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Creating a cookbook is no simple feat. "It's like making a wedding cake," said Rose Levy Beranbaum. "Your whole kitchen is a disaster and yet here is this pristine, perfect creation."
Several years in the making, Beranbaum's The Baking Bible, her largest book in scope, brings together a lifetime's worth of baking knowledge, from cakes and pies to breads and pastries. It's a mix of creative, all-new recipes as well as old favorites that have been revisited and improved.
An essential ingredient in a baking book is the photography. "With baking, you really need to see it more than anything else," Beranbaum said. "If you're doing savory food, it's inspiring to see the plating, and it entices people to make it. But in baking, you learn something from the photo because you know what you're aiming for."
As a result, it took a nearly three-week photo shoot at a house in New York's Hudson Valley to take the images of Caramel Buns, Mango Bango Cheesecake and other delectable dishes featured in The Baking Bible. A team of 10, including Beranbaum, an art director and a food stylist, had to contend with challenges like ovens that couldn't be leveled because they were bolted to the wall or temporarily being without heat and hot water.
Another key ingredient of The Baking Bible was testing the foolproof, precisely detailed recipes for which Beranbaum is legendary. Beranbaum got some unusual help in this area--from the Beta Bakers, a group of baking enthusiasts headed by Marie Wolf, a Minneapolis attorney who once sent Beranbaum a cantankerous note about a bread recipe she couldn't get to work, never expecting to hear back from the author. Instead Beranbaum responded immediately, and the two went on to become friends. Besides testing, Wolf also wrote the book's foreword.
Wolf is not the only reader who became a Beranbaum friend and collaborator. She and Woody Wolston became acquainted when they began corresponding about recipes he made from her cookbooks. Their epistolary relationship evolved into Wolston becoming Beranbaum's assistant. He relocated east from Minnesota to work with the "diva of desserts" on The Baking Bible and now lives not far from her New Jersey home. The book's Fourth of July Cheesecake and Black and White Brownies are Wolston's masterminds.
"Knowing how happy people are going to be when they make one of these recipes is my greatest gratification," said Beranbaum. For the holiday season, she suggests the Cran-Raspberry Upside-Down Cake, which she served last year at her Thanksgiving table, or the Frozen Pecan Tart. The latter is a terrific choice for those who are especially busy because it's best served straight from the freezer and can be made well ahead of time.
Above all, Beranbaum treasures the trust she has garnered among home bakers. "I hear from a lot of people who say that they know when they make one of my recipes they can trust it will work," she said. A final word of advice: "Just be sure to follow the directions."