by:
Malgieri, Nick

Publisher:
HarperCollins
Published:October 11, 1995
ISBN:0060168196
Format:Hardcover
Pages:480

Description: From Publishers Weekly
Packed as tightly as a cup of brown sugar, this tome on home baking is sure to become a classic reference. Malgieri (Great Italian Desserts, Perfect Pastry) distills years of teaching and experience into these detailed recipes for virtually every savory or sweet yeast bread, quick bread, muffin, pastry, dough and batter. Recipes are thorough and include descriptions of how batters and doughs are supposed to appear at each stage of preparation. "If it still looks a little curdled, that's O.K.," writes Malgieri, depicting the addition of eggs to a rich, cheesy batter for Parmesan bread. "Hold each peeled peach gently in your left hand over a mixing bowl (if you are left handed, reverse)" begins his 93-word description of how to efficiently slice a peach. Such advice, along with other hints for success and some of the more methodical of recipes, may slow down the more experienced baker, but for a beginner, Malgieri's approach is like panne from heaven. Advice on stocking the baker's pantry, lists of mail-order sources for such ingredients as pearl sugar or pizza yeast and an index nicely finish off this collection of more than 400 recipes.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Author of Great Italian Desserts (LJ 12/90) and Nick Malgieri's Perfect Pastry (LJ 10/15/89), Malgieri is the director of the baking program at Peter Kump's Cooking School in New York City. In his ambitious new book, he presents a good introduction to the world of baking, covering breads, savory pastries, and sweet baked goods of all kinds. Chapters are organized as an extended cooking course, with fundamental techniques included in earlier recipes, more complicated skills in the later ones.... read more

Book Description
How To Bake is as necessary and essential as a good oven; it is the most comprehensive and accessible guide to baking available in English. In a single, illustrated volume, Nick Malgieri, one of America's preeminent bakers and baking teachers, leads cooks through the simple art of creating an international assortment of delicious sweet and savory baked goods.

Here are the best recipes for breads, including such quick ones as Buttermilk Corn Bread, Irish Soda Bread, Classic Southern Biscuits, and Currant Tea Scones, as well as such delicious yeast-risen breads as Italian Bread Rings, Swiss Rye Bread, Challah, and EnglishMuffins. Malgieri also offers recipes for savory treats like Old-Fashioned Chicken Pie, Pepper and Onion Frittata Tart, Cheese Quiche, and Rosemary Focaccia; and for sweet pastries ranging from puff pastries--Apple Turnovers, Banana Feuilletés with Caramel Sauce, Brioches, Strawberry Savarin, and Croissants--to pies and tarts, cobblers, and cookies of every stripe--drop, bar, rolled, and filled; brownies, macaroons, and rugelach. Cakes, too, are here, from layered to rolled, from angel to devil's food.

The recipes in How to Bake are clear and methodical. Master recipes explain all the steps to making a classic dish. They are frequently followed by creative variations so that the baker's palate and skills will always be accommodated and challenged. Start out with a simple spice cake, for example, and transform it, under Malgieri's reassuring guidance, into a lavishly decorated celebration cake.

In addition to an exhaustive and tempting selection of recipes, Malgieri offers clear, detailed instructions, interweaving techniques and helpful sidebars: how to make a pastry bag out of parchment paper; what baking pans to buy; mastering pie and cake toppings; learning to decorate a cake so it looks as if it came from the bakery; and scores of other helpful tips. All this is punctuated with precise explanatory illustrations and thirty-two pages of luscious color photographs to inspire and guide the baker. How to Bake is a one-volume "bible" for bakers.