Rose Levy Beranbaum

This is my best white bread for sandwiches, dinner rolls, cinnamon swirl or herb swirl breads, and toast. I developed it to match my childhood memory of my favorite bread, Silvercup, a soft, light, and airy bread like today's Wonder Bread, which made the best toast. This homemade version has the same texture but has a more yeasty and fuller flavor. In fact, this bread is like a brioche, with less butter and no egg. It has an even yet open crumb but is softer and lighter in texture. Part of the secret of its light texture is that, like brioche, it is made from an exceptionally moist dough. Lightly toasted and topped with soft scrambled eggs, it is nothing short of ambrosial. Michael Batterberry, publisher of Food Arts magazine, tasted this bread and said, "Mmmm. . . . This is what Wonder Bread, in its soul, really always wanted to be!" TIME SCHEDULE
Dough Starter (Sponge): minimum 1 hour, maximum 24 hours
Minimum Rising Time: about 4 hours
Oven Temperature: 350°F
Baking Time: 50 minutes

This fluffy flat bread has large, irregular holes thanks to a wet, sticky dough and gentle handling during mixing. TIME SCHEDULE:
Minimum rising time: 2 1/2 Hours
Oven temperature: 475°F
Baking time: 12 to 15 minutes

This is a whole-wheat version of basic white sandwich bread. It's a little less soft but a lot more wheat-y and substantial. The use of bread flour gives this bread a lighter texture, while the milk powder and oil help soften it. TIME SCHEDULE:
Dough starter (sponge): minimum 1 hour, maximum 4 hours (or overnight refrigerated)
Minimum rising time (including starter): about 4 hours
Oven temperature: 450°F, then 400°F
Baking time: 40 to 50 minutes

Editor's note: To make your own sourdough starter, follow Beranbaum's instructions. This bread is as homespun as bread can get, using a stiff sourdough starter cultivated from wild yeast. It has a characteristic sourdough profile: tangy, complex flavor; thin, crisp crust; and springy moist crumb with uneven holes of moderate size. I love this small loaf because of the size of the whole slices when cut. Also, for those who may have just one banneton (dough-rising basket), I wanted to provide a recipe for just one loaf. A loaf of this size is ideal for two people for three days, with a few slices to share with anyone who comes by to visit. If your family is larger, you will want to double the recipe. Sharing the sourdough starter for bread is a time-honored tradition around the world. I got my first starter from Kurtis Baguley, a baker in San Francisco. And when my friend Angelica Pulvirenti asked me for a bread recipe to use on her boyfriend's boat, one that was easy and had good keeping qualities (so it wouldn't mold from the humidity), I gave her this recipe and some of my starter to make it. She was especially delighted because sharing a bread starter was a long-standing custom in a small village near Ragusa, Sicily, where she grew up. She said that her mother, at the end of baking day, always passed some of her unbaked bread dough to her friends. She loved the sense of community this imparted and is thrilled that she and I are continuing it. TIME SCHEDULE Stiff Sourdough Starter: minimum 13 hours, maximum 34 hours
Minimum Rising Time: about 9 hours
Oven Temperature: 475°F, then 450°F
Baking Time: 25 to 30 minutes

These beautiful, gossamer soft rolls make the perfect complement to any dinner. Mashed sweet potato is responsible for the moist texture and gorgeous color. TIME SCHEDULE
Dough starter (sponge): minimum 1 hour, maximum 4 hours (or overnight refrigerated)
Minimum rising time (including starter): about 4 1/2 hours
Oven temperature: 400&Deg;F
**Baking time:**12 minutes

In this pie, one cup of berries is cooked to form a syrup. The remaining three cups of berries are heated in this syrup just enough to turn the blueberries a midnight blue with overtones of purple. The filling is then spooned into a prebaked crust. If you've made the crust ahead, this pie comes together in minutes. By dessert time, the filling is set.

The Beranbaum family fell in love with this pie at a diner called Big Boy in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. We were addicted to this pie, consisting of a crisp crust filled only with fresh strawberries held together by a fruit juice glaze. We would drive fifty miles to Big Boy every weekend just to have it. When I tried to duplicate it in my kitchen, I discovered that a fruit glaze also works well with fresh raspberries or a mixture of raspberries and currants. The glaze preserves the freshness of the fruit for two days.

