Malgieri - How to Bake

How to Bake

Nick Malgieri

Illustrated by Laura Hartman Maestro

O ne of Americas preeminent bakers and baking teachers reveals the secrets behind creating professional-quality confections. Nick Malgieri shares scores of mouthwatering recipes for plain and fancy cakes; breads, biscuits, muffins, and scones; sweet and savory pies and tarts; brownies, macaroons, rugelach, and all types of cookies.

In addition to his clear, detailed instructions, Malgieri offers helpful tips for variations on classic recipes as well as suggestions for everything from making a pastry bag to mastering cake finishing and pie crusts. Presented in order from the easiest to more challenging, these recipes from the collection of a great pastry chef will add a whole new level of sophistication to your baking repertoire.

How to Bake

Nick Malgieri

DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC.

Mineola, New York

In Memory of Peter Kump

Copyright

Copyright 1995, 2018 by Nick Malgieri

All rights reserved.

Illustrations by Laura Hartman Maestro

Bibliographical Note

This Dover edition, first published in 2018, is an unabridged republication of the work originally published by HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., New York, in 1995. The author has made revisions for the Dover edition.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Malgieri, Nick, author.

Title: How to bake / Nick Malgieri.

Description: Mineola, New York : Dover Publications, Inc., 2018. | "This Dover edition, first published in 2018, is an unabridged republication of the work originally published by HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., New York, in 1995. The author has made revisions for this Dover edition."

Identifiers: LCCN 2018017876| ISBN 9780486829180 | ISBN 0486829189

Subjects: LCSH: Baking.

Classification: LCC TX765 .M33 2018 | DDC 641.81/5dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018017876

Manufactured in the United States by LSC Communications

82918901 2018

www.doverpublications.com

Acknowledgments

F or the Dover edition, many thanks to Natalie Danford for working on the revisions with me and to my new agent, Susie Cohen. Publisher Jennifer Feldman, editor Terri Ann Geus, and the editorial, design, and production staffs at Dover Publications have all been a pleasure to work with.

From the 1995 edition: A book this size necessarily has many hands that contribute work in many different ways and I hope to thank them all. First of all, Susan Friedland, my editor, was there every step of the way, advising and prodding, and was involved with every phase of producing this book. Also special thanks are due to my agent, Phyllis Wender, who is always there when I need her. Nancy Nicholas provided her unerring editorial insight and unfailing sense of humor in the work she did on the manuscript.

Many friends and colleagues shared favorite recipes, and they are: Marian Burros, Julia Child, Kyra Effren, Christopher Gargone, Daphne Giles, Lynne Giles, Prudence Hilburn, Yocheved Hirsch, Ann Nurse, Sandy Leonard, Peggy Pinckley, Sheri Portwood, Hermann Reiner, Betty Shaw, Jeff Steingarten, Bonnie Stern, and Michelle Tampakis.

Recipe testing took place over several years of developing recipes, and the following people helped: Anna Barros, Jolene Handy, Carole Harlam, Hilary Fishman Huaman, Helene Kurland, Michelle Tampakis, and Christina Wright.

My late friend Richard Sax was always there to answer a question or make a suggestion about a fine point in a recipe.

And finally, thanks to all the readers who offered comments and questions about the recipes here.

Contents

Introduction

T he first edition of this book appeared in 1995, when I had been teaching for more than fifteen years. I started my career as a baker and pastry chef in 1973, and I trained largely in Switzerland, France, and Monaco, as well as being heavily influenced by the Italian baking that I had learned at home. As a result, I mostly used classic European techniques and recipes. Writing How to Bake would change me forever as a baker.

Of course, life is a series of changes and not only people, but products and equipment continue to evolve. One positive change in the world of baking has been the accessibility I can now offer via the Internet. Feel free to contact me with questions or comments at my website, www.nickmalgieri.com.

How to Bake was planned from the start to be a big bookindeed, my original working title was How to Bake Everything, though that was scotched by my editor. Names aside, writing How to Bake led me to explore and master areas of baking with which I had previously had only a passing acquaintance. Experiments, successes, and failures with quick breads, baking powder biscuits, scones, muffins, yeast- and sourdough-risen breads, and a whole host of pies and tartsboth sweet and savorycake layers, frostings, plain cakes, and yeast-risen pastries all emerged from my tiny apartment kitchen. As I look back, Im amazed at the sheer quantity of recipes that were developed, repeatedly tested and tasted, and carefully written in the space of a couple of years.

The strict rules and techniques that had been so deeply ingrained in me served as a foundation for further learning as I expanded my repertoire exponentially. When it came to certain types of home-baked specialtiesnot the kinds of desserts I had crafted in a professional pastry kitchenI was learning on the job. That made me especially sensitive to the need for specific instructions. As a result, How to Bake is not just a compendium of recipes for delicious things to eat, but also a handbook of the ideal processes for baking just about anything. Most people who buy a baking book wind up using a couple of recipes that they love over and over. I urge you to use How to Bake as a general guide for any baking you dowhether you are following a recipe in these pages or using my work to provide a second opinion for a recipe from another source that you wish to try.

Bakinglike my other favorite pursuits, cooking and gardeningrequires patience and attention to detail. Measuring accurately is important, especially when strong ingredients such as leaveners and spices are concerned. But too often students and readers tell me they are put off by the oft-repeated dictum that baking is a science. Rest assured that a bit more or less flour or sugar in a recipe will not spell ruin. Above all, baking should be a pleasureas much in the baking as in the serving and eating.

My late friend Peter Fresulone, who was one of my partners in the Total Heaven Baking Company in the early 1980s, always said, Bake something, youll feel better. And I think his advice is especially good today. Baking is to enjoythats what its all about.

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

Every recipe that follows is complete in itself. When a recipe refers to another one as part of the preparation, it only does so once. For example: A recipe for a pie or tart will refer to a dough recipe at the beginning of the chapter, so youll need to prepare the dough as a separate recipe, and then shape, fill, bake, and serve it according to the instructions in the particular recipe. No recipe has more than one cross-reference, which avoids the annoyance of flipping back and forth for several different preparations.