Product Description

Carole Walter has had a love affair with baking since she was a child. That passion has flowered into a professional career that has taken Walter around the world to study baking and the culinary arts with renowned chefs in Austria, Denmark, France, and Italy, as well as in the United States. For twenty years she has been sharing this wealth of expertise with her own students, and now she shares it with you.
With Carole Walter at your side, you will be able to achieve professional results every time. Her clear instructions and invaluable tips will help you avoid the common pitfalls that every baker, no matter how experienced, faces from time to time.
Many of the cake recipes in Great Cakes can be baked in under an hour and don't require frosting or filling, yet they are attractive enough to serve to company. Here are recipes for Old-Fashioned Pound Cake and Streusel Lemon Torte, Chocolate Marble Cheesecake and Italian Purple Plum Cake, and more -- over 250 recipes in all.
You'll also find an array of basic butter cakes, jelly roll cakes, coffee cakes and cheese cakes, as well as cakes that have fruit, nuts, and vegetables as their main ingredients. Once you've mastered the basics, you can go on to fillings, frostings, glazes, and toppings for glorious results.
A complete compendium of cake recipes, this is the only cake baking book you'll ever need, the one you'll use again and again to make simple yet utterly delicious cakes for your family and friends. Great Cakes is more than a "cookbook" -- it's a baking course between two covers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #160456 in Books
• Published on: 2005-11-01
• Released on: 2005-11-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 592 pages

Customer Reviews

Easy to read and follow instructions
I have checked the two reviews posted on the amazon regarding this book before purchasing it. The previous buyers did state that the book didnt have any photos (although i am a picture type of person who would try new recipes after seeing photos), however the book overall seems to have variety of easy to follow cake recipes although i havent tried one yet.

I enjoyed reading the 1st part: instructions-trouble shooting problems- and baking ware tools, and have realised some mistakes i have done when baking in the past, and I am planning to use the book as a guidline when baking cakes, i really wish if there were photos of all cakes just to have an idea of what the end result should've looked like.

Good cake book for a low price
Although this cake book does not have photographs of all the cakes and usually I abstain from cookbooks that do not have photographs of all of their recipes, I was surprised to find that this is a very good book despite that. I even made a cake the banana nut cake but instead of banana I used pineapple. It was very nice but as the other reviewer said it needed some more sugar.

Tons of great recipes
My favorite recipe in this book is the Carrot Pineapple Cake. What I also like is that the recipes respond well to tweeking, therefore you can make a recipe your own. The cakes have that homemade taste to them. There is also some useful info in the front about the different ingredients, which is a must for any serious baker. There are directions for decorating cakes and recipes for sauces, frosting and glazes in the back. Every recipe end with instructions on how to store the finished cake, and contains variations of the original recipe. I am a recent graduate of a professional baking and pastry program, and I can tell you that I use this book for cakes more so than my textbook. I took away one star for the lack of photos. There are some in the middle of the book as well as some illustrations in the decorating section, but I usually like more photos in my books. But don't let that stop you from buying this book. This is my bible for cakes.
NOTE: Taste the batter before you bake, I find that I have to add a little sugar to the recipes.