Product Description

Simple recipes for every occasion.

In this book, Joanna Farrow provides over forty recipes for decorated cakes that will delight your friends and family.

Homemade cakes are always popular, and cupcakes are no exception. Not only are they tasty and incredibly quick and easy to make, they also give you plenty of scope for decorating. They make ideal novelty cakes for kids' parties but are equally suitable for grown-up parties and special occasions like Christmas, Easter, and Mother's Day.

Cupcakes keep well so you can make them in advance and keep a handy supply in the freezer or an airtight container until they are needed. If you don't have time to make any you can even buy plain, undecorated cupcakes and decorate them yourself. Within half an hour you can have a batch of beautifully presented cakes ready for guests or a hungry family.

This easy-to-follow book covers: - Four to six steps to make that perfect cupcake - Different types of icing, from glace and buttercream to rolled fondant and writing with icing - Decorating tips on using piping bags, cookie cutters, food coloring and edible decorations - The average recipe makes six to twelve cupcakes and takes five minutes to prepare, decorating times vary depending on your choice and expertise.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #99265 in Books
• Published on: 2005-02-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 64 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781552856260
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author
Joanna Farrow trained as a home economist and has worked as a freelance food writer for several gourmet magazines. She also styles food for books, magazines, and advertising photography.

Customer Reviews

A Library Check-Out at Best

Hi there!
What you should know before you buy:
There are basically 3 cupcake recipes in this 64 page (that includes table of contents and index) book. They are Vanilla (for chocolate you sub 2 Tbsp cocoa powder for 2 Tbsp flour), carrot, and fruit & nut. What??? They're are some variations where you add citrus zest or berries (for example). Am I the only one that feels like a chocolate version deserves it's own recipe?
You may also want to know there are 4 basic recipes for frosting: buttercream, cream cheese, chocolate fudge, and white chocolate fudge. FYI the cream cheese recipe is cream cheese, sugar, and lemon juice. No butter? (I'll stick with the recipe I already have).
Perhaps this book could've been called "Fondant Cupcakes," because nearly half of these cupcakes are decorated with fondant which is just cut out in different shapes from different colors. I guess that explains why we didn't need/get more frosting recipes.
Furthermore, there is no resource guide. Can you list recipes that call for flaked chocolate bars (no this does not mean a chocolate bar that you flake) and not tell us where to get them? Which is not to mention a source for all that fondant, candied citrus peel, etc.
Finally, I felt there were a decent amount of photographs, but not where they would've been most helpful. For example on page 42 for Feather Cakes, step 3:
"Spoon a thick layer of icing onto a cake and spread it to the edges." (okay, I'm with you so far) "Using the jam in the piping bag, pile large dots of jam, 1/2 inch apart, onto the icing in a spiral, working from the edge of the cupcake to the center. Draw the tip of a toothpick or fine skewer through the dots so they almost join up." Huh? What does that look like? (It isn't the web you make by drawing the toothpick through one large spiral centered on the cupcake).
In all fairness I haven't tried the recipes yet (they better be exceptional!), but I wanted to post a review to save others the possible mistake of buying this book.
Bottom line: I recommend checking this one out of the library before paying money for it, so you can make an educated decision and not be disappointed like I was. Good Luck!

Excellent and Glad to Review!
I originally purchased this product as a gift for a friend from Anthropologie and I am glad to see it is not a unique as I first thought. It has great color photographs of almost every cupcake and is entirely devoted to cupcakes! The recipes are easy and simple and I would highly recommended this book for cupcake lovers and cake decorators.

Nice pictures, shame about the recipe
This is a very attractive little book, and I was eager to try out some of the recipes. But as other reviewers have said, there are only a couple of basic recipes, and the one for vanilla cupcakes, while it is very simple, doesn't produce much flavour and is rather heavy in texture. I have to say I was having my doubts about the recipe while making it, but thought I'd give it a try anyway. I am known for my baked goods and when I gave these cupcakes out to people, they looked puzzled after eating them, and even said they weren't my best efforts! Anyway, the actual decorating ideas are very cute, I would use those, but just use different cake recipes for the cupcakes themselves.