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 enlarge | Author: Mary Berry
Brand: Books
Category: Book
List Price: £14.99
Buy New: £8.47
You Save: £6.52 (43%)
New (22) Used (4) from £8.47
Avg. Customer Rating:  23 reviews
Sales Rank: 1136
Media: Paperback
Edition: 2nd Revised edition
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.1
Dimensions (in): 9.6 x 7.5 x 0.8
ISBN: 0563487518
Dewey Decimal Number: 641
EAN: 9780563487517
ASIN: 0563487518
Publication Date: June 5, 2003
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
Simply Brilliant June 27, 2007
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
I can't cook or bake so I'm not sure if that makes me the best or the worst critic for a cook book. However, my Mum is a brilliant cook but not so great baking. She visited my Aunt and borrowed this book from her. The book has never been returned and I have bought my own copy. Basically what I'm trying to say is that these recipes are foolproof (and thats straight from this fools mouth!). If you do as she says you get a professional looking (and more importantly..tasting) result. I'm back here today to see which other MAry Berry book I'll try next.
One of my favourites May 14, 2007
13 out of 13 found this review helpful
This book is just amazing! It's one of the first baking books I bought and it is just so versatile. The range if recipes it contains is impressive, without a doubt. It has chocolate cakes, cheesecakes, biscuits, savoury items, children's cakes and biscuits, even home made chocolates! Whatever you're planning to make, you can just pick up this baking bible and flick through it, and you are sure to find the perfect recipe. Mary Berry uses detailed cooking instructions so it's fairly easy to recreate her mouth watering recipes, and then the ingredients she uses are all things you would have lying around. This is very convenient as most cookery books you get these days are full of unusual or 'rare' ingredients which are so hard to get hold of it puts you off the recipe. I have tried the chocolate fudge cake, which was delicious, and the millionaire's shortbread is a favourite of mine. It even contains healthy recipes which appeal to everyone, diet or no diet. Then again, when you own a book as tempting as this one, why diet? I recommend it to everyone.
Must-Have For Beginners April 1, 2007
22 out of 22 found this review helpful
I used to find baking very tedious, complicated and intimidating. In many ways, baking is still those things but this book is so helpful with giving an absolute beginner like me the confidence to try. The all-in-one method is such a revelation to me. Why haven't I heard about this before? I have made the Victoria Sandwich Cake over and over again and it is absoutely THE best! It's wonderfully buttery and so so so soft and moist! It's even better the day after. Best with a tart raspberry jam!! I've compared her recipe with both Delia and Nigella. Mary's wins hands down. Maybe this is because I love that her recipe produces a very generous and tall cake. I know the other two prefer "thinner" cakes, as they say: to balance with the jam. But if I were to serve it to guests, I'd bake Mary's recipe because not only is it simpler to make and more delicious, it also looks spectacular! I have also tried the chocolate version but if you're someone used to intense chocolately cakes, this is not the recipe for you. It looked like a chocolate cake but with only 3 tablespoons of cocoa powder, the taste just didn't do it for a chocoholic like me.
The other recipe I am absolutely in love with is her Lemon Traybake (also using the all-in-one method)!! In this book, the recipe calls for lemon icing as a topping but since I don't like the overwhelming sweetness of icing sugar, I use granulated sugar and lemon juice (which is used for her Crunchy Lemon Cake recipe - in "Simple Cakes" it is called Lemon Drizzle Traybake). Nigella has a similar recipe which she calls Lemon Syrup Loaf Cake using icing sugar. Not anywhere as good! The granulated sugar adds a wonderful and interesting crunchy texture to the supermoist and soft cake. And unlike icing sugar, granulated sugar doesn't overpower the taste of the lemon juice. As the granulated sugar mostly sits on top, the juice soaks into the cake - which makes this yummy buttery cake taste surprisingly refreshing!! For someone who never really cared for lemons, this recipe has changed my life! Because of this cake, I absolutely love love love lemons now!!
Food is all about taste - different people have different taste. This is so with cakes. I'm sure I won't like all the recipes in here (I hate having bits of nuts in my cake, and I'm still trying to muster enough courage to try a semolina cake). As it is, when a recipe calls for margarine I just use butter - not only do I prefer the more natural taste, but it's a healthier and safer choice (see: transfat). However, what I can vouch for is Mary Berry's calming and assuring attitude in this book. She has no airs about her. She explains things simply and in the end makes you feel so comfortable about baking. Since her recipes are reliable, I have found success each and everytime! Very important when you're a beginner! She makes a great teacher! At the end of the day, I don't want to be a domestic goddess - I just want to make yummy cakes!!
This is a must-have! I also highly recommend her book "Simple Cakes" or "Fool-proof Cakes", as the hardback edition is called.
Cakes to die for! February 9, 2006
30 out of 30 found this review helpful
I bought this book a few months ago and have made several different cakes from it, and each one has tasted wonderful! My husband and children can't wait to see which one I've made this week and my friends say that the chocolate sponge is the nicest they've ever tasted! Easy to follow recipes with not-over-fussy ingredients. Highly recommended for those who like baking like me!
To be or not to be perfect ! February 5, 2006
15 out of 18 found this review helpful
This book has an amazing ability to produce not only the ultimate cake, it calmly states(without oversatating) that to follow a recipe in this book is to obtain the ultimate perfect cake.If one tries to change, alter, add of substitute an ingredient, believing that one may possibly improve on the result either by taste or appearance, then one is sadly mistaken.
It is not possible, the perfect recipes given in her book produce the perfect and most delicious cakes.
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