andrew's Reviews
Cookbook Reviews
Pastry: Savory and Sweet
By Michel Roux, Martin Brigdale
Whitecap Books - 2009
A beautiful looking and very promising book marred by some problems.
For now, I'm going to give this a cautious 3 star rating. And that's even though nothing I've made from this book has worked out properly. You see, I think the problem is partially in the cook, not all in the book. I'm still getting pastry experience, and this book is just not meant for someone who is starting out with pastry, no matter that it implies this in the cover flaps.
Michel Roux has held 3 Michelin stars for over 23 years at his restaurant, so there's no doubt he can cook. But it's possible that his great mastery of pastry leads to assumptions which make it hard for a relative beginner to produce good results.
For instance, in tiny print on the introduction pages is the crucial (crucial!) information that all temperatures in the recipes are for fan-assisted (convection) ovens and if you don't have one you need to increase your oven by 30 degrees F. Nowhere in the recipes is this repeated.
He is a big proponent of mixing by hand, which is a great way to get a proper 'feel' for dough. But a relatively inexperienced baker like me takes much longer than him to get the dough into shape, and the result is a warm dough which often gets tough. A cold kitchen and marble counter/slab are vital here. I also find that his blind baking instructions seem a bit incomplete - my pastry was shrinking regularly until I read The Pie and Pastry Bible, by Rose Levy Beranbaum, who recommends at least an hour in the fridge for pastry before blind baking.
So, I'm going to go back to basics with Rose for a while, and then I'm going to tackle this book again, since the recipes and photos are so enticing (and a little intimidating too...), and see how I do. I'll update then.