The Cake Bible :: Education by Design Store

Customer Reviews

The ultimate authority on cakes

2008-08-29
Rose Levy Berenbaum has written the last word on baking beautiful and delicious cakes at home. Period. End of Story. Her approach is precise and scientific, as all good baking must be. Her instructions are detailed and, if followed precisely--and with the requisite skills--are absolutely foolproof.

So why the negative reviews? Well, folks, the truth is that most home cooks who think they know about how to bake actually don't have a clue. Either they rely on a handful of tried-and-true recipes or they take refuge in boxed mixes and prefab frostings. Berenbaum's book is not directed to these folks. They need to go on making their pineapple upside down cakes and Gramma's Famous Pound Cake, and sticky-sweet peach cobbler and Minty Easter Surprise Cupcakes.

Baking is NOT an easy skill to learn at the Rose Berenbaum/Paula Peck level. In the first place, beginners reared on box cakes must learn what real cake looks like, feels like, and tastes like. Then they need to realize that part of the reason that box cakes taste so foul is because the manufacturers have poured them full of conditioners and assorted chemicals to make them as foolproof as possible. Becoming a serious baker means learning a new set of skills. Consider your typical yellow cake from a mix. You can slam the door, drop the pan, or probably detonate a small nuclear device right beside the oven and the cake won't fall. Try that with a "real" cake and you'll end up with a nasty, dense pancake in the bottom of the pan. So if you're going to use Berenbaum's book to greatest advantage, you're going to have to devote some time to climbing the learning curve. As a starting point (for the benefit of some of the negative reviewers) genoise IS dry, that's why you moisten it. And buttercream DOES taste like butter...

For the experienced home baker, this book cannot be recommended too highly. And for the beginner who is willing to learn, it can be a great adventure. The first time you fly up from Duncan Hines to a wonderful, syrup-laden genoise with a ganache filling and buttercream on the top and sides, you'll never look back. Enjoy!!!

Understanding Baking

2008-08-28
This is an excellent book that helps you understand why you need to use specific items and what results to expect when you do or don't. I changed many of my pans and added utensils & gadgets and received better baking results.

Excellent recepies

2008-08-01
I bought this book a few months ago. My first cake was the Golden Almond cake. I have tried other recipes from other books, and never comes out the way is suppose to, but with this book, I have not made a recipe that I do not like yet. I made the Perfect Pound Cake, and I have gotten great reviews on it. Also made the all American Chocolate cake and the Devils Food cake, plus others. I have follow the recipes to the T and better yet weight my ingredients as described. For the first time I have found a book that will give what it says. Rose Levy Beranbaum has a golden book. My aunt fell in love with the book too, and I have to give her my book, because I could not get it to ship to Puerto Rico. Of course, I end up getting me another book. It is definitely the Cake Bible. I love this book, and I would be lost without it. I recommend it to anyone.

the worst recipes

2008-07-12
I bought this book (quite expensive) and was so excited about trying the recipes. I read from beginning to end, and decided these cakes must be awsome. Boy OH BOY! I have been baking for awhile with great results, but these recipes were a disaster. Horribly dry, buttercreams tasted like whipped butter. No matter what liquers you added they still tasted horribly bland. The PERFECT ALL AMERICAN CHOCOLATE CAKE was any but perfect. All I did was waste my time, money, and great ingredients. The cakes were dry dry dry and did I mention BLAND. Even when you added the syrup it was still awfull. I am really suprised to see how many people thought this book was any worth anyone time.

Wonderful recipes

2008-07-03
Haven't tried a recipe from this book yet that has failed in any way. The recipes are really excellent and her presentations are out of this world. Although some are quite labor intensive, the outcome is worth the effort. Highly recommend this book to any aspiring baker who wants to make an impact or impress with a cake. Wonderful!

Cake bible- confusing

2008-06-21

"If you ever bake a cake, this book will become your partner in the kitchen."
-- from the foreword by Maida Heatter

This is the classic cake cookbook that enables anyone to make delicious, exquisite cakes. As a writer for food magazines, women's magazines, and newspapers, including The New York Times, Rose Levy Beranbaum's trademark is her ability to reduce the most complex techniques to easy-to-follow recipes. Rose makes baking a joy. This is the definitive work on cakes by the country's top cake baker.

The Cake Bible shows how to:

Mix a buttery, tender layer cake in under five minutes with perfect results every time

Make the most fabulous chocolate cake you ever imagined with just three ingredients

Find recipes for every major type of cake, from pancakes to four-tiered wedding cakes

Make cakes with less sugar but maximum flavor and texture

Make many low- to no- cholesterol, low-saturated-fat recipes

not a good choice

2008-05-08
I thought it was just me until I read these reviews. I am a busy working wife and mother who has tried many times over the last 9 years to make cakes from this book with no success. I like the flavor of the white whisper cake but like all of the cakes in this book I have to double the recipe to get enough batter to make a decent sized cake. And yes, they never cook in the center. I am throwing this book out so I won't be tempted to waste my time trying to make her recipes work.

star book

2008-04-22
This is one of those learning books. I have learned so much about the science of baking a cake! Watch out Alton Brown! Seriously, if your are very interested in everything about cakes this is the book for you. The only reason I gave is four stars is because most of the recipes I tried weren't phenomenal. She makes them sound sooo good, but I wasn't blown away. I do, however love this book, only because it has taught me everything I know about cakes, and has helped me develop my own recipes!

Cake Baking

2008-04-07
This is a great cake recipe book. Rose knows how to turn out great recipes. You can make better cakes using this cookbook than going to the store and buying those cake mixes. You'll get more compliments too. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to use this cookbook. Just go buy butter, cake flour and fresh eggs.

Guys, if I can bake a cake, so can you

2008-02-23
My wife and I both cook. Its something we do because we enjoy good food and cannot see blowing our budget on restaurant fare. Hence we are both fans of good cook books. There are a number of great books out there on cooking, but when it comes to baking I could never find a book that seemed to work for me (my wife, on the other hand, is quite good at it, no matter what the book).

I was about to come to the conclusion that baking must be something only females in general, or CIA trained Chefs can do until I came across Rose Beranbaum's Cake Bible. She explains cake baking in terms that are both informative and interesting. She also combines the mind of a chemist with the heart of an artist.

I invested in an inexpensive electronic scale, read through her ingredients and process descriptions, and started baking cakes. I was amazed that I finally could produce a cake that was beyond edible, indeed they were excellent! My earlier trials, pre-Rose, could have been used to up-armor HumVees.

So, hats off to Rose for this must have book. I am so enthused about her work that I ordered her other two Bibles (on Pastry and on Bread). I look forward to seeing if those books match the high benchmark she has set with her Cake Bible.