Customer Reviews

Rosie's Bakery All-Butter, Fresh Cream, Sugar-Packed, No-Holds-Barred Baking Book

5 star:		(42)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When I lived in Boston, some years ago when there was a Rosie's bakery in Harvard Square that was forever crowded, I used to pop in there to ogle at all the absolutely mouth-watering treats. Mind you, I couldn't eat a thing, being intolerant to wheat, but my goodness was the "window-shopping" a treat.

With the publication of this cookbook, now folks can truly enjoy their own heaven on earth in their own home. Thank you, Rosie! or I should really say Judy! I can truly fully understand now why her bakery was always so very packed with customers. Besides of being easy to follow, full of helpfup tips and interesting anctedotes, these recipes are to die for. I've tried quite a few, and every single one is hands down without fail the most delicious, delectable, divine desserts I have ever made. You cannot go wrong with this cookbook if you are looking for delicious treats to bake. Besides of cookies and bars, she has recipes for cakes and pies, scrumptuous frostings.

(By now, you may be wondering how I can be eating and enjoying these various treats... I substitute the wheat flour called for in the recipes with a rice flour mix + guar gum, which makes me even more appreciative that Judy has written this cookbook. Finally, I can have a taste of her goodies.)

Rosie's recipe for chocolate sour cream cake layers makes the best chocolate cake I've ever tasted. As a friend of mine commented, "It's the essence of chocolate!" The book also contains a three-ingredient chocolate frosting recipe, made in a blender, that is quick, easy, and perfect on the chocolate cake.

The intro section of the book, which describes how Rosie started her baking business, is also very interesting. I enjoyed getting the inside story on this successful self-made entrepreneur.

Thanks to Rosie for sharing her delectable recipes. This cookbook is a keeper!

If you're going to have dessert, then have dessert. That said, why try to bake diet fudge cake? Ironically, these aren't actually the heaviest recipes I've read for desserts - the sour cream fudge layer cake (0kay I slipped in fat free sour cream with no harm!) is actually quite reasonable in the calorie department and fabulous. Oh, who am I kidding? This is no diet book, simply one of the very best baking books with foolproof recipes, explicit instructions, a friendly tone, and enough variety to please all. I recommend it as a classic for perfect baked goods. It has a place of honor on my shelf. Cookies, cakes, frostings...simply the best. Everyone will think you had a friendly grandma who taught you everything.

Judy Rosenberg doesn't leave anything to guess work. Everything that I have made out of this book has been amazingly delicious. So many bakers give complicated instructions and yet still manage to leave something out. Judy is not like that. I have never met her but I feel like I know her after reading her book. She is with you in the kitchen. It is like she is sharing her recipe with somebody she really likes and she really wants it to be good.

Her Cheesecake Ala Rubens has become my signature recipe. I make it with her Pumpkin cheese cake gingersnap crust. People go crazy over this cheesecake. Even before anyone has tasted it the buzz will start with this cake because it is a show-off cake even unadorn. My children have been heartbroken many times at Church because they couldn't get in line fast to get a piece.

Not being from the south, she is almost apologetic offering her Pecan Pie, but it ended my search for a classic recipe. She might not be southern but her Pecan pie is. It is firm, smooth, tall, and proud, versus shallow, sticky, runny and sad. I live in Georgia and I grew up in Virginia and every time I take her pecan pie anywhere women ask me how I made that pie, and want the recipe.

I love this book.

I'm a semi-professional baker with 15 wedding cakes under my belt, and the owner of many baking books, including The Cake Bible. I consistently use Rosie's recipes, modifying them to bake anywhere from a 6" to a 16" cake. The sour cream chocolate cake is absolutely the best I have ever tasted, and I am constantly trying new recipes. You can bake this cake 2 to 3 days ahead and it still is moist and delicious. If you own only one baking book, this is the one!

I have many baking books, but this is my favorite. (You can probably tell just by looking at it: the pages are worn, stained, and falling out of the book!) There are no pictures, but her descriptions of flavor and consistency are so good that I now prefer them to pictures, and wish more cookbook authors would describe their food better.

Almost every time I've brought something made from this book to a gathering, I've been asked for the recipe. This happened so often that I finally bought more copies to give as gifts to the friends and family who kept asking for recipes.

I'm most often asked to make the cream cheese pound cake. I recommend using her recipe for lemon icing (from her lemon cake cookie recipe), and drizzling a little (you only need ~1/3 the icing recipe) on top after the pound cake cools.

The only thing that is a little bothersome is the precise measurements found in many of the recipes: it's not uncommon to find an ingredient measured in cups plus tablespoons and/or teaspoons. However, the results are so good that I've found they're worth a little extra bother.

This is a unique baking book. No pictures of what your creation is "supposed to look like" Meticiculously thought out recipes. There is no need to play around with any recipe to make it work for you. This is definitely a cookbook worth reading. It gives clear explanations of baking terms and really adds to your bakin know-how even if you are not a novice. You will enjoy baking with this book. Many recipes will become your favorites:)

My mom gave this book to me right after it was published, and it sat on my bookshelf with the dozens of other cookbooks I own. A couple of years later, I decided to look through it and was immediately charmed by her introduction and proceeded to read it from cover to cover. Being a "blond brownie" fan, I tried her Dagwoods that very day and was hooked. Since then I have used many of the recipes and have had nothing but success. Delicious! Her Award-Winning Brownies deserve every bit of acclaim they have received. Her Dutch Butter Bars are pure heaven. I could go on and on, but I have to take some of Rosie's Famous Chocolate Sour-Cream Cake Layers out of the oven! This is, hands-down, the BEST baking book I've ever used. I am a devoted Rosie fan.

Let me preface this by saying that I am a terrible cook. Most of my meals consist of adding hot water to a cup of soup. My kitchen is, by far, the least used room in my house. That being said however, by using the fabulous recipes in this book, I've actually managed to convince people I can bake yummy foods. In fact, my sister has asked me to bring homemade treats to her Christmas party! Me!! And I owe it all to Judy Rosenberg.

The recipes are as close to foolproof as you can get. Rosenberg walks you through each step right down to the second. And the finished product? Well, so far I've made about 1/4 of the recipes in the book and each one was heavenly. I also like the fact that the recipes call for real butter (no trans-fat margarine) and a minimum of unecessary ingreadients. These are pure, wholesome sweets the way they were meant to be made.

Cakes, pies, cookies and other treats are all covered in this fantastic cookbook. However, for pure chocolate overload, I highly recommend Rosie's Cocolate Orgasm brownies. They're everything the name implies and then some. Sure they may go straight to your thighs, but I think it's a fair tradeoff!

This book is my secret weapon. My copy was given to me in 1992, and it is now full of grease marks, chocolate stains, and flour in the binding. It has never let me down. I have a shelf full of baking books but this one blows the rest away. Here is another secret: BIG JAKES. I make tons of Christmas cookies to mail every year and this is the one they request again and again and again. Judy Rosenberg is amazing and her desciptions at the beginning of each recipe are so enticing and accurate.