Here are some additional tips and tricks to help you master French pastry:
Perhaps the book's most celebrated feature is its visual methodology. As the book itself states, "a written recipe can take you only so far—what is equally important is to see a professional in action". Each of the 233 recipes is accompanied by a series of photographs that lead the reader through every single step. For the home baker attempting croissants for the first time, seeing the nuance of the lamination process is invaluable. One reviewer praised it as an "absolutely beautiful instructional cookbook" because the recipes are given in lesson form with "gorgeous step by step photographs".
: Temperature control is everything. Warm ambient temperatures ruin laminated doughs and melt butter layers.