The Art of the Cake: Modern French Baking and Decorating

I'm a French cake enthusiast & home baker. I've been spending a lot of time trying to find the perfect French cake & buttercream recipes, and after reading & trying recipes from several books on the subject, I have to say "The Art of the Cake" is the best. The book does not have lots of pretty pictures, but trust me, the taste of your first successful "Moka" or "Clichy" would give you enough inspiration to go on. It took me several tries to perfect the genoise recipes, just because I didn't follow the recipe to the letter. The genoise is drier than the American sponge cake, but it's exactly this dryness that makes it go so well with the heavy syrup & buttercream. I also like the fact that all of the cake recipes call for regular flour, NOT that cake flour that can give such an artificial (or cake-mix-like) taste to the finished cake. However it would have been nice if the author had provided a "white genoise" recipe as well. The coffee & praline buttercream recipes are easy to make and taste just as good as the buttercream from the best local French bakery here. Some of the layered cakes in the book are pretty time-consuming to make, but the end results are well worth it. One thing about the instructions that I don't like is that they don't give you a time estimate on most of the steps, for example, how long to beat the eggs, how long to stir the egg/milk mixture on the burner, etc. Granted that they tell you the mixture would look a certain way when it's done, but still it would be nice to know how long it usually takes to achieve such state so you don't have to wonder if you're there yet all the time. Also giving a time estimate for every step, or even just a single estimate for the entire recipe, would help you to plan much better. Still, this is the most usable French cake baking book I've ever owned. It's too bad that the authors do not have more books on cakes, must be because that all of their best recipes are already here!

If you want to learn french cake making techniques, this book is for you. The first part teaches how to make each kind of cake (pound cake, sponge cake and flan) and then the later chapters show you how to embellish the basic cake. The recipes go from rather simple to quite complicated. I found it extremely helpful in terms of learning how to make a good meringue and different kinds of buttercreams, how to use utensils, how to frost cakes properly,how to prepares various fillings, how to make many kinds of decorations for a cake. This book is not for someone who plans to buy the book today and whip up a birthday cake for tonight. It will require study and patience but the results are very well worth it and in the process you learn a lot about the art of the cake.

I would give this book a million stars if I could. Just amazing. This book is written by 2 professionals, one American, the other French. After I checked out their first book from a library, I was incredibly happy to find a new book they published. (that first book is out of print) The details in this book are great and I believe we owe this to Mr. Healy. I've long wanted to own an authentic French Pastry cookbook written in comprehensible English. And the recipes... A gold studded, mysterious looking Alhambra (read chocolate heaven), the cake in the cover, a russian strawberry cake brushed with a glistening glaze, a pink art deco piece with sour cherries embedded in its layers.. many beauties and wonderful techniques. This is no Colette Peters, or Slyvia Weinstock kind of baking, this is taste AND art. My only, only suggestion is for more pictures. Don't get me wrong they already have a few very good pictures , but I wish there was more since many people are not familiar with these cakes and it's always easier to have a picture in front of you. There is a pink cake (can't remember the french name it's got an almond paste covering) the authors have illustrated the steps needed to put it together which I also found very helpful. At the end of the book they have a 2 page pronunciation guide for Americans which is very nice. I am just going to suggest that they add more words cause it doesn't cover many in the book.I've seen french pastry books going for 100-200 bucks, ingredients measured in liters, grams, forget about them. Start out with this one. This is not a lightweight, nor a suffocating tome, you get a good introduction to french style of cakes. And friends, please throw out that Angel Food Cake Mix, it's time to layer and glaze an Alhambra!My only wish is that these 2 gentlemen continue writing on this subject. Loved it, highly recommend it to people who have an interest in cooking.

Covers: pound cake, sponge cake (genoise and variations), meringues, bavarians, charlottes, logs, frostings+fillings, ingredients, techniques, equipment.Wow, what a comprehensive book. What I like about this book is that it covers everything for a beginner, yet has a lot for the intermediate baker. It tells you a lot making and designing cakes without skimping on information about equipment and techniques, and ingredients. It tells you all the basics of how to decorate cakes, prepare pans, separate eggs, all of these very basic but vital things. Yet at the same time, it goes through step by step how to do things like creating charlottes, roll-type charlottes, put together complicated rectangular-layer cakes - all of these more intermediate techniques, and it does so in a way which makes it all seem easy. There are lots of step by step descriptions and (hand drawn) pictures of how to put each cake together. It really breaks down how to do everything. Edited addition - I've reread this book after becoming a much better pastry chef, and like it much more. The main selling point of this book is that it teaches you pastry techniques the "French" way - but does it in a way that doesn't assume you have endless time to make things and/or endless money to buy specialized equipment and ingredients. For instance, it tells you recipes for almond paste and praline (some books assume you have it in jars), and suggests using simple paint scrapers to make lines of Joconde decoration (rather than buying a ~$60 scraper from J.B. Prince). It skips many long tedious steps (making Joconde wrappings) and there are not many exotic ingredients (such as lavender, cocoa beans, passion fruit, etc..) that you find in some books. It's aimed at the intermediate who wants to learn French pastry technique. Overall great book. This book was a finalist for the IACP award in the baking category.

The most amazing cookbook I've ever bought. It breaks down a seemingly most complicated subject - French Cakes - into their constituent components. These component pieces (genoise rounds, heavy syrup, almond paste) can be made ahead and stored. These parts are then used to assemble the finished cake. The book contains detailed information on exactly how, and for how long, to store each component. Buttercream, for example, can be frozen, in single cake sized portions, for up to 3 months. Heavy syrup will last a similar amount of time, at room temperature. While the structure of most, but not all of the recipes in the book will admittedly leave you with these "leftover" portions, this does not mean that you will waste them. If you only bake a cake once a year - this is not the book for you. If, however, you want to make a showstopping cake at least every other month, there is no other book I could possibly recommend more strongly. As far as the text goes, detail is definitely the word here. This is the most comprehensive, yet easily readable and understandable book I have ever read on any subject - and I'm a librarian!