The Art of French Pastry: A Cookbook

Victor of the 2014 James Beard Award for Best Cookbook, Dessert and Baking

What does it take to consummate an immaculate éclair? A sensitive yet rich croissant? To pipe many macarons? The appropriate response is: a personal information on the basics of baked good. In The Art of French Pastry grant winning baked good culinary expert Jacquy Pfeiffer, fellow benefactor of the famous French Pastry School in Chicago, gives you simply that.

By showing you how to make everything from pâte à choux to baked good cream, Pfeiffer expands on the fundamentals until you have a comprehension of the science behind the fixings utilized, how they communicate with each other, and what your hands need to do to change them into cake. This yields great outcomes! Hope to ace these methods and afterward enjoy flawless plans, for example,

· brioche
· napoléons/Mille-Feuilles
· cream puffs
· Alsatian cinnamon rolls/chinois
· lemon cream tart with meringue tears
· elephant ears/palmiers
· dark backwoods cake
· beignets

just as some customary Alsatian appetizing treats, including:

· Pretzels
· Kougelhof
· Tarte Flambée
· Warm Alsatian Meat Pie

Baked good is about exactness, so Pfeiffer presents us with an astounding abundance of data—arrangements of fundamental hardware, diagrams on how fixings respond in various situations, and the exact load of fixings in grams, with a gander at their comparable in U.S. units—which will help you in all parts of your cooking.

In any case, so as to appropriately make the most of your "equitable pastries," in a manner of speaking; you will likewise realize where these indulgences started. Jacquy Pfeiffer originates from a long queue of baked good cooks and has been making these plans since he was a youngster working in his dad's bread shop in Alsace. Sprinkled with entertaining, enchanting recollections from a lifetime in baked good, this book will have you completely valuing the many long periods of convention that formed these plans into the works of art that we know and love, and would now be able to serve to our loved ones again and again.

The Art of French Pastry, brimming with flawless photography and Pfeiffer's going with representations, is an ace class in cake from an ace instructor.

About the Author
Jacquy Pfeiffer's career began with an apprenticeship in Strasbourg, Alsace, at the famous Jean Clauss Pâtisserie. In 1995, Pfeiffer cofounded the French Pastry School in Chicago with Chef Sébastien Canonne, M.O.F., where their team is devoted to imparting excellence. Pfeiffer has participated in many of the world’s most prestigious pastry competitions, placing in the World Chocolate Masters in Paris in 1996 and at the Coupe du Monde de la Pâtisserie in Lyon, France, in both 1995 and 1997. He was named one of the Top Ten Pastry Chefs in America by Chocolatier and Pastry Art & Design for two consecutive years and was inducted into the Académie Culinaire de France in 2003. In 2009, Pfeiffer was featured in Kings of Pastry, a documentary by internationally acclaimed filmmakers D. A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus. Shortly after, he was inducted into Dessert Professional’s Pastry Hall of Fame and the Chicago Culinary Museum’s Chefs Hall of Fame. Today, Pfeiffer is the Academic Dean for Student Affairs at the French Pastry School, widely considered one of the leading pastry institutions in the world.

Martha Rose Shulman is the award-winning author of more than twenty-five cookbooks, including The Very Best of Recipes for Health, Mediterranean Harvest: Vegetarian Recipes from the World’s Healthiest Cuisine, Mediterranean Light, Provençal Light, and Entertaining Light. She writes the daily Recipes for Health column for the online New York Times, is a founding contributor of the website Zester Daily, and is the co-owner of the Venice Cooking School in Los Angeles. She has coauthored books with pastry chef Sherry Yard, Wolfgang Puck, Dean Ornish, and Mark Peel, and has collaborated with the Culinary Institute of America on two books, Culinary Boot Camp and Spain and the World Table. Learn more about Martha at martha-rose-shulman.com.

Beginning January 2016, I decided to spend a year trying to master making croissants and pain au chocolat. I'd never made either, but in an article I read in SIFT magazine about baking bread and croissants, one baker argued most people don't bake their breads or croissants long enough, so they come out pasty looking. He said he's always arguing with his customers who complain that the's selling them burnt bread or burnt croissants. It was a good article with a photo of a croissant so dark and brown and delicious looking, it intrigued me. So I thought I'd try it, ya know, just to see if I could do it. I nailed it on my first try that's how fantastic this recipe is and his explanations. I recommend this book very highly. Me, just a "normal" baker who bakes something, like eight times a year, was able to nail this. Now I make them semi-weekly and all of my friends love being on my distribution list!-Culy

This book is a TREASURE. I say so because the recipes are perfect. First, the measurements are correct and in the correct format. I've had many books in the past where the quantities are clearly WAY off. And you don't know that they are way off until you're project turns to trash. And yes, although the measurements are in weight, which will scare the daylights out of some people, this is the correct way to measure pastry ingredients. Second, the details of how to bring the ingredients together (the technique) is clearly spelled out.....almost painfully spelled out. You won't have to worry that you didn't get enough explanation. But that's good. And finally, third, the recipes are all outstanding. They are practical. They are high quality but do-able at home. Don't misunderstand, they are in depth French pastry recipes. And they may require some special ordering of ingredients. So if you are looking for a good chocolate chip cookies and brownies, this is not the book you want. But if you want a book that gives you good, reliable French recipes for all seasons, this is the best I've seen. What would make it better? Volume 2.-Jaworek

I should start by saying I LOVE cookbooks with as much detail as possible. This book is a great example of just that. This book gives the home baker the perfect amount of information to learn the true process behind the tradition of french pastry. I am a pretty experienced home baker, and this book helped me to master tempering chocolate, which I had previously attempted many times. There is so much advice given about ingredients, equipment, and the procedure that it is hard to go wrong. I will say that a lot of the recipes require a big time commitment compared to the average Food Network dessert recipe, but I am excited about the opportunity to take on something a little more complicated and have it come out right! -Marissa