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The Hows and Whys of Successful Baking with Over 250 Magnificent Recipes
Scribner
December 2008
On Sale: October 28, 2008
544 pages ISBN: 1416560785 EAN: 9781416560784 Hardcover
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Cookbooks
Great day in the morning, BakeWise is out! You are
holding the book that everyone has been waiting for. Sure
enough, Shirley did not hold back -- it's all here. Lively
and fascinating, BakeWise reads like a mystery novel
as we follow sleuth Shirley while she solves everything from
why cakes and muffins can be dry to génoise deflation and
why the cookie crumbles. With her years of experience from
big-pot cooking for 140 teenage boys and her classic French
culinary training to her work as a research biochemist at
Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Shirley manages to
put two and two together in unique and exciting ways. Some
information is straight out of Shirley's wildly connecting
brain cells. She describes useful techniques, such as
brushing puff pastry with ice water -- not just brushing off
the flour -- making the puff pastry easier to roll. The
result? Higher, lighter, and flakier pastry. And you won't
find these recipes anywhere else, not even on the Internet.
She can help you make moist cakes; flaky pie crusts;
shrink-proof perfect meringues that won't leak but still cut
like a dream; big, crisp cream puffs; amazing French
pastries; light génoise; and crusty, incredibly flavorful,
open-textured French breads, such as baguettes and
fougasses. There is simply no one like Shirley
Corriher. People everywhere recognize her from her TV
appearances on the Food Network and ABC's Jimmy Kimmel
Live!, with Snoop Dogg as her fry chef. Restaurant
chefs and culinary students know her from their
grease-splattered copies of CookWise, an encyclopedic
work that has saved them from many a cooking disaster. With
numerous "At-a-Glance" charts, BakeWise gives busy
people information for quick problem solving.
BakeWise also includes Shirley's "What This Recipe
Shows" in every recipe. This section is science and culinary
information that can apply to hundreds of recipes, not just
the one in which it appears. For years, food editors
and writers have kept CookWise, Shirley's previous
book, right by their computers. Now that spot they've been
holding for BakeWise can be filled. BakeWise
does not have just a single source of knowledge; Shirley
loves reading the works of chefs and other good cooks and
shares their information with you, too. She applies not only
her expertise but that of the many artisans she admires,
such as famous French pastry chefs Gaston Lenôtre and Chef
Roland Mesnier, the White House executive pastry chef for
twenty-five years; Bruce Healy, author of Mastering the
Art of French Pastry; and Bonnie Wagner, Shirley's
daughter-in-law's mother. Shirley also retrieves "lost arts"
from experts of the past such as Monroe Boston Strause, the
pie master of 1930s America. For one dish, she may give you
techniques from three or four different chefs plus her own
touch of science -- "better baking through chemistry." She
adds facts about the right temperature, the right mixing
speed, and the right mixing time for the absolutely most
stable egg foam, so you can create a light-as-air génoise
every time. BakeWise is for everyone. Some will
read it for the adventure of problem solving with Shirley.
Beginners can cook from it and know exactly what they are
doing and why. Experienced bakers find out why the
techniques they use work and also uncover amazing French
pastries out of the past, such as Pont Neuf (a creation of
puff pastry, pâte à choux, and pastry cream in honor of the
Paris bridge) and Religieuses, adorable "little nuns" made
of puff pastry filled with a satiny chocolate pastry cream
and drizzled with mocha icing to form a nun's
habit. Some will want it simply for the recipes --
incredibly moist whipped cream pound cake made with heavy
cream whipped slightly beyond the soft-peak stage and folded
into the batter; flourless fruit soufflés (puréed fruit and
Italian meringue); Chocolate Crinkle Cookies, rolled first
in granulated sugar and then in confectioners' sugar for a
crunchy black-and-snow-white surface with a gooey, fudgy
center. And Shirley's popovers are huge.
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