The Professional Pastry Chef

If you're looking for clarity and completeness, you've found your book. I've always felt that a "professional" approach can only help to raise our standards even if we don't make a living in the kitchen. Friberg delivers. The book is very well written, the recipes and technique advice well organized and conceived.Despite the title, most of the 650 recipes Friberg uses to illustrate his technique sections are of household, rather than industrial, proportions. You dog lovers will appreciate the "Special Reward Dog Biscuit" recipe with which Friberg begins the book as a tribute to his Akitas, who will not touch the store bought variety. Friberg's recipe for Sachertorte, among dozens of other delectables, has long resided in my culinary kennel. You'll find all the basics, of course, but if you want to go further, you won't need another book.Food writer Elliot Essman's other reviews and food articles are available at www.stylegourmet.com

What a great book! I am a pastry chef and I use this book daily! I have found so many great ideas and learned so much from this book. Even for beginning bakers this book is easy to understand. I have used about 15 recipes from this book and I have about every other recipe marked to use one day.If you are looking for a book for making some serious dessert then this is a great book. I highly recomend it! It also has information on most of the desserts which I really like. It has where they come from, tips to help you with the dessert, and tells you about each ingrediant that you use and how it works.

Chef Bo Friberg really out did himself with this latest edition, I highly recommend it. This new book is the updated version of a one-stop shop approach to baking and pastry. As a non-professional "home" cook, I really appreciate his step by step instruction. He caters to more than just professionals in his writing style and instructional approach. I found that with each recipe there was useful discussion, history and composition, and a good outline on how to begin each culinary project. It is VERY well written and fun to read, and loaded with good hints on baking in general not just specific to pastries. I have not yet found a recipe that I am disappointed with. The photographs are great and inspire me to recreate some pretty terrific and beautiful culinary feats. Of all the cookbooks I own this is by far the most tastefully and artistically done--and my new favorite!

I use this book as a reference tool in my baking. I think people giving it a poor review did not note the title...Professional Pastry Chef. It is not geared towards the home cook as the title states and I for one am pleased to see a pastry book geared towards professionals. There are all too many cook books from great pastry chefs geared towards the home cook. We need more professional oriented books. Thank you!

I purchased this book a couple of years ago and have used it for baking everything from dog biscuits and breads to sponge cakes and pastry cream. Although I am only an avid amateur, I find the recipes easy to follow and easy to convert for use in the home kitchen. The Author has included equivalency tables in the back of the book (ingredients are listed by weight rather than volume measures).I have given away many of my other pastry and desert books since purchasing this book since everything that I could possible dream of is covered in this bookI would strongly recommend this to anyone who enjoys baking and aspires to create something outside the ordinary, regardless of skill level.