Customer Reviews

Great Cakes

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Coveres: ingredients, equipments, procedures, pound cakes, buter cakes, nut cakes, cheesecakes, chiffon cakes, sponge cakes, fancy cakes, and low-fat cakes.

Overall, this is a wonderful book. There are pages and pages of terrific explanations of ingredients and equipment and things to look out for. The explanations are all very clear. This is a great book for the beginnning cake baker. Even if you're intermediate, you can learn a lot from this book. I feel this is at a slightly lower level than "the cake bible". Many of the cakes are really easy and fast, and I don't think that, in general, the decorating taught here is that fancy. On the other hand, I really like the parts on "what can go wrong" which are comprehensive for each type of cake. So it's a different type of book. There is a much bigger cheesecake section here than in the "cake bible" and low-fat cakes that aren't included there. Like "the cake bible" there aren't that many pictures - if you're looking for a coffee table book go elsewhere. This book deserved its James Beard award.

There are an awful lot baking cook books available these days, but few are worth anything. This book is one of the few truly helpful books that actually shows you how to properly bake a cake. Many baking books feature a famous chef on the cover, along with casual recipe instructions and the admonition that this really is easy to do; usually, this is a lie. This book fills in all the details, and is really the only cake cook book you will need.

Please note that this is not a "throw it together and bake" kind of cookbook; for these, I suggest books like The Fannie Farmer Baking Book, or Pillsbury's Best of the Bake-Off. The chapters are arranged like a textbook. The author expects you to systematically bake your way through each chapter in order, gaining skill and experience with each chapter. You are not suppose to skip around at random, picking out a few appealing recipes. The first chapter has pound cakes, the easiest; last chapter has European tortes and gateaux, the most difficult.

It has chapters on ingredients, equipment, techniques, pound cakes, butter cakes, coffee / streusel cakes, cakes with fruit, sponge cakes, roulades, chiffon, angel food, american, cheesecakes, tortes and gateaux, filling, frosting, glazes, sauces and toppings, and decorations.

The quality of the cakes are very high. When I need a high caliber Sacher Torte in a professional setting, the recipe comes from this book. It has a rare and complete recipe for Genoise. It is also one of the few books that insists on clarified butter for the Genoise (the only other one I can think of is Beranbaum's Cake Bible). The only real complaint I have is the suggestion to bang Genoise batter in the cake pan on the counter just before baking (never do this; better a couple of small holes in the finished cake than a deflated cake). Her recipe for chiffon cakes produces more loft than conventional procedures. I also wish the author would use the classic European names for the recipe titles; it would make looking up certain patissiere classics easier. The last section tells you how to match frostings and fillings to the cake, some valuable and hard to find recipes for glazes, and a definitive recipe for creme anglaise. There is also information on substituting different baking pans, and a sufficient amount of information about cake decorating for the home baker.

The most vexing feature of this book is the format of the first part, which has critical information on tools, pantry, and techniques. This is a most important collection of information that is essential for baking, but is usually left out of most baking books. The bad part is that these three chapters do not have a listing of the subjects; if you need to find something, say how to fold an egg foam batter, you will have to leaf through the entire chapter to find it. All other chapters have a complete listing of recipes in the Table of Contents.

One can disagree with the author on a few points: unbleached flour does not have a higher protein content than all-purpose (this is brand dependent), the silly notion of melting chocolate in a 225 degree oven, and not supplying the flour measurements in weight as well as volume (she describes sift, spoon, and sweep, which is about 3 1/2 oz when I tried it). I also dislike her idea to dump out excess flour when flouring a cake into the sink; since flour tends to clog drains, I do it over a garbage can. The section on suggested equipment is comprehensive: 30 different cake pans are listed, about a dozen categorized as essential, and 50 different tools, about half categorized as essential. The pantry chapter has a good dissertation on the important ingredients and what to do with them. The chapter on techniques gives complete instructions for all of the important baking tasks, such as how to handle butter and fats, beating eggs, folding batters, lining baking pans, bain-marie, telling when cakes are done baking (it differs greatly depending on cake type), de-panning cakes, storage, and a fascinating section on freezing. The metric conversion table for liquids in the Appendix is wrong.

