Cookbook review: Rose's Heavenly Cakes

(Published yesterday on Goodreads) 

Rose's Heavenly Cakes  

by Rose Levy Beranbaum

September 2009

Wiley, 978-0471781738

This book is gorgeous to look at. I've had my eye on it since Christmas.  It finally dawned on me that instead of pining for a $40 cake cookbook, I should just see if the library had it and give it a test run.  Tah-dah! They did! 

Several things I noticed about this book:
-The photography is excellent and while not every recipe has a photo, there are enough pics to make the mouth water. 


-all recipes have ingredient measurements by both volume AND weight. I love that the weights are included as that's the most accurate way to measure most ingredients.

-this is not a book for casual/beginner bakers. Most of the recipes contained are involved, time consuming, or intimidating in length. There is no way most home bakers will be able to get the same results as Rose. I think home bakers with cooking/baking experience and know-how should be able to turn out some of these recipes, but they will really have to commit themselves to the project. For example, the recipe for the cake on the cover of the book (a Bernachon Palet D'Or Gateau) is over four pages long.

-many of the recipes do not require unusual cake pans. Quite a number of them call for the standard 9x2 round cake pan or basic 9" springform. There are recipes where other pans are needed, but I think there are enough to choose from using the standard 9x2 to satisfy.

-Rose is picky; almost snobbishly so. It's her way or the highway. She's picky about what kind of flour, what size pan (and why not to use the size not listed for a particular recipe), high quality ingredients, the importance of weighing eggs rather than just cracking in an egg. The list goes on. I know baking has a reputation for being picky, but really, for an average home baker, such pickiness isn't really necessary to get a good, delicious cake. That being said, I do agree that the better quality of the ingredients, the better the result will taste and feel.

-there are some good, basic cake recipes as well as ganache and frosting recipes. All of the cake recipes in this book are for the complete cake - meaning cake, frosting/ganache/filling, and decorations. This is one reason why each recipe is so long. Many of the basic components could be broken out and used on it's own with another cake or frosting.

-a good list of sources for specialty ingredients and a long, informative, section defining and breaking down ingredients

Overall, I really enjoyed reading this book. Her tips and techniques are sound in their reasoning as she is a baker who makes an effort to understand the science behind everything.

I get to keep the book for three weeks thanks to the BPL and I will probably only get to try one of the cakes. I marked about two dozen of the recipes as ones I'd like to try. So what shall it be? Here are some of my picks:

-Karmel Cake
-Gateau Breton
-Chocolate-Covered Strawberry Cake
-Devil's Food Cake with Midnight Ganache
-Chocolate Layer Cake with Caramel Ganache
-Chocolate Genoise with Peanut Butter Whipped Ganache
-Lemon Meringue Cake
-Torta Las Tres Leches (one of my favorite cakes!)
-Lemon Cheesecake
-Mud Turtle Cupcakes
-True Orange Genoise

Bottom line:
-Not for beginners
-Almost text book in its approach to ingredients and technique; a great learning tool (but very few pictures illustrating those techniques; it's not a photo step-by-step book which is why the baker needs to have some know-how of baking basics before attempting)
-Gorgeous food photography
-A great variety of cakes is covered (including wedding cakes and how to construct them)
-Very thorough in recipe steps, ingredients, and technique explanations
-Only purchase for serious, experienced home bakers who love to make complicated and beautiful cakes (or for people who like to look at pretty pictures of food) 

Celluloid Julia Love

Julia Child has just been introduced to an entirely new generation of cooks thanks to the yummy film, Julie & Julia. I finally got to see it yesterday, and not since Big Night has a movie made me so hungry. With Big Night I wanted that perfect risotto into which Primo pours his heart and soul. With J&J, I want the boeuf bourguignon or that duck en croute thing she made at the end. Bird stuffed with something delicious, butter, and wrapped in pastry? Yes please.

In my opinion, Hollywood isn't very nice to food. In movies or tv - food shows aside - there is often food, preparation of food, sitting down to eat, or whatnot, but very little eating of food. The food is usually more of a prop in the scene or simply a mechanism for that particular scene. Doesn't Hollywood know how much people love food?

Food is handled a little better in books. My favorite non-food books that describe food are the ones in Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy (All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and Cities of the Plain). The food is in those stories not because it is essential to the story - they are certainly NOT stories about food - but because it's essential for the characters to survive. It's always simple, hearty, sometimes meager, food of cowboys - beans, coffee, tortillas, or eggs if they happen to be in town. But it makes me hungry and I can smell the beans on the campfire.

In Julie & Julia - both the book and the film - food is a co-starring with Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. I read the book a couple months ago, and thought it was just okay. I liked certain things about it, but I really couldn't stand the author, Julie. After seeing the movie, I still don't like Julie at all. Whiny, depressed, self-centered, not very nice, and fame-seeking Julie is. Julia, however, is impossible not to love. She's warm, smart, focused, fearless, and jolly. Maryl Streep is one of my favorite actresses and I thought she did a very good job portraying another legend. How does she do it so well? I did think she got dangerously close to becoming a caricature of Julia, but managed to reel it in just enough to prevent that from happening. I found myself forgetting it was an actress playing Julia and not Julia herself up on that screen. I loved the all-too-short scenes when Julia's sister (played by the always funny Jane Lynch) and Julie's friend, Sarah (played by 24 favorite and comedienne Mary Lynn Rajskub). I also really liked the Simone Beck role and the actress who played it.

I would have loved to have 2 hours of a Julia biopic rather than the spliced story, but overall I enjoyed it very much. In addition to the appetite I got as a result of watching the movie, I also learned that Paris makes everything more delicious, and copper is obviously the only thing to use for pots & pans. I would love all that copper, but I wouldn't want to clean it.

Tonight, alas, I am not making anything French. Italian actually. After a glut of left overs last week, I did not need to make the ricotta gnocci, so it is on the menu tonight. I made my ricotta a couple days ago (will be covered in another post) and tonight I will actually make the gnocci and cook it. Shouldn't take too long. The lemon vinaigrette for salad is already finished. And the Dutch baby, well, that might be dessert.