The Bakers' Manual

As someone who works in a professional pastry kitchen, I have dozens of pastry books. This is without doubt my favorite of them all and my go-to for most basic recipes. All the recipes are clearly laid out in cup measurements for 5-quart mixers and weight measurements for 20-quart mixers. The book covers yeast breads, laminated doughs, cakes, egg based components, pies, tarts and other fruit desserts, cookies, working with sugar, working with chocolate, frostings, fillings and components, and assembling/decorating cakes. You won't find a lot of the fancy stuff thats in Professional Pastry Chef but for solid, basic recipes, this one is the way to go.

Excellent resource and a must-have reference even for the casual home baker. This book will prevent those baking failures and you'll even learn why things succeed! Contrary to the "Nice Try But it Fails" review, this book does indeed discuss the methods for measuring and weighing flour that the authors used right up front. I find it's important to read those chatty beginning chapters. In this case the authors wasted no words (unlike me!) and so it's a quick and easy way to get information. I didn't like every single recipe and think I have better ones for Key Lime pie, but then again, everyone has their favorites. Highly recommended!

As a student currently enrolled in a Professional Baking and Pastry Program, I can say this book is a MUST. It provides information for both the recreational and professional baker.

I started a bakery/deli in 1993 using a professional baker and this book as my foundation. In time I also learned to use advice from my customers and from other pros. Still, the whole lot of the experts, save one, gave less useful information than did this classic by Joseph Amendola.Theories of dough fermentation and the like are of especial importance for any new baker. When something goes wrong, too, this book has a good trouble-shooting section.I heartily recommend this book to any baker, commercial or men and women trying to please their loved ones.Other books you should add to the shelf are Professional Baking and Quantity Cooking.

The Baker's Manual is a book that anyone who is serious about baking should have! It has all the foundational information that you could need and then some. If I could only have one book about baking, this would be my choice!!!