Customer Reviews

Understanding Baking

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

 

 

Understanding Baking gives the student baker all the baking science he or she will actually ever need in day to day operations. This new edition has a much friendlier tone and eliminates a great of the repetition and overly arcane or dated material that existed in the previous editions. Theory and concepts are related to actual products much more clearly. Rees/Amendola lucidly and concisely explain the chemistry of ingredient interaction, baking physics and supply useful ingredient definitions. The reference tables and troubleshooting guides are helpful and clear. The new information on wild yeast starter/artisan bread is timely and interesting as is the discussion of trans and cis fats. Any pastry chef can tell you that the most complicated presentations begin with a good grounding in the basics. From there, it's up to you. Industrial baking, which this edition, for the most part, sidesteps, is now so specialized, automated and artificially preserved you need an whole set of encyclopedias to understand the processes that are usually performed by a machine. On the other hand, with this book and it's companion volume, The Baker's Manual (also recently revised with many, many appealing new formulas), you could start a fine little pastry shop. It impowers you to be the best baker you can be.

I am a cake designer by trade and I'm getting ready to teach my first college level course and this is the book that I will be using for my students.

The reason for this is simple: value for money with a clear understanding of baking principles.

Most professional tomes like the Gisslen or Friberg book will set you back 50-75 dollars a book. You can have both of Amendola's books for the cost of just one. Sure, they might not have all the pretty pictures, but why go out and spend hundreds of dollars that you don't need to.

And to set the record straight, I completely disagree with the person who complained that the books were boring and too scientific. The act of baking is not an art - it's all about science and if you think that's boring then you shouldn't be baking.

A good baker and cake designer will know and understand why cakes are made the way they are, otherwise, he or she will not have the knowledge needed to overcome the problems and issues that every baker will face at some point in his or her career, whether professional or home baker.

If you're a home baker and you want a less "science-driven" book then I'd suggest The Baker's Dozen. If you love cake and really want to understand what it's all about then you can't beat Joseph Amendola - he is a master.

I received this book when I started culinary school and by far it is the book I use the most when I have questions about baking. It throughly explains the baking process, the ingredients, and science behind it all. If you ever wanted to know anything about baking, this is the book to get.

This book is great because it covers the fundamentals of baking. I believe that fundamentals are important as they serve as a starting point for pastry chefs. I appreciate the fact that they've included all aspects of baking - from the simplest of information for the beginners to the complex stuff for the professionals.

This book is exactly what I was looking for. I set out to find a book that would give me an understanding of the science involved in baking, and this book did just that. I devoured the book (which is now riddled with highlighted sentences, underlined concepts and handwritten margin notes)and am now able to modify and manipulate existing recipes to achieve my desired results, as well as write my own recipes! An indispensable addition to the library of any serious baker. If you've ever found yourself wondering why egg whites whip better in a copper bowl, or why the meringue on your lemon pie gets runny (and other such questions), this book has the answers for you.

"Understanding Baking" is a dry-as-toast recitation of the principles underlying the preparation of baked goods. The book would appear to be intended for the culinary student, since the authors apparently didn't feel burdened with need to make the subject matter interesting to a wider audience. It a 'just the facts, madam' kind of book with nary a single recipe to be found. (See "Cookwise" by Shirley Corriher for an example of the complete opposite.) The chapters are curiously organized -- some are done in straight narrative with review questions at the end, while others are written in a programmed-learning, question-and-answer style. Some chapters are a mix of both. The editing is sloppy in spots, and I would swear there are at least two instances where the author's insertion notes were carried right on into the final printing (pgs. 16-17, and 46-47). All that being said, however, the book is indeed crammed with information essential to the professional baker, and there are several very useful charts showing cake/cookie/bread/pie faults and their causes. Home cooks will benefit if they can stay awake, but the book is clearly targeted toward the professional and professional wannabe.

I am new to making breads. I've tried following some recipes and got mixed results(sometimes using the same recipe multiple times). I felt like I was going at it blindly and wanted to know about the science to find out about what was going on. This book did clarify some of the problems I made previously. I did learn a lot about what goes on on the chemical level, and that's why I gave this book 3 stars. It didn't give it 5 stars is for two reasons. 1) Although it provided a good foundation, I wish it would delve a bit deeper into troubleshooting and how to go about making and/or modifying recipes. 2) I wish it would give some basic recipes to get us started.

In the book it talks about professionals weighing ingredients (grams) rather than by volume (cups, tbsp) and it gave some common weights in the back. However it talks about the importance of exactness, but then doesn't help us read others' recipes. So, in one sense, I feel I am back on square one: I don't know how to make my own recipes, and I don't know how to read other's recipes since they use volume (and I should get in the habit of using weight) and then did they scoop the flour or shift it into a measuring cup or use a spoon to fill the measuring cup- all three methods result in different amounts of flour- which could shift the end result by a lot.

Bottom line: thanks to the book I know a lot more than I did before (and I didn't find it to be dry) but one of the things I learned was that I need to find a book that goes deeper

Very helpful for undestanding more about how baking really works, easy to apply the information to real life baking situations. Well written. Definitely recommend.

First, this is definitely NOT a cookbook! It contains no recipes for breads, cookies, or cakes.

What it does contain is clear, easily understood information about how recipe ingredients work together and interact with each other to create the great tasting bread, cookies and cakes that we all love to eat. Also explained is how each ingredient should be handled, stored (and for how long), and the optimum temperature it should be when it is added to the batter, etc.

Highly recommended for those who did not learn this in any course in school, but want to know and understand the topic now.

The older editions were geared towards professional bakers
or those that wanted to be. Joseph Amendola's work is
hard to see in this latest edition. They have dumbed this one down. To quote "Chemists in large industrial-sized bakeries have actually conducted studies that determined the optimum specific gravity and pH levels for each type of cake. Knowing this, of course, makes it all the more worrisome to be at the mercy of a plain old recipe book, with no such equipment on hand to provide guidance or reassurance. Fortunately, some room for variation exists in cake baking." I just don't see someone of Amendola's background and reputation writing this...Understanding the science of baking is crucial for baking success. Most retail bakers understand and utilize specific gravity when baking cakes...this insures accuracy in baking-and this translates to dollars and wasted product saved. A nice book for the home baker perhaps, but as a text book, it is a regression. Too bad.