The Book Depository Patisserie by William Curley
272 ratings
TO EXPLORE MORE
Price: £45.00
Brand: The Book Depository
Description: Patisserie : Hardback : Jacqui Small : 9781909342217 : 1909342211 : 22 May 2014 : Patisserie aims to reflect award-winning chocolatier, William Curley's passion for taking classic recipes and modernizing them with his own innovations. The Book Depository Patisserie by William Curley - shop the best deal online on thebookbug.co.uk
Category: Books
Merchant: The Book Depository
Product ID: 9781909342217
MPN: 1909342211
GTIN: 9781909342217
Author: Pema
Rating: 5
Review: I love it but whether or not I will actually make any of the recipes is another matter. They look delicious and have plenty of clear instructions and illustrations. The recipes range from relatively straightforward to really quite complex so building your confidence on the foundation recipes seems essential - even if you use the result for something other than one of the book's recipes. Also you may find you need equipment which you never previously knew existed - pomponette moulds for example - and which may not be that simple to find as from my research it appears they are mainly aimed at professional kitchens. The first section has all the essential recipes for various types of pastry, sponges, meringues, creams, pralines, caramel, custards, syrups, decorations, mousse and so on. These recipes are then used in the ensuing more complex recipes and are referred to as, for example, 1 quantity biscuit joconde, 1 quantity alcohol syrup and so forth. Each recipe does set out what ingredients you will need (although you may have to refer to previous foundation recipes) and will also tell you what special equipment you need eg numbers and/or sizes of tart rings, entrement rings, pomponette moulds, piping nozzles, cutters etc. I think it will require some dedication on my part to start doing some of these recipes and I hope I will actually make them.
Author: Bonny Appetit
Rating: 3
Review: You only need to look at the cover shot to realise that this is not a book for novices or indeed for keen amateurs. It requires a lot of specialist equipment and a huge amount of time and ability. I run a cookery school and teach patisserie classes and I wouldn't put this level of complexity into the recipes I teach. For example the chocolate, banana and peanut caramel bar requires pate sablee, chcocolate sponge, alcohol syrup, dark choc mousse, peanut tuile, salt caramel, peanut paste, dark spraying chocolate and gold leaf. The end results are beautiful, they are the sort of patisseries that grace the shop windows in Fauchon or other top end Paris bakeries but to get results as good as these they require a level of experience and dexterity that only professional pastry chefs have. Many recipes require 12-15 small photos of the stages of construction and because of the number needed the photos are small (5 x 5cm) which is too small in my view. They've also done that really annoying design thing of printing instructions over a large background photo which renders the print virtually impossible to read (if you're in a book shop, check out page 121, it's like a nightmare eye test!). I'll keep it because the patisseries are beautiful and some of the decorating techniques are useful but at £32 I'd think carefully about whether to invest in this.
