The Advanced Professional Pastry Chef

[Cora Hickel]

Thisnew advanced volume, which expands Bo Friberg's classic The Professional Pastry Chef, brings up-to-date coverage of advanced baking and pastry techniques to a new generation of pastry chefs and serious home bakers. Like its "sister" volume on the basics (The Professional Pastry Chef: Fundamentals of Baking and Pastry, 2002, 0-471-35925-4), this book, which covers such subjects as modernistic desserts, chocolate work, and sugar and marzipan creations, is designed to meet the needs of today's pastry kitchen. This definitive reference features clear explanations, step-by-step how-to photos, and meticulous recipes - all presented in a lively, reader-friendly style.

Welcome to the eG Forums, a service of the eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters. The Society is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of the culinary arts. These advertising-free forums are provided free of charge through donations from Society members. Anyone may read the forums, but to post you must create a free account.

I ordered this book and its companion: The Advanced Professional Pastry Chef, both by Bo Friberg, and was wondering if anyone has experience with the books? I've bought them because I wanted to gain a better understanding and more comprehensive knowledge about pastry (especially the dessert side) and thought that this would be a good starting point.

They are good books, The Professional Pastry Chef was the very first book I bought. I look to then for inspiration and when I'm interested in making something I haven't done before or want to look up, normally I do find it somewhere in the two books. In general, though, I've had recipes come out better when I use a book like On Baking, which is a little more straight forward. Bo's books are fine, but I've experienced multiple occasions where the recipe itself needed tweaking. A few examples off the top of my head are for the scones, 425f seemed a bit hot to bake them, so I do 400f, and thats in addition to just using the formula to make my own variations, the directions for shaping them sounds like it would yield sharp long skinny scones, it sounded sort of odd. The formula for pastillage was off, it was unusually soft, very very difficult to work with, and I never had very much success with the pulled sugar formulas, I use Notters formulas from his book. I was also never much of a fan of his breads, some are good, other I would pass.

On the other hand, I love the cookies, both in the standard book and the advanced, he makes very nice cookies, ice creams are good also, and he explains well why you should have a syrup density meter when making sorbets.

I have The Professional Pastry Chef. I've only made a few recipes. The Vanilla Pound Cake was exceptional. I bake my dogs bones every month from Chef Bo's recipe. I have also learned a lot. Especially useful to me is his method of lining pans with parchment.

IMHO, both are great books and provide a general overview of many techniques. That said, I would steer you to Greuling for chocolates, Migoya for frozen and plated desserts, Hammelman for bread, etc... if there is a topic you want to take a deep dive into.

One disadvantage to both books is that the formulas are for production volume. If you are learning at home, you will end up with tons of cakes, cookes, muffins, etc... halving or quartering some recipes may be necessary.

The recipes can easily be halved. The thing I noticed, at least in the recipes I was interested in, is that the baking pan called for in the recipe is only a 1 quart capacity. If you halve the recipe, you have 2 cakes that are 1 quart each. Not much at all.

Thank you for your information! I'm really looking forward to tomorrow (I return "home" and the books are waiting for me). I will post the first experimentations in this thread, just to keep you updated!

I bought the edition of the book that was available in the late 1990s. I found it to be full of info and plenty of beautiful pictures. Unfortunately, I don't think I attempted any recipe. It was too complex for a college student who didn't have many of the pastry chef tools. By the way, I was an exercise science student who loved to collect pastry chef and dessert books.....wishing I had the money to buy all the cool tools. I was a poor college student back then with just enough money to buy the book....about $65.00ish. I donated the book about 6 years ago since I never really cooked out of it.......and the book was quite heavy and huge.

I have both books and love them. I have learned a lot from the books and have made many recipes from them with wonderful results. I do not have any formal kitchen training but with his instruction I have been able to make my own puff pastry, strudel dough that stretches to the size of my table (!) and many other things I didn't think I would ever be able to do. I have made several of his cookie and cake recipes, and the west coast cheesecake is my go-to for cheesecake. The pumpkin pie is lighter than most pumpkin pies and I always get rave reviews on it. I've made some of the fiddly pastries and really enjoyed it.

