I am a home baker, not a professional or a culinary arts student. 309 of the 375 pages of the book are a glossary of usual and unusual baking terms, types of pastry, almost anything and everything associated with the discipline. The problem is that this book is filled with information and terms that are readily available on the internet. When a term in a cookbook is unfamiliar, I type it into a search engine. It takes an instant to obtain an answer, in fact it takes less time than taking out this book and looking it up. My interest in baking is substantial, but even so, the book makes for dry reading (like reading from the dictionary) to simply sit and absorb the contents - which I assume wasn't the intended purpose. From my perspective, although the extensive amount of research that went into compiling this comprehensive volume is obvious and admirable, the reality is this reference book would have been absolutely invaluable to a wide audience 15 or 20 years ago.
The remaining 64 pages of the book contain some universally useful information. Tables are included for Important Temperatures Every Pastry Chef Should Know, Weight and Volume Equivalents for Most Common Ingredients, Sugar Cooking Stages, Conversion Formulas and Equivalents, Seasonal Fruit Availability, The 12 Steps of Baking (Bread baking), Classic and Contemporary Flavor Combinations and What Went Wrong and Why - an area in the book where common baking mishaps are discussed. Some of the information, like Sugar Cooking Stages, is common information that appears in many cookbooks, but some of the tables are inspired and will be helpful to all. The book finishes up with a list of Specialty Vendors and the references utilized in the creation of the book.
The book is a 6 x 9 inch paperback with no photographs and it it printed with dark brown ink. The font size appears to be 10 point. The information in this book will be particularly useful if the reader does not have regular access to the internet or a need exists to have this information in a single volume.
