Customer Reviews

Professional Baking

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

The new edition of Wayne Gisslen's Professional Baking is a make-over, and a good one. Obviously pointed towards the advanced amateur more than previous editions, Gisslen's book gives step-by-step instructions that never fail to produce good product. In older editions, the formulae were professionally scaled, making small batches difficult to produce but not impossible. The new edition starts with small batches, and then provides the large batches in the back. I have to say this new edition is an improvement, with big bright pictures, interesting and complex formulae, and down-to-earth instructions most people can handle. If you buy only one baking book, I think this should be the one.

This is an excellent book. Many of the recipes are from original the Le Cordon Bleu (Paris)archives. I'm a grad of the Le Cordon Bleu-USA Baking and Pastry program, and this was our primary textbook.

A caveat for the home chef: This book is formatted for the professional pastry chef in that the majority of the recipes give the quantities for the ingredients in METRIC weight, as well as in "baker's percentages" - rather than by quantity (as in: cups/teaspoons/tablespoon/ozs.) - so you'll want to have a kitchen scale handy to make good use of this book, especially if you plan to use it at home.

Also: Le Cordon Bleu's version of "baker's percentages" differs from the version used in some of the Culinary Institute of America (a.k.a)the "C.I.A.")textbooks, AND the C.I.A. textbook also gives their weights U.S. "lbs./ozs.", rather than in metric. This was a surprise to me as well, and so I've learned to double-check...

(SHEESH!: Am I the only one old enough to remember back when the U.S. was supposed switch to metric like the whole rest of the world - or is it just me? ;-)

- The good news is that small kitchen scales are now easily available inexpensively online, in restaurant supply stores, and in some retail kitchenware stores. *Make sure you get one that can be set to metric weight (grams) and not only in lbs./ozs., or it'll make it much more difficult to use this excellent book, especially at home.

BTW: The other great thing about this book is that once you learn the basic principles, as well as the basic master recipes in this book, you can bake like a pro, and you too can have the pleasure of laughing your *whatever* off when "Iron"/"Top"/"Pro"/"Impossible", etc. "savory" chefs on TV cooking shows and contests freak out or cry like babies at the prospect of having to bake a cake or make a simple dessert like a pastry chef - or even like your grandma...

So hey you "pro" TV chef-type guys BobbyMikeyAnthony, and that other guy who didn't cook for the Queen of England after all: How about some props and respect to us pastry chefs - AND to your grandma!

Required book for my culinary baking & pastry arts program. Unfortunately many of the metric measurements (grams) are incorrect! Since we weigh out most ingredients it caused a huge problem for our class. I would not recommend this book.

I am a Culinary student and bought this book for a class. Very informative and I'm sure I'll use it for reference often in the future. Probably not the best for a home cook, unless very advanced. I personally love Sherry Yard's "Secrets of Baking".

Although Im not a pastry chef or baker, I purchase this book to help me with doughs on my menu. The recipe layout is a bit awkward and it takes some time to get used to it but the recipes really work. One thing I want to mention is that the recipes are not standarized meaning they are not the classic version of the recipes. They are ment to be used in a formal instruction course but once you master them, they can be modified to make them a bit more classical and if you will, more ethnic. The book was shipped in good condition with no corners bended alhtough the jacket had a sort of grease on it, I usually get rid of the jacket. I think it may be Amazon handling on it but once the jacket is gone, the book looks great.

This book is full of information but lacks in practical value and professional knowledge.
The book is full of recipes, but recipes are structured in a way that you have to leaf backwards and forwards to reconstruct a recipe from cross references.
The recipes never produced particularly good results for me.
There is a lot of content on decorating cake and perhaps that's where the book's best value lies.
However, bread baking methods and recipes are oddly short-cut. Yes, you can produce a Chinese bakery quality loaf, but nothing like the original. Even the photos of baked goods look like some child had a first attempt at making them. The author never even mentions poolish in the entire bread section. Professional? Is Wayne Giesslen actually a baker??? Has any baker reviewed his manuscripts?

I liked this book alot. The way it is set up is great and easy to follow. smaller sized formulas in the chapter with the larger ones at the end of the book along with special diet formulas. What a great idea! The only thing I found that was out of place is that the book talks about a CD. My book came without a CD. I'm not sure if this was a packing error or what. Other than that this is a very good book to add to your library.

This is an outstanding book on baking, for the Professional as well for the home baker, recipe are scale for the home baker and larger batch.

This is an excellent book!
I would recommend this to anyone who likes to bake. Just reading the first few chapters about the techniques, ingredients, the process of baking and so on, really helps you understand what you are doing and why. It helped me get my recipes down to perfection and you will be able to figure out what went wrong if something does.
The software that comes with it needs some updating, it seems like it was made for Windows 3, but the book is excellent!

This book is awesome if you want to know or learn how to bake or become a professional baker.
It explains everything from history of baking, equipments, ingredients, baking measurement until baking popular baked products.
Sometimes, you may find it a little bit different from the real baking world, it depends on what or where you learn from like recipes or formalas.
The baker's percentage may be a little difficult to understand.
So, this book is overall recommended and a must to start becoming a professional baker.