We thought this was going to be one of those "gourmet" cookbooks that are about worthless to the average cook. But, not so! It is well worth the money! The Blueberry Crumb Squares, which is a coffee cake, was the most tender, melt-in-your-mouth, coffee cake that we have ever experienced! My daughter and I love cooking, especially desserts, and we are excited about the recipes in this book!

This book is a great one for the intermediate baker. If you only want to piddle in making cakes get a joy of cooking, but if you love cakes as I do and are willing to spend the time, this is a wonderful book. This book is great but the only prob is that it has only a few pages of color photos but they help and are beautiful. It does have line drawings showing techniques.

The publishers of this book must have used inferior materials to construct this book. The color photos eventually fall out. I wouldn't have said anything except that I experienced the same thing with Carole Walter's "Pies & Tarts" cookbook. I even bought a 2nd copy of Pies & Tarts because of this, and the color photos fell out of that one too. Just today I was researching cake recipes from Great Cakes, and the color photos fell out--I've had it!

Beware of the calories you can end up creating in some of the the most delicious cakes I have ever made, and I am already an experienced baker....
This book is so good, the cakes are beautiful-- the recipes are well written, obviously tested, and just superb. The problem is that because they are good and easy cakes to bake-- some of us who may be better served with less sugar may throw that advice out in favor of say, the Fresh Fruit Pound Cake?
And as a plus, you can play with the recipes-- add your own personal touches or flavors and not ruin, but rather enhance these cakes.

I love this book! I recently purchased this great book to improve my knowledge of cakes. Was I in for a terrific surpriseor what? This is the Best Cake book ever.

First, Carole Walter gives us excellent and specific instructions on Ingredients, Equipment, Procedures and Techniques. She goes into precise but interesting detail on these subjects. The benefits of scales, sifters, cake pans and electric appliances are just to name a few. We learn how to melt chocolate, plump raisins and currants, and how to grate fresh citrus rinds, and much more. Honestly there were things I did not know about, and I was thankful that they were included.

We are then taken into her vast world of Cakes. I never knew this many cakes existed. There are over a dozen different kinds of Pound Cakes. Tons of recipes for Plain Butter Cakes (my favorite). She also includes many recipes for Cakes w/Crunch, Cakes from the Garden (types of fruit cakes), 5 different Upside Down Cakes, Sponge Cakes, Chiffon Cakes, Cheese Cakes and the fanciest of all European Tortes and Gateaux. (You must try the Chocolate Genoise, it is to die for).

Of course that is not all. She then gives us fillings, 16 different frostings, sauces, glazes, toppings and whipped creams. And if that is not enough, she even has cakes with reduced fat, and reduced cholesterol and the same for the frosting, sauces and syrups.

This book has it all. This is a cake lovers dream. Ask my family. I have made approx. 20 different cakes, and each one has received a standing ovation. Ms. Walters recipes are simplistic and easy to follow. So kiss those cake mixes goodbye, and become the Cake Master today!

Growing up in Asia, I never had the experience of watching my Mom bake. I never saw a family that had an oven in the kitchen. I didn't expect too much when I bought this book to begin my baking expedition. I read the introductory instructions to begin with. From there, I sailed on a pleasant trip to the world of cake baking. Ninety percent of the times, the results are good; and I have to blame the other ten percent on my lack of following the instruction to letters.
I'd like to thank Carole for opening up the world of baking to me. This is the best and mostly used book I have.

My favorite part is the first 80 pages. I've been cooking all my life, but this book taught me techniques like folding that have made all the difference. The instructions are extreemely detailed, so there's very little room for failure. I only wish there were more pictures, but the book's huge as it is.

Kudos to Carole Walter. "Great Cakes" is a desserting and deserving winner of the James Beard Award. "Great Cakes" is much more user friendly than "The Cake Bible" and stands on its own among The Best of the Best