The Pie and Pastry Bible

• More than 300 recipes, 200 drawings of techniques and equipment, and 70 color pictures of finished pies, tarts, and pastries
• Easy-to-follow recipes for fruit pies, chiffon pies, custard pies, ice-cream pies, meringue pies, chocolate pies, tarts and tartlets, turnovers, dumplings, biscuits, scones, crostadas, galettes, strudel, fillo, puff pastry, croissants (chocolate, too), Danish, brioche, sticky buns, cream puffs, and profiteroles
• All kinds of fillings, glazes, toppings, and sauces, including pastry cream, frangipane, Chiboust, fruit curds, ice creams, fondant, fruit preserves, streusel, meringues, ganache, caramel, and hot fudge
• A separate chapter featuring foolproof flaky, tender, and original crusts of every kind imaginable. Here are a few: Flaky Cream Cheese Pie Crust, Flaky Cheddar Cheese Pie Crust, Miracle Flaky Lard Pie Crust, and Flaky Goose Fat Pie Crust; Bittersweet Chocolate, Coconut, Ginger, and Sweet Nut Cookie Crusts; and Vanilla, Gingersnap, Chocolate, and Graham Cracker Crumb Crusts
• Countless tips that solve any problem, including the secrets to making a juicy fruit pie with a crisp bottom crust and a lemon meringue pie that doesn't weep
• How to make a tender and flaky pie crust in under three minutes
• How to make the best brownie ever into a crustless tart with puddles of ganache
• Exciting savory recipes, including meat loaf wrapped in a flaky Cheddar cheese crust and a roasted poblano quiche
• Extensive decorating techniques for the beginning baker and professional alike that show you how to make chocolate curls, pipe rosettes, crystallize flowers and leaves, and more
• Detailed information on ingredients and equipment, previously available only to professionals
• The wedding cake reconceived as a Seven-Tier Chocolate Peanut Butter Mousse Tart
• Pointers for Success follow the recipes, guaranteeing perfect results every time

The Pie and Pastry Bible begins with the crust. The author confesses right up front that 21 years ago, when she first began her quest for the perfect crust, "it was a complete mystery to me." She wasn't looking for a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but something she could consistently turn out at a moment's notice. The ideal pie crust, she writes, "has light, flaky layers, but also ... is tender, and nicely browned, with a flavor good enough to eat by itself."

In a book that stretches to about 700 pages long, her favorite pie crust is the first recipe: Perfect Flaky and Tender Cream Cheese Pie Crust. Typically, Beranbaum lists the ingredients by measure and weight for three separate sizes of pies, then gives instructions for the food processor or by hand.

After 70 pages of pie crusts, tart crusts, and crumb pie crusts of every imaginable make and combination, Beranbaum starts with fruit pies. Her first (of many) detailed charts shows exactly what her ratios are of fruit to sugar to cornstarch. Then each recipe (start with The Best All American Apple Pie) includes pointers for success as well as several variations on the theme. Under the headline "Understanding," Beranbaum goes that extra mile by taking the trouble to explain just why something works the way it does.

If you are only going to own one cookbook for pie and pastry recipes of every imaginable stripe and combination, you can't go wrong with this one. It's the Bible, after all. --Schuyler Ingle

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All Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review:
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

perfect pie, 2008-06-30
This is a great book to learn from. If you are going to take the trouble to make your own pie crust, why not learn to make the best possible one right off the bat? Take the time to learn it correctly, and it will become easier and easier with each one you make. Eventually, the book can be left on the shelf. Pie is my absolute favorite dessert in the entire world, but it can be my least favorite if it is not made well (as is often the case in the U.S. I am sorry to say). I watched my husband eat most of a cherry pie that I made last night from the season's first cherries with a certain joy I had never seen him express when eating pies that I made from online recipes or simple cookbooks. The details in this cookbook for chilling the dough, not overhandling, and using the best ingredients were great. The pictures in the book are also very inspiring. Thanks to the author!


2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

Exceptional book for hardcore bakers, 2008-05-08
First off: If you are a home baker that bakes sometimes and uses general cookbooks (i.e. Betty Crocker), this book is not for you. If you are someone who gets angry and frustrated over detailed instructions and is not patient enough to read a recipe throughly before beginning, this book is not for you. If you are someone who cannot pay attention to detail and is not meticulous and careful while baking, this book is not for you.

This book is without a doubt, for the hardcore, highly experienced baker. As a professional baker, I find this book indispensable in my work. It's extremely detailed and thorough--just how it should be. Rose doesn't write her books for the novice baker--other writers do that.

All this being said, there are some editing errors (not the fault of Rose), and everyone using this book (as well as The Cake Bible and The Bread Bible) needs to download the updated book erratas [...]

With the updated corrections, the book is better than ever.


1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

A mexican review, 2008-04-06
Good recipes, easy to follow instructions but just a few pictures. I think that an author as famous as Rose Levy should spend a little more in pictures.


3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

Not for the southern pie baker, 2008-02-01
This book was very good in explaining the chemistry behind pie baking. It also had some very good ideas in it, including ice cream pies, and pies with cake layers. However, many of the recipes are horrible, starting with the first basic pie crust recipe.

I got this cookbook for my birthday one year, but stopped using it after I made a pie with the crust from this book. I have since then picked up using it again, but I have to make my own modifications.

The first thing you'll notice about these recipes is that the writer is obsessed with pie crusts being what she calls "crispy." She mentions it constantly throughout the first fifty or so pages. Her type of "crispy" requires you to cook your pie on the bottom of the oven, on a baking stone, or freezing your pie first. I agree that it's bad to have a soggy crust, and I definitely agree with her that the juices of most fruit need to be reduced and thickened with cornstarch before going into the pie. But the majority of people don't tend to cook on the bottom of their oven. Some people can't, because there is nowhere to put the pie pan. And personally, I don't like my pie crust quite that crispy. Also, I noticed here and there reminders to put a baking sheet or something under your pie pan, because filling would leak out. If a recipe has the right amount of ingredients, you shouldn't have to do this. I don't like fires in the bottom of my oven, thanks.

Another thing. This book has you add VINEGAR to your pie crust. I know it's supposed to help with the baking chemistry, but it makes the crust taste horrible. I come from a long line of southern cooks, and I'm used to making sweet pies. I was never taught how to make a sour cherry pie. Nobody in my family ever wanted one. I make sweet cherry pies, involving sweet cherries and sugar. In my opinion, most of the recipes in this book do not have enough sugar. There is even a chocolate tart recipe with NO SUGAR.

In other words, if you like sweet pies, this book is not for you. Read instead Julia Child or the Joy of Cooking, which, by the way, has an excellent apple pie recipe.


0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Easy to follow recipe, 2008-01-21
Last week I recive the Pie and Pastry Bible and I've already try out three recipes with good result. The children absolutly loves the Peanutbutter mousse pie and me and my husband hacve the pear and ginger cake as a new favourite.

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