavor combinations, I have a few issues with some of the directions given. for example, I tried the recipe for "Viennese Cream Brioche" - a circle of rich brioche filled with creme fraiche. For one thing the directions say to divide the dough into 12 parts and roll into five-inch rounds, then place the rounds on a baking sheet to rise. Obviously 12 five-inch rounds will not fit on a standard home cookie sheet, so you will have to use at least two pans and bake in shifts. OK, I can deal with this oversight, but when baked the filling did not "set" as the recipe indicated. In fact it separated into a greasy mess and never set up. Very frustrating and waste of good brioche dough. Some of these issues could be cleared up with a few extra photos or diagrams. Another example: in a recipe for a "Princess Ring" you are instructed to roll croissant dough around a filling and then form it into a ring, then "along the inside of the ring, about 2 inches from where the 2 ends meet, make a cut 2 inches deep, cutting 3/4 of the way through to the outside edge. Make 5 more cuts evenly spaced along the inside of the ring". I re-read this direction many times and still can't figure out what I'm supposed to do or what the finished pastry should look like. I'm an experienced baker who doesn't need a photo of a scone or muffin to know what one looks like, and I certainly wasn't expecting a glossy coffee table show piece, but a couple line drawings or photos of key steps would have really helped this book.
Rating: 
Summary: The best pastry chef and baker?
Review: I want be available to tell you, this book is so boring
Hardly any pictures none in colour I don't no how the product suppose to look like lengthy explanation who do not make you feel like baking or even in appetite I am a pastry chef mi self and own a large collection of cooking book from Women Weekly to highly sophisticated professionals one, this one will have to be the worst one
Rating:
Summary: Superior pastry making
Review: I've made numerous recipes out of this cookbook, and have had great results with most all of them. The author provides very clear and concise instructions that are easy enough for virtually anyone to follow and produce good results. Admittedly, some of the ingredients / equipment are specialty items, but the result is well worth the extra effort. The Creme Fraiche Coffee Cake, touted as the best coffee cake ever, was indeed just that; the Breakfast Bars, while somewhat time-consuming, were fabulous, and the Farmhouse Tortes, a recipe so quick and simple that I whipped it up in just minutes, were simply divine. If you enjoy baking, this is a must for your collection. BTW - King Arthur Flour (kingarthurflour.com) is a great source for some of the specialty ingredients (including unbleached pastry flour) and tools required for some of these recipes.
Rating:
Summary: A must-have for your cookbook collection
Review: I've made numerous recipes out of this cookbook, and have had great results with most all of them. The author provides very clear and concise instructions that are easy enough for virtually anyone to follow and produce good results. Admittedly, some of the ingredients / equipment are specialty items, but the result is well worth the extra effort. The Creme Fraiche Coffee Cake, touted as the best coffee cake ever, was indeed just that; the Breakfast Bars, while somewhat time-consuming, were fabulous, and the Farmhouse Tortes, a recipe so quick and simple that I whipped it up in just minutes, were simply divine. If you enjoy baking, this is a must for your collection. BTW - King Arthur Flour (kingarthurflour.com) is a great source for some of the specialty ingredients (including unbleached pastry flour) and tools required for some of these recipes.
Rating:
Summary: Magnificent Pastries...
Review: I've tried numerous recipes since I received the book last fall. And they all came out simply magnificent... however it helps greatly if you're an experienced baker. If you are new to baking, seek other books such as Lora Brody's Basic Baking, etc. Silverton's new book is full of treasures...many of them are now staples in my kitchen - crumb biscotti, dunkers, almond pound cake, bran muffins, pumpkin pie..to name a few. Check the apple pie recipe in Silverton's other book The Food of Campanile..its absolutely the best apple pie ever created!
Rating:
Summary: Great--if you're a professional baker!
Review: Nancy Silverton sure doesn't like anything--she hates pumpkin pie and Rice Krispie squares--and most Americans who don't have access to her pricey bakery. Considering she just sold her baking enterprise for 55 million to an overseas conglomerate, this cook-book is only a small piece of a sideline. This book is very fun to read but it's very hard to follow the recipes if you're not a very experienced baker with a raft of equipment. Pity the poor bride who gets this as a wedding gift! Rose Levy Birnbaum's Cake Bible and Pie and Pastry Bible are much more detailed, with clear directions that walk the novice baker through the steps. If you're a big-time foodie, this book is no doubt a must, but since most foodies aren't going to actually cook from their prized volumes, the caveats about the receipes won't matter. If you actually want to learn to bakr, I'd look elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: A good idea book, but not written with the home cook in mind
Review: Nancy Silverton's Pastries from the LaBrea Bakery is a mouthwatering delight. The book is divided into ten sections: quickcakes and quickbreads; savories; cobblers, crisps, and crumbles; cookies; scones; muffins; tarts; morning pastries; doughnuts; and confections. The recipes all sounded delicious, and I was eager to start making many of them. However, I found the recipes to be overly complex, particularly for the more rustic offerings. Most recipes require unbleached pastry flour, which can be difficult to find (unbleached all-purpose flour is an acceptable alternative). Ms. Silverton uses extra large eggs, while most other cookbooks use large (no recommendations are made on how to substitute one for the other). Most vexing was the repeated use of odd measurements, such as "1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar". When making an apple crisp, is it really necessary to measure ingredients that precisely? I suspect that these odd measurements come either from scaling down larger recipes, or from converting ingredients measured by weight to volume equivalents (with the exception of butter and a few other ingredients, weights are not provided). This is a good book for ideas and as reference. It could have been much better with more consideration of the needs of the home baker.
Rating:
Summary: A fine range of savory pastries as well as sweet dishes
Review: Pastries from the La Brea Bakery shares Silverton's passion for pastries with over 150 of her favorites featured in La Brea Bakery. This includes a fine range of savory pastries as well as sweet dishes: instructions for classic doughs will appeal to beginners while those more advanced will delight in innovative recipes such as Black Currant Silk Tart and Nectarine Ginger Crisp. An appealing title, sans photos.
Rating:
Summary: Family favorite - Raspberry Bars
Review: Starting with the raspberry bars and going through the book, Silverton does a great job in bringing classic American favorites to our tables. I'm an experienced baker, educated by Maida Heatter's books. In between then and now I have collected hundreds of cookbooks and Pastries From LaBrea Bakery is up there in my top 10. It's takes time and patience to learn any craft. You have to collect good equipment and have a pantry ready. But why bother making it if it's not great???
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