Customer Reviews

Patisserie: An Encyclopedia of Cakes, Pastries, Cookies, Biscuits, Chocolate, Confectionery & Desserts

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This is supposed to be a comprehensive encyclopedia of pastry recipes and related information. Unless you are a culinary professional (and are able to sort the nonsensical statements from the more or less accurate ones) or an Australian, you should avoid this book.

A FUNNY LANGUAGE-The English used in this book is British/Australian rather than American, so many of the words and phrases (such as "fold through") used do not bear the same meaning here in the U.S. For example, it has "All-In Method" or "One-Stage Method" without mentioning the common American term: high ratio method, nor does the author mention that its raison d'źtre is that it uses inexpensive vegetable shortening instead of butter. "Boiled Sweets" is taffy, and "prover" is proof box. It has "lier" instead of "liaison", and I have never heard of macadamia nuts referred to as "Queensland nuts". He will also have to explain to me the difference between an oval-shaped pastry and one that is "oblong", and whether the latter refers to rectangular, as oblong can mean both. In several instances, I had to consult my OED (Oxford English Dictionary) to understand some of the author's statements.

BAD ADVICE-I object to a substantial amount of the cooking instructions as being either questionable or just flat wrong. For example, cutting puff pastry with a hot knife is the worst thing you can do. Following the recipes verbatim will probably cause the casual cook to fail at many of the recipes, whereas professionals would know better. Proper amaretti do not use flour, and certainly do not need to sit for "6-8 hours" before baking. The definition of baking soda is wrong, and, of more importance to the amateur cook reading the book, is used incorrectly throughout the text. He often calls for icing or powdered sugar, which is not available in the US. The closest thing we have is what he calls "non-lumping" sugar, or confectioner's sugar, which has a small amount of cornstarch mixed in; in these cases, substitute superfine sugar. For bienenstitch, the author states that the base dough is unsweetened, yet his recipe uses 3 tablespoons of sugar for the dough. The taffy recipe calls for the partially cooked sugar syrup to be stored for 24 hours, and then cooked to completion in a clean pot; this procedure is unnecessary. The procedure for making croissants is so brief, that only someone who has done it before will be able to properly execute the instructions. He also does not mention the advantage of crème pātissière over custard: it can be safely baked as a part of a pastry, whereas most custards would break. He is also rather deficient when it comes describing when something is properly baked in the recipes.

AUSSIE FOOD, MATE-The author has recipes for Anzac biscuits (I kid you not: he has both the original version and an updated one) and apple chutney, but not angel food cake, which is a sine qua non of pātisserie. Many of the recipes use "light treacle". Marzipan is used liberally throughout the text, and most Americans are not terribly fond of it, but the British are; a similar comment applies to fruit cake and its relatives. The use of the word "biscuit" carries its British/Aussie meaning, not the American one. Some of his American recipes are a bit off, such as yeasted cornbread, a Creole blackbread (gingerbread) that uses treacle rather than molasses, a second-rate chocolate chip cookie, and the strangest muffin recipe I have ever seen. Many of the batter-based recipes have a thick, gummy texture that does not improve much after baking.

ENCYCLOPEDIA?-One of the few nice things I can say about this book is that all of the entries are alphabetical, making it a quick and handy reference book. Unfortunately, much of the information is perfunctory and/or useless, certainly not as illuminating as one would expect of a book with the word "encyclopedia" in the title. The description and recipe for mousse are pathetic. Some recipes call for a brioche mold, but the author never tells you what it is or what it looks like. The distinction between cake, gateau, and torte is artificial and mostly wrong. The definitions of cognac and armagnac are wrong. The chart of various types of sugar is interesting, but not always applicable to sugar here in the US. This "encyclopedia" could also have benefited from a closer editing.

SAY WHAT?-Some of the information is anecdotal in nature and should not have appeared in print without some sort of reference. There are absolutely no footnotes, and I suspect that the author used sources not listed in the brief bibliography (listing a paltry 2 dozen books). The stories are told with a British/Australian slant.

IT IS NOT ALL BAD-The author is the only person I know of who has actually experimented with agar-agar, and discovered that it is triple the strength of gelatin (it is sometimes stronger than that, depending on the texture of the mixture you put it into). I liked the Dutch Apple Torte. You could criticize many of the flavor combinations as odd (viz ground almonds in a baked apple or sweetened avocado mousse) or the use of yeasted batter for an apple fritter, but this is par for the course. If you are trying to figure out what an obscure British/Australian pastry is (e.g. you have an odd name, say "Bara Brith", that is not in any of your regular pastry books), this is the place to look. I was also impressed by the generous quantity (but not the quality) of recipes. I also happily note that the recipes are not overly sweet, unlike some other very famous dessert and baking books. All the recipes have both volume and weight measurements.

CONCLUSION-This is an amusing (for the wrong reasons) book, but only marginally useful except to the professional.

I have owned this book for a very long time and pulled it out to cook brownies today very yum two great recipes. I am very glad to find a book that speaks my language and has my local ingredients.
Anzac biscuits were designed to send to troops overseas, they travel well taste great when they get there.
A book filled with beautiful photos and yummy recipes i encourage customers to consider this book.