I have a couple of dessert cookbooks that I like very much--particularly Pierre Herme's Chocolate Desserts and Alice Medrich's Cocolat.
They both have excellent recipes and some guidelines on technique, but what's missing is the theory behind the recipes.
My favorite cookbooks are ones like James Peterson's, that teach you all about the ingredients and how they interract. The recipe is an illustration of these ideas. By the time you get to the recipe, you already know how to make a hundred variations on it.
I'm missing this kind of knowledge when it comes to baking. I don't want to be a slave to instructions. i want to know why the chocolate is being melted into liquid in this recipe and not that one; why the butter and sugar are creamed together, why this recipe wants the batter whipped for 5 minutes and that one for less than one.
Any great sources for this information?
They both have excellent recipes and some guidelines on technique, but what's missing is the theory behind the recipes.
My favorite cookbooks are ones like James Peterson's, that teach you all about the ingredients and how they interract. The recipe is an illustration of these ideas. By the time you get to the recipe, you already know how to make a hundred variations on it.
I'm missing this kind of knowledge when it comes to baking. I don't want to be a slave to instructions. i want to know why the chocolate is being melted into liquid in this recipe and not that one; why the butter and sugar are creamed together, why this recipe wants the batter whipped for 5 minutes and that one for less than one.
Any great sources for this information?
