Baking by the Book
While I was growing up, there was a small box my mother always packed to be stowed away in a safe space whenever we moved. It was her kitchen box—it held cherished items like a ceramic corn-on-the-cob cookie jar that belonged to my great-grandmother and a collection of affectionately used cookbooks. Among them were treasures like Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Louisiana Kitchen; Who’s Your Mama, Are You Catholic, and Can You Make a Roux?; Pirate’s Pantry; and The Cake Bible.
From a young age, Rose Levy Beranbaum’s recipes provided me with a sense of comfort and familiarity. I remember slowly flipping through The Cake Bible, captivated by its glossy photographs nestled in the book’s center, and daydreaming of the day I could bake those intricate cakes myself. Little did I know then that I was immersing myself in the meticulous work of one of the most influential figures in baking—and that I would be chatting with her one day.
Rose Levy Beranbaum is the award-winning author of 14 cookbooks, including The Bread Bible, Rose’s Baking Basics, The Baking Bible, and The Cake Bible.
The phone rings, and Rose’s warm voice greets me on the other side. There is an immediate connection, “kindred spirits,” as Rose calls it. We quickly delve into Rose’s relationship with cakes at a young age.
Growing up in a household where sweets were a rarity because her mother was a dentist, Rose didn’t have much exposure to homemade cakes. In fact, as a child, she never tasted a cake that she enjoyed. “And then, when I went to college at the University of Vermont, I tasted my first baked-from-scratch cake, which had the most wonderful flavor. But it didn’t have the texture of a box cake I remembered, which is softer.”
This newfound love for baking sparked Rose’s curiosity, which is her most valuable asset. “I started off wanting to understand how things work because I’d never grown up baking, and I had a few failures, and I just wanted to understand. I realized that the ingredients make all the difference,” Rose explains. She became determined to replicate the soft texture of boxed cakes while capturing the homemade buttery flavor she loved. This quest led her to the “reverse creaming method,” a technique where dry ingredients are mixed first, followed by the addition of butter, part of the liquid, and then the rest of the liquid and eggs. The results produced plush, velvety cakes that were simpler and quicker than the traditional method.
In 1988, Rose published The Cake Bible, a seminal work that redefined how to approach cake baking. It emphasized the importance of precise ingredients, comprehensive techniques, and Rose’s meticulous instructions punctuated by her infectious enthusiasm. The result? Cakes that have the power to make anyone weak in the knees.
Beyond her innovative recipes, Rose was also the first in the US to include metric and avoirdupois (gram and ounce) weight measurements in addition to volumes for all ingredients—a practice now widely adopted. Her forward-thinking book editor, Maria Guarnaschelli, understood that readers will succeed when you give details like Rose was giving. “I’m precise by nature,” Rose says. “I realized how important it was to understand what the ingredients are made up of and also to be precise about the weight.” She even designed a mercury thermometer that was the only one accurate to a fraction of a degree.
For more than 35 years, Rose has meticulously guided home bakers, sharing her expertise with clarity and patience. Her commitment to detail has inspired decades of devotees who trust her recipes to deliver exceptional results time and time again.
So, why undertake the task of revising such a culinary masterpiece? “It was such an opportunity because I never wanted to do this revision, and I’ll tell you why. Because it was a classic. People have been growing up with this book—grandchildren, even now,” Rose says. “But thanks to my husband Woody (I never would have done this without him), I realized there was an opportunity here to update. He kept saying, ‘Well, so much has changed. The size of the pans. They’re not 1½ inches high anymore. They’re 2 inches. And now, there’s something called unbleached cake flour, which isn’t cake flour really at all, and you have to explain all this new stuff.’”
