The Pie and Pastry Bible (Hardcover)
by Rose Levy Beranbaum (Author)
If ever there was a
cookbook author who could place her hands on top of
yours, putting you through the proper motions, helping you arrive at
just the right touch, Beranbaum is the one.
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.
