Rose Levy Beranbaum's favorite cookbooks

Photo credit: Matthew Septimus (right)

If you're into baking, you need no introduction for Rose Levy Beranbaum. She's an absolute legend: author of The Cake Bible, six-time James Beard Award winner, and newly inducted member of the James Beard Cookbook Hall of Fame. The Washington Post called her "the Diva of Desserts" – someone so obsessed with baking perfection that "if God is in the details, as the aphorism goes, then Beranbaum must have one foot in heaven."

Rose has published fourteen books including her complete "Bible" series: The Cake Bible, The Pie and Pastry Bible, The Bread Bible, The Baking Bible, and The Cookie Bible. Her most recent project was The Cake Bible 35th Anniversary Edition in 2024. She also pioneered the reverse creaming technique that revolutionized cake-making, and her blog Real Baking with Rose has been answering bakers' questions since 2005.

Rose is indisputably one of the most influential bakers of the last century. So we wanted to know: who influences Rose? what cookbooks does she love?

(Also, you’re going to want to read to the end! Rose drops an exciting bit of news on what she’s working on now!)

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In Rose’s Words:

My collection of more than 1,500 cookbooks goes back a long way, and I am currently choosing and packing most of them to donate to the Cambridge Culinary School Library, where they will be used actively by the students. The process is a little painful, akin to parting with old friends, but at the same time enjoyable to become reacquainted with them and view the progression and trends of over 60 years of cookbooks.

My very first cookbook was a paperback by James Beard (The James Beard Cookbook). The second was The Joy of Cooking. I have every cookbook Maida Heatter wrote and many of Julia Child’s and Jacques Pepin’s, especially La Méthode and La Technique, which I used for teaching my hors d’oeuvre class when I had the Cordon Rose Cooking School. Other books I turn to are Jean Anderson’s Doubleday Cookbook, Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Italian Cooking, and Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cookery. These cookbooks are among the ones I am keeping in addition to many others that were signed by the authors.

When I wrote The Cake Bible, published in 1988, cookbooks had a very small presence in bookstore sections. Over the years they have expanded significantly. My book was the first that gave weights in addition to volume. Now, almost all baking books have weights and a new book Bread, by Richard Hart, has only gram weights and no volume at all!

Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking, is one of my most treasured books which I am keeping. My late husband once told me that one can’t be considered a professional without understanding the composition of the ingredients used. It also serves to enable one to create new recipes. It occurred to me one day that the word author stems from authority and I looked up the definition: “Authority is the official permission or right to act, often on behalf of another. It can also mean being an authority on a subject: Being an authority on a subject means possessing deep and extensive knowledge, expertise, and influence in a specific field, enabling one to offer informed opinions, guidance, and leadership. An authority is typically recognized by their peers and the broader community as a reliable source of information and insights.”

Books by authors which are considered to be “scientific” are the ones I refer to the most often. Shirley Corriher’s Cookwise and Bakewise are two such examples. More recent ones are Sift by Nicola Lamb, and The Elements of Baking by Katarina Cermelj. King Arthur cookbooks are also among my most trusted. One of my most admired authors who seamlessly marries science and amazing cooking is Nik Sharma. Four other authors I admire greatly are Erin Jeanne McDowell, Zoë François, Sarah Kieffer, and Claire Saffitz, who not only have a deep understanding of how baking works, but also a great originality and sense of design. And as an appreciator of inspired writing in addition to baking, David Lebovitz is one of the leaders of the pack! Another gifted writer is Marissa Rothkopf Bates, whose first book The Secret Life of Chocolate Chip Cookies just launched and I so enjoy her writing and recipes that I wrote the foreword to this book. I love Joanne Chang’s books so much I contributed my new favorite chocolate cookie to her upcoming one! And speaking of wonderful writers and bakers, Helen Goh has a new book that just launched in the UK and will launch in the US in October, Baking & The Meaning of Life, and I can’t wait to see it! I’m also looking forward to seeing Dorie Greenspan’s upcoming Dorie’s Anytime Cakes that is graced by the most beautiful color illustrations. This could be a trend—my upcoming memoir, which will be titled Ma Vie en Rose, will have an oil painting of me on the cover instead of a photo!

There are many other promising and talented authors out there but having been buried for three years working on The Cake Bible 35^th Anniversary Edition I have not had the chance to explore their books.