Sarabeth's Bakery: From My Hands to Yours

My family has always been dedicated to homemade baked goods. We love chocolate chip cookies & pumpkin pie. We've never had a store bought red velvet cake that could equal our recipe.But pastries? That's out of our reach...until now. In the first week I had this book, I made almond croissants, apple turnovers, and palmiers. I'm next looking at the danish recipe, not to mention the fruit tarts & biscuits.This book breaks things down to the level of the home baker. There are instructions for each step of the process, and many helpful pictures for some of the more difficult steps (i.e. doing double turns to your puff pastry dough). The photographs of the finished products make you long to bake - they are incredibly luscious & mouth-watering.There's a very helpful introduction that describes some of the more specialized ingredients in the recipes & what the differences are between (for example) a vanilla bean & vanilla extract.Note: while many of the recipes are intimidating for the length of time they take to make, many don't actually require you to be present for that entire time. You can be doing other things while waiting for the dough to rise or chill. What DOES take time is the freezing period - anywhere from one day to one week - before some items can be baked. It's hard to wait that long! It may also be hard to plan that far in advance to know when you will need to make a recipe.Substitutions: if you're like me, you don't have rum lying around the house & are not about to go out & buy a bottle to get the 1/2 tsp needed. So I improvised w/ molasses & water. I also was not about to make apple preserves from scratch to make the filling for apple turnovers. So I cheated with canned filling. All this to say, don't be afraid to make the recipes work for your situation. Yes, they won't be exactly like the "real" recipes, but you have to make some judgement calls with how much you're willing to do & spend.This book has opened a whole new world of baking & I can't wait to try more recipes!

I live in Chicago and had never heard of Sarabeth before this cookbook, but the preview on Amazon looked great so I tried it. All I can say is it is AMAZING. I am not a baker -- I have baked, and enjoy cooking, but I'm not remotely proficient at baking. With this book, I feel like the real thing. As others have said, her descriptions are very-very detailed and the pictures are wonderful. They are especially important for the dough. I made the Raspberry-Lemon Cake for a birthday party, and it is not an exaggeration to say people thought they were eating a professional wedding cake. It was the best cake I've ever made by a long way. The blueberry preserves are also out this world. Next, I'm going to tackle the croissants. I think I might actually be able to do it.Word of warning, this book is not for the faint of heart. Some of the recipes are wonderfully simple (e.g., the preserves, cookies), but many of them have a number of steps. At least, the ones I've tried do. She is excellent at explaining which steps can be done ahead, which is a godsend. And you really do feel great when your recipe turns out. She does not shy away from listing the materials that are ideal for a recipe, but as someone who does not plan to turn into a baking machine, I make do with the materials I have on hand. My substitutions have been fine (e.g., one kind of rolling pin, not two or three; regular round cake pans, not special cake rings for layering). I don't skimp on the ingredients, but there is nothing exotic listed -- cake flour, bread flour, butter, sugar, etc. She has a great tip for working with vanilla beans, btw, but she also tells you when pure vanilla extract will do.If you feel like taking a shot at baking, this book is very worth your effort. And if you are already an accomplished baker, I'm guessing you'll still love the luscious recipes in the book.Update 11/21/10 - made the croissants over the weekend. They were way, way easier to make than I expected, and they were perfectly flakey and delicious -- a huge hit in the house. Total time I spent measuring, mixing and rolling was maybe half an hour. The rest of the time the dough just sits. I've read the directions in other books for how to make croissants, and the method Sarabeth came up with is dramatically easier than anything else I've seen. It's worth the price of the book on its own. Next I'm going to try the puff pastry and make some turnovers.btw -- the size of the croissants she provides are about half the size of bakery croissants. It's a nice size for a party or if you don't want overkill. To have a typical bakery-size croissant, I roll out to a single 24" x 8" rectangle, and then mark a 6" base for each croissant. It took a bit of trial and error to come to these measurements, so I thought I'd share them.

When you read this book, it's as though you've paid for an expensive culinary class. Page after page, one gets so many teachings to carry one through their baking career. This is a "must have" book. I could only afford it used, but I'm so grateful to have it. I LOVE this book!

I first saw this book as one of Amazon's recommendations for me, but I only decided to buy it after I had the opportunity to actually go through it in my local library. I got it just a couple of days ago and I started baking off it right away. I made "Ruby Cake" and it turned out gorgeously moist and delicious, my family even ended up fighting over it.I made "Challah" bread, and the only thing I needed to adjust was the time I let it rise, because my kitchen was a little cold. It turned out great too, soft and beautiful, and the perfect flavor. I thought that the recipe was less complicated than the one they gave me in Culinary school. I finished it with poppy seeds as they said it is the traditional way to do it.I am planning on baking 2 different cookies from the book today, and I only anticipate excellent results.The only thing that I would like to change, is the amount of pictures. It needs more! Many recipes don't have a picture of the finished products. I like to see how my item is supposed to look, specially if I have never made it before. I would usually give 4 stars to books that could use more pictures, but since I got 2 perfect baked products from the first 2 recipes that I tried, this book gets 5 stars from me.Off to baking peanut butter cookies right now!

Better condition than expected for a second-hand item. It was hardly used, one could think it was new! Besides, it arrived three weeks earlier, so it was perfect!

Bellissimo libro, molte ricette e immagini. In inglese chiaramente. Una stella in meno perchè arrivato senza celofan e leggermente sbertucciato su un angolo.

Great good instructions. Very inspirationalGood illustrations like the layout. Makes you want to bake everything listed in the bookGood job

Klasse Rezepte, gut nachbackbar, volle punkte absolut empfehlenswert. Super schoen fotografierte Bilder die Lust aufs nachbacken machen. Habe den Kauf nicht bereut.

This is a masterpiece and a must-have for patrons of Sarabeth's Bakeries in Manhattan.Very challenging however - time-consuming and complicated, at least the first part - and rightly so: there is no short-cut to a great croissant.The second part of the book is easier and comfortingly traditional.I can't take the book out without my kids crowding the kitchen table and crying for me to bake this or that cake for them.Forget your diet...!The book is giant sized and doesn't fit my book cases but is a lovely 'object' in itself, to display for guests.