Product Details
The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Pastry Arts

The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Pastry Arts
By International Culinary Center, Judith Choate

List Price: $75.00
Price: $47.25 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com

32 new or used available from $38.83

Average customer review:

Product Description

An indispensable addition to any serious home baker’s library, The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Pastry Arts covers the many skills an aspiring pastry chef must master. Based on the internationally lauded curriculum developed by master pâtissier Jacques Torres for New York’s French Culinary Institute, the book presents chapters on every classic category of confection: tarts, cream puffs, puff pastry, creams and custards, breads and pastries, cakes, and petits fours. 
Each chapter begins with an overview of the required techniques, followed by dozens of recipes—many the original creations of distinguished FCI graduates. Each recipe even includes a checklist to help you evaluate your success as measured against professional standards of perfection! Distilling ten years of trial and error in teaching students, The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Pastry Arts is a comprehensive reference with hundreds of color photographs, a wealth of insider tips, and highly detailed information on tools and ingredients—quite simply the most valuable baking book you can own.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #37761 in Books
  • Published on: 2009-11-01
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Hardcover
  • 512 pages

Customer Reviews

Everything I'd hoped...5
The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Pastry Arts is an amazing book for pastry geeks like me. I'm a home cook, but very experienced with creating gourmet & restaurant-type desserts. I took a trip to Paris and visited some lovely little neighborhood patisseries, and tasted as many french desserts as I could during my short visit. Almost all of them were absolutely amazing, and completely different than what is available locally in my area of the U.S. This big, thick, colorful book shows how to make all of the desserts we tasted and loved on our trip. It has just enough photographs to illustrate key points of the recipes, and many of the recipes have photos of the finished product. One thing that I would have enjoyed is photographs showing some of the desserts plated and ready to serve. There were a few photos of finished desserts where I wanted to see what it looked like when it was cut. Still, I love the book, and there are a lot of things that make it "better than the rest of the crowd". I very much appreciate the "Evaluating Your Success" section for each recipe, and also the "Tips" section that accompanies each recipe.
This is a BIG book, and though I initially read the book all the way through, it's obviously better suited as a reference book, not a read-it-in-bed-as-you-fall-asleep book. It's just too heavy & bulky to read easily as a bedside book! I also liked the inclusion of not one, but *two* ribbon bookmarks to help mark pages for easy reference. Beautiful book, and worth every dime!

Fundamental techniques and typos2

I recently purchased this book from my book of the month club. I love to bake and have quite a collection of baking specific books. I pulled out The Fundamental Techniques tonight to review genoise ( french sponge cake)page 328 since I plan on giving this versatile cake a try. Everything is explained clearly and the tips seem great until you get to the ingredients where I noticed flour is missing! It is mentioned in the recipe directions but no quantity is listed anywhere. This is such a fundamental cake and the recipe is carelessly WRONG. This is the only recipe I have looked at and have not baked from the book... now I am regretting my purchase of a VERY expensive book.

Incredible!5
The only way to describe this book is incredible. It is so comprehensive, it is like taking a 4-year pastry course in Paris! This book covers every aspect of the fine art of pastry in simple, understandable steps. When broken down like this and explained, it makes it seem so easy. The pictures are beautifully done. I love this book. What a great addition to any cook's library. Definitely as must have. Would make a wonderful Christmas gift!