Customer Reviews

Cakes: 1001 Classic Recipes: 1001 AUTHENTIC RECIPES

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book is a valuable collection of Italian cakes that you probably have never eaten, much less even heard of before. On the down side, half of the recipes in this book simply do not work as written.

If you are an experienced baker, this book is an invaluable encyclopedia of Italian cakes. Each and every recipe that you can get to work from this book will be a revelation to your dining guests, in that they are neither German, Austrian, American, nor French in influence. The combination of flavors are uniquely Italian, underappreciated in this country, and therefore valuable and sure to amaze and surprise your diners. You are on your own, however, in choosing those recipes that will work, and being able to get faulty or incomplete recipes to work correctly.

If you are an average home cook, however, avoid this book. There is no educational information, and no helpful hints. This is a big problem, in that many recipes are rather tricky and require experience to pull off correctly. Almost all recipes need additional techniques to do correctly, and these techniques are not spelled out (an experience baker, however, should be able to supply the missing bits). The recipes appear to be a simple cut and paste affair, cribbing from many sources far and wide, but without all the explanatory stuff you would normally expect to get in addition to just the recipe.

This book is typical of the superb quality you expect from Reader's Digest publications. Excellent photography, clear instructions, all the information you want is included at the end of each recipe - number of servings, preparation time, cooking time, skill level, and number of days it will keep. All cookbooks should include this information along with the recipes. This is the way a cookbook should be done.

The book includes lots of traditional cake recipes as well as recipes you are not likely to find anywhere else without a great deal of effort. Some of the recipes include Chocolate nut strudel, banana chocolate strudel, chocolate chip-amaretto cake, double chocolate brownies, Pennsylvania Dutch Funnel Cakes, and even Baklava.

Since the entire book is about cakes, it is organized by the type of cake recipe. Those types are butter cakes, pound cakes, chocolate cakes, fresh fruit and nut cakes, dried fruit & nut cakes, sponge cakes, festive cakes, meringue cakes, strudels, charlottes, cheesecakes, no-bake cakes, tarts, small cakes & muffins, yeast cakes, special cakes, fillings & frostings.

Some people will have a problem with the small typeface of the ingredients list. Make sure you can read it before ordering the book. Other than that one small item, this is the epitome of the craft of cookbooks. Cakes: 1001 Classic Recipes from Around the World is highly recommended.

This is a terrific cookbook specializing in cakes. The print is VERY easy to read unless you require extremely Large Print books. I have less than perfect vision and find this book very easy to read. Like all Reader's Digest books, this is excellent quality. Wide variety of cakes, instructions are clear, lots of great photographs. Many, many cakes. The book is large but not outlandishly large; it just has a lot of cake recipes - which is a great thing in a Cake cookbook! Great buy!

Thought this would be a great cake book for spending quality time with my girls and teaching them how to bake. WRONG ANSWER!!!!! Every cake that we have made has taken an exorbitant amount of time and has not turned out the way it looks in the book, nor does it taste very good. Definately would not recommend this book for anyone that isn't a profesional chef! Really would rate this less than zero!

1001 Authentic Cakes is a remarkable compendium of international cake recipes. I have tried three or five at random and each one has been truly delicious. The range is fantastic, every country and style is represented. If you have lemons, there are so many lemon recipes you have a hard time deciding which to try first, they all look good. I love this book, it's my "go to" cake reference because it is very concise and has pictures of so many of the finished products. I also use it because I am pretty sure if a recipe exists, this book will have it. However, I do not recommend it for a beginning baker. The instructions for each recipe are very brief and assume the reader is already familiar with basic baking procedures. The same company also makes a 1001 cookie book which I plan to buy as soon as I lose the pounds I gained from the cake book.

I was given this book as a birthday present. I've tried two cake recipes, one being the chocolate hazelnut cream cake, on page 81. I bake cakes often and this one is incomplete. You end up with something that resembles cement. The egg whites should have been added in, but I wanted to do the recipe as written. I did add butter to be able to somewhat spread the mixture into the pans. I would not have bought this one for myself.

I bought this book because the cover made my mouth water. I ordered it for a really good price and anxiously awaited it's arrival. Well, when it came I was extremley dissapointed. I do not recognize some of the ingredients in the cakes that I was interested in and alot of things seem geared toward experienced bakers. But the majority of the cakes in this book I would not even try. The cover is still beautiful though.

this book was a gift for my girlfriend as she loves to bake. she likes this book for some of the older reciepes that it has.

I love this cookbook more than a fat kid likes cake.