So you’ve got cookies and brownies mastered. Your cupcakes and scones are the hit of the bake sale. You’re the one to call for all the family birthday cakes. But you want more. You want to learn how to take on Cream Puffs and Croissants and a Tarte Tatin.
Baker Jaclyn Rodriguez is here to help. A professional baker who has worked for noted pastry chef and television personality Ron Ben-Israel, Rodriquez shares what she’s learned in her baking career so that home bakers can elevate their projects to an entirely new level.
She starts with the basics of baking: the science of the formation of gases and coagulation of proteins and evaporation of water. She talks ingredients and equipment and terminology, and you’ll need to have a scale ready for her recipes, because the ingredients are given in weights, not cups. Throughout the cookbook, you’ll find tips for techniques, troubleshooting, substitutions you can make, serving and decorating ideas, and suggestions for upgrading the recipes even more.
Then there are the recipes! Bread and Rolls takes you through Cornbread and Buttermilk Biscuits on to Focaccia, Vienna Bread, Brioche, English Muffins, Pretzel Rolls, and Japanese Milk Bread. There’s also some information on Sourdough and making a Levain Starter, if you’re wanting to give that a go. As you go through these recipes, you’ll learn how a dough is supposed to feel, notice how the weather can affect your breads, and learn to be patient, especially if you’re making that starter that takes 5 days.
From there, you can move on to Pastries and Desserts. You’ll need lots of taste testers for these, but it probably won’t be hard to find those to step up and try your Cream Puffs, Ladyfingers, Eclairs, Croquembouche (a tree made of cream puffs), Macarons, Napoleons, Creme Brulee, Doughnuts, Truffles, and Gougeres. Mastering these recipes teaches you not to burn the eggs and the importance of temperature—whether it’s about chilling the dough or making sure your oven is baking at the perfect temperature.
Then it’s just a quick jump into Pies, Tarts, and Galettes, where you can create a Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie, Mixed Berry Hand Pies, Lemon Meringue Tart (with fresh Lemon Curd), Raspberry Chocolate Ganache Tart, Quiche Lorraine, or Rustic Tomato Galette. With these recipes, you’ll master blind baking and docking the shell and remember to never overwork the dough.
And on to Cakes and Cupcakes, with recipes for a Swiss Meringue Buttercream, Mirror Glaze, and Cream Cheese Frosting, which you can add to any cake to make it more flavorful. There are recipes for an Orange Pound Cake, Angel Food Cake, Vanilla Cake, and Devil’s Food. You can use these building blocks for a Naked Cake with a Ganache Drip, Black Forest Cake, Crepe Cake, Carrot Cake, and Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes. Here you’ll learn to balance the cake to frosting ratio as well as cake assembly and storage and the importance of sifting ingredients so you don’t overmix the batter.
The last chapter of recipes takes you to Cookies and Bars, so you can elevate the basics into Brown Butter Shortbread Cookies, Linzer Cookies, Molasses Gingersnaps, Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies, Florentine Cookies, Madelaines,, Palmiers, Fudge Brownies, Brown Butter Blondies, Apple Pie Bars, and Strawberry Cheesecake Bars. These recipes teach you to make brown butter, use kitchen tools or evenly proportioned cookies, chill the dough, and make some ahead of time.
The final chapter of Advanced Home Baking helps you bring it all together with decorations. She gives instruction on decorating with chocolate, doing sugar work, working with Isomalt, decorating cakes, using Fondant, and adding embellishments like edible flowers, gold leaf, and luster dust. Rodriguez also includes resources for finding supplies and youtube videos as well as a comprehensive index to help you find what you’re looking for.
I really like Advanced Home Baking. It offers up lots of hints for intermediate bakers, to help build confidence and comfort with these techniques. I do wish that there were more photos. There are some gorgeous pictures of the finished products, but I would love to see more than just one or two per chapter. These are beautiful desserts, and they deserve to be shown off. But that’s my only criticism of this cookbook. Other than that, it’s a wonderful resource to help you get that much closer to the Great British Bake-Off or the baking competition show of your choice. Or just to make you the favorite family member!
Egalleys for Advanced Home Baking was provided by Rockridge Press through the Callisto Media Publisher’s Club, with many thanks.