I think some of the cakes in that first volume (I think it's the first volume anyway) are showstoppers at potlucks and the like. Not only do they taste great, but his decoration ideas are gorgeous. The Chestnut Puzzle Cake is a fun one, too, for the neat design of the cake layers when you slice it.

Chris, if you have opportunity, I can really recommend finding a good pastry chef and taking few classes. It brings you light years ahead. I have done a short pastry course (4 days) in past, amazing how many neat tricks of trade you can pick, that make going through any pastry book a breeze. Some moves (such as folding a mousse or a batter), mixing dough, even mixing cream to the right consistency, are difficult to explain/convey in written form. Youtube works as second best but if you can, go for the real deal.

Mastering the art of French pastry requires rigor and precision but also an ability to develop and renew an offer. Boutique, decorative and event products will be addressed during our new program, to provide participants with new inspirations and techniques from high-level pastry chefs. Throughout the program, participants will receive precious tips and insights from accomplished professionals to help them reach their career goal as a top-level pastry chef, the owner of a shop or the creator of an innovative concept.

All teaching in this program will be in English (guest chefs may speak in French with simultaneous translation). Course materials will be in English. Although knowledge of the French language is not a requirement to be admitted to the program, it is important for the internship and more generally for daily life in Paris.

Throughout the program, participants will work towards the final Creativity Pop-Up, building on new skills and techniques as well as the different approaches and personalities of the teaching team. This project will involve the development in teams of a range of boutique products that will be offered for sale at the end of the program.

Having just finished reading the chapters pertaining to bread in Advanced Bread and Pastry by Michel Suas, I have to say that this book has already become my favorite from among all the bread books in my collection.

While those who bake by 'feel' might not appreciate the detail into which the book delves, I believe those who take a 'scientific' approach to bread baking will find the book invaluable. The discussion of short, improved and intensive mixing protocols and their relationship to bulk fermentation times and yeast quantities is, in itself, worth the price of the book.

The book is not so much a collection of recipes (although it does contain a large number of them) as it is a complete education in bread and pastry baking, thus providing a jumping-off point for the baker to create his/her own recipes. It almost seems as if the book was written to serve as the text for the Bread and Pastry Professional Training Program taught at the SFBI, of which Suas is the founder. Although the book seems to be written with the professional baker in mind, I think that home bakers, like myself, will find a wealth of information which will serve them well in the family kitchen.

In reviewing the text once again, I noticed a short paragraph that suggests the use of commercial yeast nutrients, the option I originally mentioned, to overcome the problems associated with overly soft water.

Thanks for your reviews and comments re: Advanced Bread and Pastry by Michel Suas. Well, I did it. I just ordered it from Amazon (not cheap at US $53.56). I rationalized buying it, by saying to myself it's cheaper than filling up my car at the gas station. Yeah, I know---pretty convoluted logic. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to receiving the book, begin reading and doing some serious baking using Suas' recipes.

I already have a large collection of baking and cook books but, I swear, baking is addictive...in a very positive sort of way---can't get enough; books, couches, bannetons, gadgets, pans, etc. Still haven't sprung for the salt scale that Trish found on-line from England...but who knows, with all those yeast spores floating around in my kitchen I may get crazy one day and order a salt scale to complement my sterling silver truffle shaver and gold sommelier cup, both of which are kept in a large Mosler safe...NOT! :-)

Thanks to you both for encouraging me to purchase the book. I just received it and have only looked through it, but it's an incredible book. Can't wait to really begin reading it and baking some of the recipes More later.

It's a beautiful, thick, hardback book, 8 1/2" X 11", containing 22 chapters, 1,041 pages (including: Appendix, Glossary, Subject Index and Formula Index) with lots of color photos, including photos showing some step-by-step procedures. At some point, unless someone else does it first, I will try to post a summary of its contents. It's going to take me a while to get through it though. At first glance it reminds me of a Gastronomique for bakers.

3a8082e126