Customer Reviews

Gluten-Free Baking with The Culinary Institute of America: 150 Flavorful Recipes from the World's Premier Culinary College

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

Got this book last week. I am a '77 graduate of the CIA so had GREAT HOPES for this book. The gluten free information is great. The recipes we have tried so far, however, are pretty bad.

Here's what we think about the specific recipes we have tried so far. Remember, our rating is based upon what we have tried.

We are very frustrated that so far we picked two very bad bread recipes. Did this guy test his recipes? I think not. Celiac sufferers need bread recipes. HELLO, are you listening? Please, if you have a great bread recipe would you please post it in your review of this book? My customers are desperate!

1. Soft Rolls - We made these into loaves just as the recipe indicated we could. They turned out to be more like popovers. They are NOT BREAD although they might be good to use for bread pudding. Rating = 0

2. Lean Bread - This is really another large popover. It has a tremendous puff in the oven. You prop open your oven for 5-7 minutes at the end, then you remove the bread at 200º F. After you do that you stand there and watch it deflate. Heart Breaking! It has no business being called BREAD. Thank goodness that I learned my lesson from the Soft Roll recipe last week and only had to throw out three loaves instead of the seven loaves we threw out of that particular recipe. Rating = 0

3. Shortbread- These are heavy and taste like cornmeal cookies. They are not crunchy like a shortbread should be and there is NO WAY anyone could roll this mushy dough out, even if chilled for two hours as suggested. We had to scoop these cookies out and then pat with a sugared tamp. Please pay attention here: these cookies need to be baked THIN. Since you can't roll them out you will have to scoop them onto parchment, butter the bottom of a glass, press it in sugar, then tamp the cookie down to about 1/8" thick. Raspberry jam tasted good. Apricot was not that great. We will try these cookies again only next time we will tamp them down THIN, THIN, THIN! Thise have potential. Rating: 4

4. Chocolate Pecan Cookies - The first batch had no flavor so we doubled the vanilla. These are the most cookie like of all the cookies we've made out of this book. We may increase the sugar a bit. These have potential. Rating: 4

5. Peanut Butter Cookies - WAY too much salt in this recipe. Thank goodness we decided to halve it. We liked the texture of this cookie but feel they needed some vanilla. Could taste more peanut buttery but vanilla may help that. These are close to being 'there.' Rating 4 1/2

6. Spritz Cookies - This cookie has no business being called a spritz cookie. It is more like a pudding pat with a raspberry center. It puffs up in the oven to look like a cream puff. Then it deflats to look like a flat tire with ridges. Please change the name of this poser cookie to Pudding Pat Cookie. Rating: 0

7. Macaroons: Okay, FINALLY the author gets an A+. These cookies were great. Bernie put about 5 ounces of melted semisweet chocolate in half the batter. Mmmm mmmmm. We will make these with other flavors, too. We put dried cherries and pecans in the vanilla ones. Very, very good. Rating: 5

Score Average is 2 1/2

Buyer Beware! I you buy this book make sure you do not try a recipe for a special occasion without a making a trial batch first.

I pre-ordered this and received it back in September when it first came out. My fridge is now filled with bins of the 5 different flour mixes and I've made several recipes. I do recommend this book but beware as I've found with most recipes either I love it, or I hate it, so be sure to take notes on what you've tried, what you liked etc.

Recipes I've tried:
Corn muffins (I made cornbread) - very rich and delicious - like Jiffy, made incredible cornbread stuffing and yummy on its own too - this recipe alone was worth my buying the cookbook
Blueberry pie crumble - used a mixture of frozen berries w/ a Whole Foods frozen GF crust - very good but will try with less sugar next time
Pizza Crust - good although a little on the rich side. Piping was a disaster - now I roll the dough between pieces of saran wrap or parchment
Triple chocolate cookies- too rich (and I love chocolate) - won't make again
Pancakes - inedible - way too rich and sweet. Blech. had to throw these out and it takes a lot for me to do that
Sourdough - made good rolls but also very rich - still have a dozen or more in the freezer - when I tried to make a loaf, it expanded and dripped all over the oven - very messy. Also, this did not taste like sourdough at all - just a nice rich bread for sandwiches or jam/peanut butter - sort of reminds me of a very rich Kinickkinick hamburger bun consistency (kind of spongy)

This book was a huge disappointment. The recipes are based on a byzantine set of five mixes, which are costly to assemble and require a lot of storage space. Proportions for the mixes are given by both volume and weight, but the amounts of various ingredients are often inconsistent between the mixes and the recipes. I am an experienced gluten-free baker and I tried several recipes, but the best I can say is that a few of them were all right, but nothing special. Several of the recipes are clearly impossible using the amounts of the ingredients listed. My advice, get the wonderful book by Annalise Roberts, Gluten-Free Baking Classics, and forget this one.

