Larousse des desserts: La bible des amateurs et des professionnels

Great recipes, though some of the ingredients seem quite specific to France. I highly recommend it anyway, since the results are delicious.

This is a very comprehensive book, containing hundreds of recipes on patisserie, viennoiserie and basic pastry techniques, as well as a small selection in the back showcasing some of Pierre Herme's own unusual creations. Most of the recipes cover standard elements of patisserie - pastry, ganaches, fruit coulis and more complex techniques which are pieced together to form tarts, charlottes and cakes.I've tried several recipes from the book - most of which have produced very good results. Yet I am doubtful about how many of the recipes are genuinely practical in a home kitchen. For example, Pierre Herme uses a mindblowing quantity of butter in his pastry and viennoiserie. I compared the proportions of butter to recipes in other cookbooks, and in some cases it is more than double the amount. If the higher quantities of butter produced a far superior bake I wouldn't quibble this, but as the difference is very moderate - and in some cases - too rich.Another issue is that there is a huge shortage of photos in this book. Some recipes have step-by-step pictures which is incredibly useful, but this does not apply to all of the more diffiult techniques, for example, the pate feuilletee inversee recipe could really benefit from pictures on showing how to fold and incorporate the pastry.I think it is a pleasant book to refer to, and use as a guide, but the recipes need to be taken with a pinch of salt.