Wonderful cookbook. Though I find that her personal taste leans towards dry cakes. Regardless, brilliant flavor and technique. Bonus points for listing the ingredients in grams. No baker should ever use volume measurement. ( )

Rose Levy Beranbaum has never disappointed me with a cookbook before and this one is no exception. I love the way she includes some of the science of baking in her recipes. She also includes weights for the ingredients and I am now a kitchen scale convert. She sometimes provides helpful commentary during the baking process, such as 'the mixture will look curdled' and then goes on to reassure that what she describes is just as it should be- thus no panic attacks in the kitchen. Her approach to a recipe is a bit different from the cream-the-butter-and-sugar norm. Many of the offerings are inventive twists on classics, such as the Bostini, a deconstructed Boston cream pie. If you're a fan of the book, there is a bloggers' bake-through on the internet that I enjoy following. It's found under Heavenly Cake Bakers. Good stuff! ( )

simply beautiful and so far the cakes have been delicious ! ( )

Rose's Heavenly Cakes is the 2nd cake book written by Rose Levy Beranbaum. I am a big fan of Rose. I have her earlier cake book as well as her pie and bread books. In this volume the cakes are divided by butter and oil cakes, sponge cakes, flourless cakes, baby cakes and wedding cakes. A photograph of each cake accompanies most recipes. This is a must for me. There is also an introductory paragraph describing for whom or when the author used each recipe. Lots of notes and variations also accompany each recipe. The ingrediants for the recipes are easy to find. Her recipes are not for the slouch though. They are geared for the intermediate and advanced bakers. They are easier than those in the first cake cookbook though. Rose states that a new cake cookbook was needed as exotic ingrediants are easier to find than they were 25 years ago when The Cake Bible was published and pan sizes have changed. A few recipes from the first book have been revised in order to conform to a 9 x 2 pan. The pans used to be 9 x 1.5. Changes in consumer tastes have required that simpler recipes be available.

I made 5 cakes from this cookbook. They include the Genoise Rose on page 169, Southern Coconut Cake with Silk Meringue Buttercream on page 23, Pure Pumpkin Cheesecake on page 247, Lemon Canadian Crown on page 261, and Deep Chocolate Rosebuds on page 355. The rosebud recipe requires one of those Nordic Ware pans that have 6 miniature rose cavities. There was no problem finding the ingrediants. A trip to Williams and Sonoma and Jewel Food Stores had everything that I needed. The cakes came out of the oven looking just like their photos in the cookbook. The only problem that I had was over-greasing the mini rose pan for the Deep Chocolate Rosebuds which affected how the tops of the mini roses appeared. The mixing of ingrediants was much simpler than those in The Cake Bible; no professional chef skills required.

I highly recommend this this book to all bakers. Even if you don't bake, it is a great book just to read. If you are a baker, beware. You are going to want to make many of these cake recipes. My next cake will be the Sicilian Pistacio Cake on page 65. I will probably make most of the recipes at least once. ( )