Baking at Home with the Culinary Institute of America

I too have had a little difficulty with some of the recipes, but nothing major. My bread was done about 10 minutes before the baking time given, but was able to rescue it since I was watching. I love how thorough the introductions and what not are. I had no idea about the development of gluten and how essential it is to a good bread. I'm still working my way through this book but would recommend it to anyone who enjoys baking.

When I first started to learn how to bake, this book proved to be invaluable. It covers a lot of the techniques and basic recipes. I really appreciate the variety of different baked goods to provide the home baker with an arsenal of crowd pleasers. I do have to offer a warning, though. No book can truly substitute a hands on learning course. As much as book can describe what the right stage is for mixing dough for choux for cream puffs, it does not compare to someone who is experienced standing beside you and telling you what you are doing wrong. I maximized the use out of this book because I enrolled in a fundamental baking class. It also helped me to hone many of the recipes. The success of the recipes partly lies in the quality of ingredients the baker selects. I recommend that if you don't go cheap, then most of the recipes should turn out fine. Another challenge that I discovered in baking is that my oven sucks - and this plays a large large role in the success of some of the recipes. I had to adapt many of them to accommodate the deficiencies of my oven. Addressing some of the criticisms of the volume vs weight, there is a reason for this, though not great. The original series of books by CIA, such as The Professional Chef, deal with training exactly that, professional chefs. Therefore the recipes are for 10 or more servings and all are given in weight. This book is more like an excerpt and development from their other book. The problem is that this approach is not "friendly" to many home cooks/bakers as they are accustomed to dealing in volume (or mired in tradition). I figure it was a bit of a compromise in order to sell more books that were appealing to general public. This makes some sense in that measuring cups are cheaper than scales that can weigh out several pounds, and I don't have to have a separate bowl for each thing I weigh. Can you imagine the frustration in a recipe written for 9 cakes requiring 9 pounds and 3 oz of flour, then trying to convert this to proportions for 1 cake? Not only would I need a digital scale, but also a calculator!

This is a totally awesome baking cookbook for the, obviously titled, at-home-baker. The recipes are terrific. I have wow-ed many of my friends with recipes from this book and I don't mind giving away my secrets of where I found the recipe. Once I tell them, everyone says "Oh yeah, no wonder" because they know the recipes come from such an instrumental institution in the culinary world, you wouldn't expect anything less. If you want a book that's not too complicated, yet challenging and entertaining, then this is the book for you. It's a book well worth its price.

My dream is to one day own a small bakery in my community. I have read several books on the business, and on baking itself. Every recipe in this book is enough to start you off on the types of products a good bakery should have. I have made about 6 of the recipes and they turned out very well. As intimidating as they might look I encourage anyone who reads this book to try them; just take your time and use the correct measurements. If you're interested in seriuos baking let this be the first book you buy. Great photos and each step is explained in very easy to understand terms. Truely on of the best books on the art of baking.

I have been buying up a storm on instructional cooking books lately and I figured this one would be a great way to get my feet wet in the realm of baking, which is an area that I have ignored for awhile. After having read it, I have a good deal of confidence now in taking the plunge into baking to see if I can do it. The book is very instructional, talks at a level which is easily understood and is well-organized. While the first part of the book is instructional in nature, a good 75% of it is recipes. And they look wonderful! My ONLY gripe is that I like pictures to accompany each recipe. I realize that this is largely an unrealistic expectation, but I am certainly more inclined to make something that I can see a beautiful photo of, than one where I can only read the description. There are a good number of recipes which have no photo, but a majority of them do, and they all look delicious. I would recommend this book to anyone looking to get more involved in baking. Experienced bakers can skip right past the instructional part and dive right into the great recipes used by the world class CIA. Everyone's a winner!