Nick Malgieri's Perfect Pastry

Create Fantastic Desserts by Mastering the Basic Techniques
By Nick Malgieri

Perfect Pastry For nearly twenty years, Nick Malgieri has traveled the country teaching aspiring professionals the finer points of baking spectacular desserts, with an emphasis on the piece de resistance: pastry. At last, anyone can learn the secrets to winning pastry from the nation's foremost authority right in their own kitchen with Nick Malgieri's Perfect Pastry : Create Fantastic Desserts by Mastering the Basic—available in paperback for the first time.

Why and how does baking work? Rather than simply serving up recipes, Nick Malgieri guides readers, as he does his students, to understand the answers. "A thorough grounding in the basic techniques—techniques that address this question-- will prepare any baker, professional or home, to make the best pastries and desserts possible," Malgieri firmly believes.

Nick Malgieri's Perfect Pastry begins with an overview of the basics: the right equipment and building-block ingredients. Malgieri offers key insights into the selection, storage, and handling of milk, buffer, eggs, flour, and fundamental flavorings. Along the way, he teaches simple yet vital techniques, from measuring ingredients and separating eggs to poaching fruit and caramelizing sugar. He then builds in complexity to dessert fillings and coverings—providing base recipes for whipped cream, custard, mousse, meringue, ganache, creme anglaise, and sabayon, along with practical pointers on whisking cream by hand, piping meringue, and other skills that require a delicate touch. From there, Malgieri devotes the heart of his guide to the foundation of every pastry: dough.

From a basic cream puff pastry, to sweet and flaky doughs for tarts and pies, to biscuit and cake batters, Malgieri takes home cooks through the essentials of creating exceptional desserts. Throughout, step-by-step instructions, accompanied by photographs and line drawings, clearly illustrate proven techniques for mixing, rolling, cutting, shaping, lattice-making, filling, and assembling. For the icing, Malgieri devotes his final chapter to decorating—illuminating in vivid detail the art of marzipan roses, decorating with chocolate shavings and cut-outs, and all the professional "tricks" that elevate a delectable confection into a stunning showpiece.

To help bakers put each technique into practice—and savor the fruits of their labor—Nick Malgieri's Perfect Pastry presents more than 200 enticing pastry recipes, plus creative ideas for variations. Malgieri offers his definitive renditions of the classics, such as Chocolate Eclairs, Tarte Tatin, Torta di Ricotta, Sponge Fingers, and Apple Pie. He also shares an array of tantalizing innovations, including Blueberry and Walnut Pie, White Chocolate and Praline Tart, Peach and Raspberry Cobbler, Lemon Marzipan Roll, Bourbon Pecan Cake, Chocolate Pistachio Orange Cake, and Low-Calorie Raspberry Charlotte.

A self-instructional guide, an authoritative reference, and an unparalleled recipe collection, Nick Malgieri's Perfect Pastry will guide and inspire novice and advance pastry bakers alike to wow guests, pamper loved ones, and transform any meal into an occasion with spectacular home baked desserts.

Nick Malgieri is director of the pastry program at Peter Kump's New York Cooking School. The author of How to Bake and the just released Chocolate, he teaches aspiring pastry chefs in schools across the country and inspires home bakers with his features on The Food TV Network.

Nick Malgieri's Perfect Pastry
Create Fantastic Desserts by Mastering the Basic Techniques
By Nick Malgieri
MacMillan USA
338 pages, with black & white how-to photos throughout
Paperback, $19.95
ISBN: 0-02-861257-4
Information provided by the publisher.