The Cake Book

`The Cake Book' by chocolate guru Tish Boyle evokes in me the exclamation ... `Holy butter crème, Batman, yet another book on cakes! What with several recent and classic big books on cakes, including those from great teachers such as `Perfect Cakes' by Nick Malgieri, those from dessert icons such as `Cakes' by Maida Heatter and those from baking expert explains such `The Cake Bible' from Rose Levy Beranbaum, one wonders, does the world really need another book on cakes? Well, I bought it, and I'm glad I did. Beranbaum does a somewhat better job of explaining the reasons why cakes work or don't work, and Heatter covers more of the classic European types of cakes, and Malgieri covers some pedagogical matters a bit better, but if you like baking cakes, then this book will not be intimidated by sitting alongside these other volumes on your shelf. 

One thing which did surprise me (and which actually increases the value of the book) is that Ms. Boyle actually covers a lot more than cakes understood in a narrow sense as those confections generally done in layers, with icing in the middle and leavened primarily with eggs. The first and most interesting `out of spec' chapter covers cheesecakes, and I believe she has done us a major service by pointing out that cheesecakes, and the cream cheese from which they are made, are one of our great American originals. Her second great service is to give us a recipe for the classic New York cheesecake. I was quite surprised to find that these are not baked in water baths and a little crack or two is considered quite acceptable. This is totally understandable, as I'm sure Juniors in Brooklyn doesn't roll out their thousands of cakes a day by baking in water baths. The other major straying from topic is a chapter on Ice Cream cakes. With these detours, I'm really surprised Ms. Boyle didn't do a chapter on cupcakes. There are only two references to cupcakes in the index, and one of these is a cheesecake (and therefore not a real cake at all). 

The book most similar to Ms. Boyle's effort is Nick Malgieri's `Perfect Cakes', so I compared the two to get some impression of which was the better. My ultimate opinion is that you loose nothing by having both books. Both volumes cover, for example, cheesecakes, and Malgieri is just a little better at giving you tips on general cheesecake expertise. And, both include the Italian specialty, pizza dolce di ricotta, but with markedly different recipes. Like Heatter, Malgieri leans towards European classics, especially Jewish and Italian classics, while Ms. Boyle leans to American standards. Regarding these standards, her recipe for `solid gold Carrot Cake' particularly took me. It does not include the pineapple from my favorite Malgieri recipe, but it includes lots of other yummy things such as ginger, orange zest, and the cookie spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves). It is also illuminating to see her take on strawberry shortcake, since (unlike everyone from James Beard to M).