The Village Baker's Wife: The Desserts and Pastries That Made Gayle's Famous

by Joe Ortiz

Since 1978, Gayle's Bakery and Rosticceria in the Santa Cruz-area town of Capitola, California, has grown from a humble 800-square-foot shop to one of the largest, most successful fine-quality bakeries in the country. The Village Baker's Wife compiles the all-butter, real-sugar, whole-cream, fine-chocolate desserts and pastries that made Gayle's legendary.

With more than 150 recipes, 130 instructional illustrations, and 25 essays on baking techniques, this is the only cookbook you need to make show-stopping desserts and pastries, such
-Lemon Lust Bars
-Princess Cake
-Ham and Cheese Croissants
-Apple Bear Claw Danish Braid
-Chocolate Truffle Cake
-Hazelnut Twist Cookies
-Garlic Cheese Pretzels

Brimming with anecdotes and insightful baking tips from Gayle and Joe Ortiz (author of The Village Bake r) this personal collection will inspire and delight any avid or occasional home baker—the sweeter the tooth, the better.

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Reference, Food

336 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1997

About the author

Joe Ortiz is the author of The Village Baker (1993), and co-author of The Village Baker’s Wife (1997), and The Gardener’s Table (2000), all published by Ten Speed/Penguin.

His monthly columns on creativity in the Capitola Soquel Times and Aptos Times are the culmination of five decades of his experiences as an author, playwright, artist, and musician.

As a composer and lyricist, Ortiz has written and produced five musicals, among them Over the Roof (formerly Escaping Queens), which uses the incidents in Pastina as basis for the story.

Escaping Queens enjoyed its World Premiere at Cabrillo Stage (Aptos, California) in 2012.

Ortiz is co-owner and co-founder of Gayle’s Bakery and Rosticceria in Capitola. The business has grown, in its 48 years of community service, from a small, neighborhood shop to a full-service food emporium that serves more than 75,000 customers a month.

Reviews

[Sara]

Includes many classics from bakeries & coffee shop favorites to classic pastries & cakes. Many items will be a stretch for many home cooks but there are plenty of basics to start with.

[Susie]

Loved the baking tips and the stories.

[Jennifer]

I got this because I was feeling nostalgic - I'm from the area near Gayle's, and the bakery is a true institution there. And, I should add, it deserves its reputation.

But, home-town connections aside, I feel this is a very good book. Unlike a lot of cookbooks that I've seen based off of a restaurant's repertoire, this book spends a portion focusing on the basics, on the building blocks of good baking. I appreciate the way the cake section is handled especially. This isn't the best book for learning good baking techniques, but it is a solid resource. Oh, and it has some fantastic recipes and ideas, ones that are absolutely stunning if you pull them off.

[Bev Walker]

Title intrigued, a cookbook with a "The (insert profession)'s Wife" - As it turns out she is a baker too. Apart from many enticing recipes, the promotional blurb promised essays on people of influence. I did not find essays, rather there are briefly written tributes to people, special to the bakery nonetheless. Good reading and good eating go together. I was disappointed that the reading portion is mediocre.

[Eowyn]

I grew up going to Gayle's Bakery, so I got this book mostly for sentimental reasons. I have yet to make anything from it as the recipes generally seem rather time consuming, but I want as the bakery's items are soooooo delicious. Someday soon though!

[Rachel D]

I love this book! I used these recipes to learn to bake at 12 years old, a few of the recipes are time consuming, but they are not hard. All the recipes are sooo delicious, definitely worth the time it takes.

[Suji]

I looked for this book forever. And I'm so happy now that I have my own copy! I love the stories that go along with how some recipes were obtained. Now I just need to go visit Gayle's Bakery... Mmmm.

[Jo]

I want a Princess Cake.

[Elizabeth]

To be honest, I never made it past the thumbprint cookies. They are so awesome and simple to make. This cookbook is on my shortlist of cookbooks that I keep checking it out of the library.

[Michelle]

Fun to read, beautiful to look at, but life is too short to make most of these recipes. I did enjoy reading about OTHERS making them though.

[Cyd]

In fairness, this is based almost entirely on one recipe for ginger molasses cookies. But it is an easy recipe and we all love them :-)

[John Higgins]

so if you ever want to up your game on baking and creating top class products,this is a good place to go,real world stuff