Books like Surprise Cakes and Cupcakes by Candice Clayton

What does it take to perfect a flawless éclair? A delicate yet buttery croissant? To pipe dozens of macarons? The answer is: an intimate knowledge of the fundamentals of pastry. In The Art of French Pastry award-winning pastry chef Jacquy Pfeiffer, cofounder of the renowned French Pastry School in Chicago, gives you just that. By teaching you how to make everything from pâte à choux to pastry cream, Pfeiffer builds on the basics until you have an understanding of the science behind the ingredients used, how they interact with one another, and what your hands have to do to transform them into pastry. This yields glorious results! Expect to master these techniques and then indulge in exquisite recipes, such as: brioche, napoléons / Mille-Feuilles, cream puffs, Alsatian cinnamon rolls / chinois, lemon cream tart with meringue teardrops, elephant ears / palmiers, black forest cake, beignets, as well as some traditional Alsatian savory treats, including: Pretzels, Kougelhof, Tarte Flambée, Warm Alsatian Meat Pie. Pastry is all about precision, so Pfeiffer presents us with an amazing wealth of information—lists of necessary equipment, charts on how ingredients react in different environments, and the precise weight of ingredients in grams, with a look at their equivalent in U.S. units -- which will help you in all aspects of your cooking. But in order to properly enjoy your "just desserts," so to speak, you will also learn where these delicacies originated. Jacquy Pfeiffer comes from a long line of pastry chefs and has been making these recipes since he was a child working in his father's bakery in Alsace. Sprinkled with funny, charming memories from a lifetime in pastry, this book will have you fully appreciating the hundreds of years of tradition that shaped these recipes into the classics that we know and love, and can now serve to our friends and families over and over again. The Art of French Pastry, full of gorgeous photography and Pfeiffer's accompanying illustrations, is a master class in pastry from a master teacher. - Publisher.

First published in the United Kingdom in 2008 Text © Susannah Blake 2008 Design and photographs © Ryland Peters & Small 2008 "Some of the recipes in this book have been published previously by Ryland Peters & Small in Cupcakes" Printed and bound in China