Pumpkin is one of those tastes you either love or hate, so there is no point in half-measures. Its earthy flavor should not be overwhelmed by molasses or too much spice, particularly mace. If you’re a pumpkin lover, when you bite into a piece of pumpkin pie, you want to taste pumpkin. In this recipe, I cook the pumpkin and spices before baking, which makes for a more mellow and pleasing flavor. Puréeing the pumpkin in a food processor produces an unusually silky texture. The crunchy bottom crust is the result of creating a layer of gingersnaps and ground pecans to absorb any excess liquid from the filling, and also of baking the pie directly on the floor of the oven.

If I had to choose among all my cakes, this one would win first place because it is delicious by itself yet versatile enough to accommodate a wide range of buttercreams. The cake combines the soft texture of white cake with the buttery flavor of yellow cake. Using all the yolks instead of whole eggs produces a rich yellow color, fine texture and delicious flavor.

This is my favorite pie crust. It took several years and over fifty tries to get it just right and is the soul of this book. It is unlike any other cream cheese pie crust because, in addition to being tender, it is also flaky. In fact, it is very similar in texture to epi:recipeLink="101858"Basic Flaky Pie Crust</epi:recipeLink> � almost as flaky but a little softer and more tender, and it browns more when baked, resulting in a rich golden color. The addition of cream cheese makes it even easier to prepare than basic flaky pie crust because you never have to guess how much water to add, and it gives it a flavor so delicious it is great to eat just by itself without filling! It is well worth purchasing or making pastry flour, as it will result in a more tender crust.

Moist, billowy, light as a feather, and perfumed with fresh orange juice and zest, this is an incomparably refreshing cake. If you live in a part of the world where oranges grow, you could not ask for a more appropriate and aromatic adornment than orange blossoms, but fresh daisies also convey the lighthearted spirit of this lovely cake. A serving contains only 129 mg. of cholesterol.

This is a free-form tart with a crisp flaky crust topped with crunchy walnuts and sweet/tart cranberries. It is easy to make and an attractive dessert on a holiday table. Serve the galette with crème anglaise or vanilla ice cream.

Arranging the apple slices in a flower petal formation may be work for the cook, but it sure provides luxurious eating for your lucky guests. This pie has an exceptionally crisp bottom crust under a juicy filling of caramelized, cinnamony apples made tangy and glistening with a gilding of apricot preserves. The border is a wreath of leaves cut from the pie crust.

This pie rivals peach pie for flavor and texture. The double-crust pie is piled high with lush tart nectarines interspersed with raspberries. The flesh of a nectarine is slightly firmer than that of a peach, producing a pie with an excellent texture.

This pie crust is light, flaky tender and very crisp. It has a glorious butter flavor and is an ideal container for any pie or tart recipe. I strongly recommend commercial or homemade pastry flour, as it will result in a more tender crust than one made with all-purpose flour.

(Baked in a Tart Pan) For people who find even my less sweet Pecan Pie too sweet, or who are hopeless chocolate lovers, this is the answer. Cocoa perfectly tempers the sweetness of the filling and adds a full chocolate flavor that goes so well with pecans. If correctly baked, the filling, when cut, is soft and slightly molten. The surface of the pie is unusually appealing. Unlike the regular pecan pie where you can see clearly the shape of each nut, this filling cloaks the nuts with a dark milk-chocolaty glisten so you can just make out their shape.

This brownie, baked in a tart pan, gets its moistness from cream cheese and its fudginess from the best-quality cocoa and chocolate. Little puddles of ganache are poured into holes made in the brownie, after it has baked, with a the handle of a wooden spoon. Chocolate doesn't get better than this.

This sauce is for the caramel lover. It's equally wonderful over ice cream, cake, or apple pie. It is just thick enough when hot, but not clumpy or sticky as it cools on the plate. Don't be afraid of making caramel. If you follow the simple but important Pointers for Success below, it will be easy. Do be sure when making it not to have any small children about and give it your undivided attention. Caramel burns are extremely painful.