Rose's Heavenly Cakes by Rose Levy Beranbaum

The Barnes & Noble Review

It’s been 21 years since Rose Levy Beranbaum published The Cake Bible. With its meticulous instructions, measurements provided in both volume and weight, and detailed explanations of culinary chemistry, Beranbaum’s Bible ratcheted up home baking from cozy Fannie Farmer and the quick and easy mix mentality to near professional levels with such extravagant eye-poppers as The Enchanted Forest -- a chocolate ganache-filled sponge roll studded with cocoa meringue sticks. Why this sequel? One may think there are only so many iterations of flour, butter, sugar, and eggs, but there’ll never be a last word in baking. Bakers, like the rest of us, are always looking for the next new thing.

The recipes in Rose’s Heavenly Cakes are a bit less fancy and buttercream-dependant than those in The Cake Bible, but no less tempting. There are confections with longer shelf lives, including a delicious, delicate Orange-Glow Chiffon Cake, and the spectacular Deep Chocolate Passion Wedding Cake, a multi-day project that features her new ultra-shiny chocolate lacquer glaze (made with gelatin).Several recipes are moistened with a syrup infusion after baking. These include English Gingerbread, rare for its inclusion of whole wheat flour, and an invitingly simple Lemon Poppy Seed–Sour Cream Bundt cake. Beranbaum has figured out how to keep the crumb topping crisp on her perfect Apple-Cinnamon Crumb Coffee Cake -- by letting the cake set before sprinkling it with a topping made with melted butter. Although Beranbaum has included more cakes made with oil (as opposed to just butter) and now specifies the percentage of cacao in each chocolate, she’s unswayed by recent dietary trends toward whole grains or sugar substitutes such as agave nectar. In fact, one of the few things she doesn’t explain in this irresistible collection is her adamant preference for bleached white flour -- but no doubt it’s chemical. --Heller McAlpin

From Barnes & Noble

Rose Levy Beranbaum has been called the Diva of Desserts and "the most meticulous cook who ever lived," titles justly earned with her 1988 classic The Cake Bible. Beranbaum now returns with Rose's Heavenly Cakes, another delectable wonder. In its 512 pages, you will find recipes for sponge cakes and wedding cakes, almond cake and cupcakes, baby cakes and layer cakes -- indeed, every cake you can imagine. All these sinful treats are detailed in Rose's trademark step-by-step instructions.

From the Publisher

At last an all-new, full-color cake lover's companion from Rose Levy Beranbaum, The Diva of Desserts!

Rose Levy Beranbaum is a much beloved and widely respected baking legend-"a worshipped woman . . . revered by serious cooks and part-timers" alike, in the words of USA Today. Eagerly-awaited by her legions of devoted fans, Rose's Heavenly Cakes is a must-have guide to perfect cake-baking from this award-winning master baker and author of The Cake Bible, one of the bestselling cookbooks of all time.

This comprehensive guide will help home bakers to create delicious, decadent, and spectacularly beautiful cakes of all kinds with confidence and ease. With her precise, foolproof recipes, Rose shows you how to create everything from Heavenly Coconut Seduction Cake, Golden Lemon Almond Cake, and Devil's Food Cake with Midnight Ganache to Orange-Glow Chiffon Layer Cake, Mud Turtle Cupcakes, and Deep Chocolate Passion Wedding Cake.

Rose's Heavenly Cakes

• Features Rose's trademark easy-to-follow, expertly tested (and retested) recipes for perfectly delicious results every time
• Offers over 100 simply wonderful recipes for cakes for every occasion-from exceptionally delicious butter and oil cakes, sponge cakes, and mostly flourless cakes and cheesecakes, to charming baby cakes and elegant wedding cakes
• Features special tips and tricks from a beloved baking expert for creating amazing special effects and beautiful cake decor
• Contains 100 tempting full-color photos

Visit Rose Levy Beranbaum at realbakingwithrose.com and learn basic baking techniques with her, including measuring, preparing, andmixing ingredients to make cakes and creating decorations to dress them up.

Everything you need to create heavenly cakes-every time-can be found in this new collection of tried-and true recipes by one of the most celebrated bakers of our time.

Publishers Weekly

Beranbaum, specialist of baked goods that make people's eyes light up, tops her renowned The Cake Bible with an updated, modern collection of delicious confections. Bakers who have already dog-eared every page of that earlier book need not worry: this is far from a duplicate, with only the occasional repeat or adaptation. The recipes range from towering creations for weddings and other special events to baby cakes for bite-size indulgence, and from the simplest apple upside-down cake and yellow butter cupcakes to the elegant rose-shaped genoise and the stunning holiday pinecone cake. Beranbaum goes into great detail in her recipe instructions, yet still manages to keep the lengthy guidelines friendly, accessible and unintimidating, whether she is describing how to make a whipped ganache topping or beurre noisette, an integral part of her delicate array of financiers. Chocolate, fruit, cream, spun sugar: Beranbaum enlists the best ingredients (which she reviews in a helpful glossary) to create knockout cakes, and with her patient, meticulous description of the measurements and process, anyone with a good mixer and spatula, some time and determination will be able to turn out impressive sweet sensations. (Sept.)

Library Journal

Beranbaum, author of the James Beard Award-winning The Cake Bible, treats home bakers to another round of cake recipes, which vary from simple to complex and include plenty of tips and tricks to make every baker feel like a professional. Recipes are organized by butter and oil cakes, sponge cakes, mostly flourless cakes and cheesecakes, baby cakes, and wedding cakes. Fans of The Cake Bible will find more of the same here—cakes that are beautiful but intimidating for novices. For experienced bakers; beginners are better off with Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook or Nigella Lawson's How To Be a Domestic Goddess: Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking. [The publisher says a supportive accompanying web site will feature step-by-step instructional videos.—Ed.]

Product Details

• Table of Contents

Table of Contents