The conversation quickly shifts to flour—with Woody in the background, interjecting about the subject as well. “This is big,” Rose begins. I feel myself sit up a little straighter, listening closely. “The difference between bleached and unbleached flour is so significant, and I still see, to this day, people saying all-purpose flour, not specifying which they mean.” She explains, “If you’re making bread and use bleached flour, it won’t be strong enough. If you’re using unbleached flour for cake, it will be chewy, and it won’t give you the same consistency.”Another revelation Rose unveils is the shrinking of egg yolks, which she discovered while baking a génoise for a wedding years ago. “We discovered that génoise is one of the cakes where you don’t separate the eggs, so it ends up getting less egg yolk in proportion to the white. So, we started adding the correct amount. And that’s why we separate and weigh the yolks and the whites and then put them back together again. People may think it is nuts, but it makes a world of difference in how it comes out.”
Reflecting on the revision process, Rose acknowledges its challenges. “Well, let me tell you, revising something isn’t entirely a joy. When I studied fashion design at the Fashion Institute of Technology before going to New York University to study food science and culinary arts, I quickly discovered that redoing something is a lot harder than starting from scratch,” she confesses. “I think it was about 10 years ago when we first started talking to my amazing editor, Cassie Jones, about the project. I decided, ‘No, it’s too much work.’ And I had no idea how much work. It was mind-boggling. But with her full support it became possible!”
The result of their efforts is a refreshed edition of The Cake Bible—a book that is not just updated but enhanced. “We eliminated ounces, which are confusing because they refer to both liquid and weight, are less precise than grams, and to streamline and provide more comprehensive information,” Rose explained. “We added 30 percent more pages, incorporated new recipes and variations, and expanded the chapter on flourless cakes, buttercreams, and ganache.” She praises Woody for his design contributions. “Woody worked very hard on revising some of the things at the end because whenever a recipe has two pages, he wanted it to be side by side rather than flipping a page, which I think was brilliant. The production team worked with us and appreciated his changes.”
“Everyone involved poured their hearts into this project,” Rose reflects. “It’s beautiful. I’m glad that we went through it.” She pauses and starts laughing. “I think it aged me in the end, but it’s worth it!”Baking from this book and fully appreciating it requires me to relinquish control. So, I took a deep breath and began flipping through the pages. Three cakes immediately caught my eye: Triple Lemon Velvet Bundt Cake, Chocolate Domingo Chocolate Cake, and Whipped Cream Cake, which uses whipped heavy cream instead of butter in the batter. Rose says that these are her and Woody’s top favorites as well!
I chose the Whipped Cream Cake and began reading the headnote, in which she credits its origins. “I always love giving credit,” Rose says. “When people don’t give credit for people’s innovations, we lose the history of where things started and why they are the way they are.”When it came to following the instructions, I learned to ignore the oven’s premature preheating beep and allowed the oven to preheat for at least 20 minutes. I began meticulously weighing my ingredients. Admittedly, separating and weighing the eggs seemed tedious at first. But Rose explained the importance, so I immediately changed my perspective.
Once I whipped the batter into a voluminous cloud that defied gravity and baked it, the result was the lightest, most perfect cake I have ever made. Rose taught me that the smallest decisions in baking can profoundly affect the outcome. Baking involves intuition and technique but also a touch of alchemy.
While cleaning dishes, I stared blankly out the kitchen window, reflecting on how Rose’s late husband, Elliott Beranbaum, once called her an alchemist, not a scientist. “‘Scientists come up with theories that are eventually proven wrong,’” Rose recalls him saying. “‘But alchemists like you test and refine until they can prove they’re correct.’”
Lost in thought, I finished the dishes and whipped up Rose’s Perfect Whipped Cream to crown the cake—it only seemed fitting. As Mae West said, “Too much of a good thing can be wonderful!”
While the cake cooled, I delved into the Understand section after the recipe. Rose explained the cake’s nuances: It has an extra egg balanced by less baking powder, and a lower amount of vanilla is needed because of the heavy cream’s floral notes. These details—along with Pointers for Success and precise charts—elevate Rose’s book to its self-described status: a culinary cake bible. And how was the cake, you may wonder? Absolutely heavenly.
Find Rose on Instagram at @realbakingwithrose and on her website, realbakingwithrose.com. Rose’s 35th anniversary edition of The Cake Bible is available on October 22.
Ready to try your hand at Rose’s Whipped Cream Cake? Find the recipe here.
The post Baking by the Book first appeared on Bake from Scratch.