I had high hopes for this cookbook, since it comes from The Culinary Institute. I have only tried one recipe, the pecan cinnamon buns, but I will definitely not make then again. The texture was very, very chewy. There is a large amount of guar gum (xanthan gum) in the recipe and mix used for it; I have never seen xanthan gum added by tablespoons before, only in teaspoon increments. But this recipe called for 2.5 tablespoons for 3 cups of flour, and 1.5 cups of that flour already had about a tablespoon in the mix. so approximately 3 Tablespoons of xanthan gum per 3 cups of flour? I think that might contribute to the problem.
Anyway, I think there are other cookbooks that will provide a better, more consistent result.

I took his class at the CIA. The problem with these recipes are they aren't practical. For example to make bagels, you need to lay out in your freezer a dozen 4" x 4" sheets. I don't have that type of space. When I took his class I thought his products were the best, but since then I found many really good GF products to buy. If you like bagels, buy Joan's frozen ones. They take about 45 min to make, but they are worth it! His Pie dough recipe is good, but difficult to make, and we made that in class.

I've read a lot of reviews of this book that say it lacks decent recipes for bread, pizza dough, etc. And while I do not know these reviewers or their experiences, I can say that from my experience, they must have done something wrong.

I am a seasoned and highly-experienced gluten-free baker. I have tried nearly every GF cook book out there. I have attempted to make my own recipes. I can tell you this book contains hands down the best gluten free baking recipes you will find.

Why? Because the pastry chefs at the CIA have created baking techniques designed to accommodate the lack of gluten and have done the experimenting to create consistent gluten-free four blends that provide the stability of baking's ancient staple: white flour.

I will not say I have not had some of these recipes fail on me. BUT I can say that it was when I did not follow the measurements and technique to the letter using high quality ingredients, that my recipes have failed. Each failed recipe I can trace the fault to be my own, I was sloppy with the wet ingredients, I didn't let the butter cool to the right temperature, I used too much flour to roll it out, I did not proof in a warm humid environment, I used a paddle not a whip attachment, I over mixed, etc. In my years of gluten-free baking, I have had more success with these recipes than ANY other gluten-free book or blog out there. As a seasoned gluten-free baker, I have tried too many poor gluten-free bread recipes to count. Those in Chef Coppedge's book, if well executed, are the best you will find.

But caveat emptor! these recipes are based on technique. They take skill to execute and if you are someone who bakes like Ina Garten, leveling off flour with your finger, and measuring liquid in a dry measuring cup (if at all), and if you are not willing to take the time to follow the techniques to the letter you will NOT, and I repeat will NOT have success with these recipes. An ounce more dry ingredients and your bread will loose texture, too much liquid and the Naan will turn out more like a salty cookie than bread, over mix the cinnamon roll dough and it will be tough, don't measure your oven temperature first and your pizza crust will be gooey.

What I would tell someone considering this book is that these recipes are designed to be of restaurant quality. I have been to the CIA in Hyde Park and eaten the lean bread in this book and it was the best I have ever had. For dessert I was served the eclairs and I pulled my waiter back, made him run to the other building and ask the chef who baked the eclairs to verify they were gluten-free because THEY WERE THAT GOOD.

I will take these recipes over any mix or prepared GF food out there. Ever try a Betty Crocker GF cake mix? Well $4 of mix and $4 of other ingredients later, the final product is OK at best, but not good, and not good enough to serve to company as turns stale in 20 minutes and tastes like grit. Ever eat a Glutino pizza crust? You might as well eat styrofoam. Kinnikinnick Bread? It's like eating dry insulation. All of those products are our status quo as Celiacs. These recipes raise the bar.

