I rely on this book for standard recipes for pie crust and the like. However, I think many of the recipes are needlessly complicated or require obscure ingredients that aren't easy for the average home cook to come by. Fore example, the pecan pie recipe calls for Lyle's Golden Syrup for the filling. It's no problem to procure this in NYC or San Francisco, but it's decidedly harder in other locations. Also, you would never find this on the ingredients list for a traditional pecan pie. ( )

One of the best books out there on this topic I love it almost as much as "The Cake Bible" ( )

Nearly as perfect as The Cake Bible. Maybe if this had come first, I'd have liked it better than the Cake Bible. Who knows. It's really good. ( )

Just as "scientific" as Berenbaum's famous Cake Bible, but I've had much more success with these recipes than from the latter. The cherry pie recipe is phenomenal. ( )

Indispensable book around Thanksgiving & Christmas. ( )