Nick Malgieri's Perfect Pastry

I have over 100 cookbooks by now, and this book remains my top reference to attack any baking project. Nick Malgieri is an excellent teacher and this book provides all the instruction you need to execute and understand baking. I am less of a baker and more of a cook, but this book has helped me produce perfect results on one try. From this book, I first learned to make a flaky pie crust and taught my 9 year old nephew to make cream puffs!

Nick Malgieri is one of the two or three most commonly referenced baking writers in modern American books on pastry (what the French call patisserie, as opposed to bread baking or boulangerie). The others by my informal survey are probably Maida Heatter and Flo Braker, with Lindsey Shere a close third or fourth. Before reading this book, `Perfect Pastry', I was at a loss to see the basis for his influence. His more recent book `How to Bake' is a great book of recipes for cakes, cookies, pies, tarts, bread, pizzas, muffins, and the like, and I use it as my `go to first' book when I want to try something new, and I have never been disappointed by the recipes I found therein. But the book is nothing but recipes. There are none of the whys and wherefores I always rate so highly in books such as the outstanding `The Secrets of Baking' by Sherry Yard. In `Perfect Pastry', I have found much which justifies the high regard in which Nick Malgieri is held by his colleagues.Before I can intelligently rank this book, it is important to spell out where it fits into the world of books on patisserie. There are at least two different scales along which a pastry book may fall. The extremes of the first scale range from `strictly recipes', which you will find in books by Gale Gand and David Lebowitz to very high in teaching and explanation content as in this book and Sherry Yard's `The Secrets of Baking'.The second scale ranges from highly specific content such as `cookies', `cakes', `pies', `fruit desserts', `chocolate', or even `cupcakes' to very general books. `Perfect Pastry' is intermediate between the general and the specific, as it covers pies, tarts, cake sponges, cake decorating, and cake filling, but it does not cover much about cookies.Malgieri's concentration on pastry, cake sponges, and cake icings and fillings in this volume is a very, very good thing, as he covers this subject and allied matters such as ingredients to a depth I simply have not seen elsewhere. This book comes in a very close second to Sherry Yard's book as my favorite source of instruction on pastry. Yard's book may win by a nose because it is more fun to read and some explanations have a greater depth than you will find in `Perfect Pastry'. On the other hand, Malgieri's book covers a somewhat broader scope. His discussion of ingredients such as fruits and nuts alone is worth the price of admission. The third excellent pastry book I have recently reviewed is Flo Braker's `The Simple Art of Perfect Baking', which shares many of the excellent qualities found in `Perfect Pastry' with which it shares the distinction of being recently reissued with new editions. Malgieri, Braker, and Yard all approach pastry with some variation on the `master recipe' approach.It is instructive to see how each of them teaches genoise. Malgieri takes the most general approach when he classifies genoise as one of the several different kinds of sponges that may be built into cakes. Braker separates cakes into

Nick Malgieri has done it again. I have nearly all his cookbooks and they are all winners. In "Perfect Pastry," he gives not only superb, basic recipes (and some that are not so basic), but he concentrates on imparting his many years of experience to the reader via techniques and calm, sure guidance. Having trouble making flaky piecrust? Malgieri calms you down and gives you the tools to start fresh. Want a fresh spin on a brioche? Malgieri has them here in spades. I haven't tried every single recipe in the book, but I've made many of them and have yet to be disappointed. What really shines through here is Malgieri's intelligence and his people skills. It's clear that his experience as a pastry teacher at Peter Kump's cooking school in Manhattan gives him a voice of authority and a sense of purpose and confidence. He is a master at relaying information in a manner that is not only clear and concise, but that makes it sound--well, not easy, perhaps, but definitely doable. This kitchen classic is aimed at every cook from beginner to professional chef. If you enjoy baking, you could hardly ask for a better book of recipes or a better culinary reference on the topic.

When I get ready to bake something, I generally consult this book first. It is organized well and provides all the basic techniques (as well as some advanced ones), that I need for probably 75 percent of the baking projects I do. Even if I don't use Nick's recipes I use the techniques that are in the book. The techniques are explained well, with good pictures to support the text (or vice versa). I also can make my own creations built on the building blocks in this book. I even take the ideas, recipes, or flavor combinations from other sources and modify them so they use Nick's techniques or proportions or components.98 percent of everything I've tried from this book has worked and tasted good (usually very good or excellent). This is a cookbook classic.

Perfect Pastry by Nick Malgieri works becuase you feel like you are looking over his shoulder. Nick's books give you the basics of "why" and "how": How to make perfect whipped cream, chocolate, pie fillings and cakes. "Why" the techniques work so that you may apply them to all of your baking for the the rest of your life. An essential work for those who are serious about baking.