For those who are still waiting for a bread recipe that turns out like Wonderbread, or cinnamon rolls that taste like Pillsbury, forget it. There will never EVER be a gluten free alternative to that genetically modified crap. However, if you want bread and pasteries that taste like it came from a mom-and-pop bakery down the street, this is your book. Keep in mind, that bread you remember from the boutique bakeries was not made by an amatuer in a kitchen with a Breadman. If you want to make similar bakery-quality gluten-free bread you have to follow Coppedge's instructions, to the letter, read the technique descriptions and do things like calibrate your oven and weigh ingredients rather than measure by volume. Personally, I had to have my oven temperature professionally adjusted because it was so far off. Once I did, my results were incredible.

Every Celiac who is serious about baking needs a copy of this book to learn the patience and technique required to make truly wonderful gluten-free food. But again, I am warning you that if you want simple, throw things together recipes that will turn out excellent, you can keep dreaming. Gluten-free baking will never be simple as chefs have had to reinvent the process to make up for the lack of gluten, an ingredient baking techniques have come to rely on. Read this and you will realize that most other gluten-free books use the same methods of baking used with traditioal glutinous flours. And 90 percent of those recipes are mediocre at best.

I bought this cookbook the day after I was diagnosed with celiac disease. My sister had been diagnosed 1 1/2 years prior so I had already learned what a disaster gluten-free baking can be as we tried to experiment and recreate some of our favorite recipes.

This cookbook is great, assuming you have the time to make the items and the money to create all five flour blends (as well as the fridge space to store the blends that contain soy flour...it can go rancid at room temperature). My favorites so far have been the black bottom cupcakes (we always called them self-filled cupcakes) which also gives you a fabulous devil's food cake recipe, and the english muffins (my non-GF mother was here when I made them the second time and I had to fight her off them...my sister is currently hiding the ones I gave her from her fiance). The chocolate chip cookies are kidna spongy but they stay soft, which is always a plus in my book.

I highly recommend this cookbook, but as I mentioned above, it requires a serious time and money committment. But for me, since I haved always used baking as a stress-relief tactic and was worried about the effect of the celiac diagnosis on it, it is well worth it. My colleagues love the goodies I bring in and most don't even realize they are gluten-free.

Yesterday I made the five $mixes$ and one recipe of the Lean Bread. It was horrible. It over rose and then, predictably, fell into a heavy mess. Then I made the Sour Dough Bread ---- same thing.

Today I completely re-made the flour blends #3 and #5. I even opened new packages of flour to be sure they were correct. I remade the Lean Bread recipe and had a second person check all the measurements and directions as I went along. The results were the same. The loaves are completely inedible ---- they are misshapen and rubbery.


I am very disappointed in the book and will not be trying any more of the recipes. It is just too expensive of a venture to have this happen. I am very experienced in baking gluten free and have had wonderful success over the years using Bette Hagman's recipes for bread, cakes and pie dough. I have successfully used her gf flour to replace wheat flour in recipes. Karen Robertson and Bette are the only ways to go.

I am an experienced GF baker and this is one of the most complicated GF baking books I've ever read.
As you can read in the other reviews, you need to make 5 different flour mixes and most recipes use from several mixes. I will say though that I have NEVER tasted funnel cakes or doughnuts like these! Excellent. I haven't tried the bread recipes which seem to be causing others trouble. I think GF baking can be challenging.

My other problem with the book is that it uses mostly white rice flour, a LOT of starch (out of step with most other GF recipes)and it uses soy flour which many believe to be unhealthful (myself included). So I think this is more a book for those concerned with "lightness and taste" not those following a wholefoods diet. For those that are GF and have a hard enough time getting fiber in their diets and think that using brown rice flour as a rule is a much better idea.

My all time favorite GF baking book is "Gluten Free Baking Classics" by annaliese Roberts. At present it has 131 five star reviews (and very few bad ones). I would say 95% of the recipes in that book turn out consistently, it's simple and even our non-GF family members love them.

I think the Culinary Institute and Mr. coppedge wrote more of a book for the restaurant trade than the average person baking in their home. Good try but needs re-vamping.

I'm so glad to know about this book, though it is not as comprehensive as I was hoping. It's recipes for bread do not include bean flour choices.