What Is The Best Of The Best Cake Recipe Book Out There???
Decorating By CocoaBlondie Updated 10 Jul 2008 , 5:28pm by pirogilady
Hey everyone, I'm always looking for new recipes & the best recipes out there. I'd like to know what cake book you might recommend as the BEST of the Best. A fairly large book with many delicious cakes.
Everyone can have different results with the same recipe. that said, there are several books that are generally well reviewed.
The Cake Bible - Rose Levy Beranbaum
Confetti Cakes - Elisa Strauss
The Well Decorated Cake - Toba Garret
the Whimsical Bake House (sorry can't recall)
The Cake Bible for sure.
Also: Nick Malgieri's Perfect Cakes and Roland Mesnier's Basic to Beautiful Cakes.
Baking by Dorie Greenspan is really high up there, but is assorted baked goods rather than just cakes. I just made her walnut mocha swirl bundt cake 2 days ago, and it was amazing (it's also gone LOL).
Another general baking book I use all the time is Baking At Home by the Culinary Institute of America.
I just got Whimsical Bakehouse and CakeLove - will have to see how much I like the recipes in there 
I don't have The Cake Bible, but I do have The Whimsical Bakehouse books (the original and Little Cakes) and Toba Garrett's -- I'd be lost without them! 
I think Nick Maglieri's Perfect Cakes has a great collection of cakes.
Three reasons I do not vote for the Cake Bible.
One is that the formulas in general are fragile. There is no other book I know that has as many reports of poor results. Of course many highly endorse it as well. But they are not easy to make with consistency. High maintenance recipes in general.
Two is that the recipes are written in a complicated way--not straightforward. People who are familiar with her style will not get this till they think about it, but there are several places to have to search out for the flow of the recipe. The ingredients list, the written instructions plus pertinent information is just stuck in the margins randomly like pan sizes and how hot the oven should be stuff you gotta go looking for. I feel you have to rewrite the recipe in order to make it efficiently. Can be frustrating.
Three is that way back when I got her book I fell fast in love with it. When I got to the part about her brother's replacement wedding cake due to the one she made getting stuck in a snowstorm during delivery and she then dissed the cake and the people who bought it last minute and the person who made it. Her attitude totally turned me off to the book.
I think a book called a bible should have a lot less attitude and heartier recipes. If you don't get them out of the oven on the nose it's dry. In general in my opinion there's better stuff out there. Like Nick's.
Also fifty year old cookbooks often have killer scratch cake recipes in amongst the fried chicken & stuff. Like the New Doubleday Cookbook and the old Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook --the red one. Although there are many cake recipes in each, the ones that come to mind are...
The first has a killer yellow cake called wedding cake. Comes out perfect no matter how you increase or decrease it. Versatile hearty tweakable.
The Betty one has a burnt sugar cake that is flat amazing.
Books about 50 years old is where you are totally mining the gold.
Books about 50 years old is where you are totally mining the gold.
Amen to that! I wouldn't trade my mom's and grandmother's recipes, nor their books, for anything! Not even a tank of gas for my truck... LOL 
[quote="TejasRebel"]
Amen to that! I wouldn't trade my mom's and grandmother's recipes, nor their books, for anything! Not even a tank of gas for my truck... LOL
Oh, how I wish my mother and grandmother made cakes and had these glorious recipes to hand down to me, but they were both big pie bakers! Given that, I've found the Cake Bible what I always turn to. Everything I've made from this book turns out as she describes. I also like that she gives weights for the ingredients, instead of just a cup of this and that... (I find it so much easier to weigh than measure!).
K8memphis,
Which Betty Crocker one is that Burnt Sugar cake in? I have the 40th Anniversary edition and it's not listed in there. I'd LOVE to try that recipe -- I have a brown sugar cream cheese icing I'd like to try pairing it with.
Kim
Wow, I was thinking the cake bible was the way to go, but maybe not. I like k8memphis comment about if there not out on a dime there dry. I loovvee to have a moister cake. This nick maglieri's perfect cake book where can I find it. I also like the post about recipes on the web. The only thing is I don't know who came up with them & who rated them. I hate to trust a stranger. I tried a chocolate cake recipe online once rated the best on any site, & I hated it my family did too.
Is the cake bible full of filling recipes as well? Maybe I could doctor up some of the cake batters if the book has other good qualities.
The Cake Bible was the first cake book I bought about 4 years ago when I really wanted to get into cake baking. Maybe I was just doing something wrong, but all of the cakes I tried from this book have been dry and fall apart. I have since bought many new cake books and will try one of the recipes here and there from the Cake Bible and still get bad results. She has great sounding recipes in there, I just haven't been able to have any success at it. But it sounds like many others have lots of success with hers, so like I said, maybe I'm doing something wrong.
I have Martha Stewart's Wedding Cakes book and have tried about 6 or 7 of her cake recipes from this book. All of them have been fantastic, and have given me the best results. In fact, I did her coconut cake recipe for my nephew's birthday party a couple weeks ago and everyone just loved it.
I have CakeLove. I'm kinda torn on this one. I love his writing style and his approach to explaining recipes. They are very descriptive and easy to follow. He even provides pictures for every stage of many of his recipes. However, he loves to use potato starch in most of his recpipes and I always can taste that faint taste of potatoes in each recipe I've made from his book. I made his pecan crunch buttercream a few weeks ago. I was so excited that it would turn out heavenly and sounded so good, but I had to throw it out as I felt like I was eating sweet, nutty flavored mashed potatoes. I haven't tried omitting or substituting the potato starch wtih corn starch yet, but I might give one of his recipes a try again without that dreaded potato starch!
No book needed. The recipe gallery on CC has the best of the best in my opinion! :O)
there are two The Cake Mix Bible by Anne Byrn than there is The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Barenbaum...Cake mix Bible is doctored up cake mixes or extender recipes...Cake bible is scratch cakes...Just depends on which way you want to go scratch or not...hth
So there are two cake bibles 
This is all making so much more sense to me know. Some people hate it & some people love it. I take it that the cake mix bible must be the better of the two 
there are two The Cake Mix Bible by Anne Byrn than there is The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Barenbaum...Cake mix Bible is doctored up cake mixes or extender recipes...Cake bible is scratch cakes...Just depends on which way you want to go scratch or not...hth
I think you are referring to the Cake Mix Doctor, by Anne Byrn....
Not to be confused with The Cake Bible, by Rose Levy Barenbaum... for which I have previously voiced my support.. 
Just last year I purchased these two books and I have been so happy with each and every cake I've made from them. They are all moist and tastes soooooo good.
-Sky High (irresistible triple layer cakes) by Alisa Huntsman and Peter Wynne
-The cake book by Tish Boyle
Check em out, you won't be dissapointed!!
Good Luck!!
K8memphis,
Which Betty Crocker one is that Burnt Sugar cake in? I have the 40th Anniversary edition and it's not listed in there. I'd LOVE to try that recipe -- I have a brown sugar cream cheese icing I'd like to try pairing it with.
Kim
It's the original edition, Mom's.
I hope it will enlarge if you click on it. If it doesn't enlarge I could email it, email address is in a following post, top of the next page.
I hope this works.
SSSOOOOOO many books They all sound so good. How large is the sky high book? I definatley want to invest in a book with many recipes. The whimsical bakehouse as well, is there many selections?
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