Master the art of baking delicious pastries, cakes, and more with The Pastry Chef's Apprentice, the ultimate guide for those learning to bake or those who want to improve their pastry making skills. There is nothing more inviting and exciting than the aroma of freshly baked pastries wafting from a kitchen, and now readers can make professional-quality pastries rather than relying on the local bakery or grocery store. In The Pastry Chef's Apprentice, author Mitch Stamm simplifies a culinary school's core pastry curriculum and teaches the reader just how quickly you can go from sifting and stirring to spectacular pastry creations.The masters featured in The Pastry Chef's Apprentice teach classic pastry skills, such as caramel, pate a choux, tart crusts, pies, cakes and more, to amateur food enthusiasts and home cooks, as well as future professional pastry makers. Through extensive, diverse profiles of experienced chefs, instructions packed with expert tips, plus fully illustrated tutorials and dozens of delicious recipes, the reader gets valuable insider access to real-life chefs, bakers, culinary instructors, test kitchens and more. With these new skills, or just the chance to revisit their old standards, everyone from casual cooks to devoted epicures will learn dozens of new ways to take their kitchen skills to the next level.