The Art of French Pastry

Winner of the 2014 James Beard Award for Best Cookbook, Dessert & Baking

What does it take to perfect a flawlessclair? A delicate yet buttery croissant? To pipe dozens of macarons? The answer is: an intimate knowledge of the fundamentals of pastry. InThe Art of French Pastryaward-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 pte 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
napolons / 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 Flambe
Warm Alsatian Meat Pie

Pastry is all about precision, so Pfeiffer presents us with an amazing wealth of informationlists 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. unitswhich 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 fathers 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 andPfeiffers accompanying illustrations, is a master class in pastry from a master teacher.