Product Description

Tempt: Cupcakes to Excite brings to mind fun and colourful little cakes in attractive cases with beautiful toppings. In this book, the author, Betty Saw presents a decadent serving of 75 recipes. Illustrated with bright and cheerful photographs that tease the senses the recipes are simple to make and use tantalising ingredients from chocolate to blueberries to ginger and coffee. A must for entertaining during afternoon teas and family gatherings.
Featured recipes include
-Angel Food Cupcakes with Blueberry Filling
-Apple Cider Vinegar Honey Syrup Sponge Cakes
-Banana Ginger Ring Cakes
-Orange Marzipan Cupcakes
-Swedish Apple Cupcakes
-Carrot and Pineapple Cupcakes
-Peach And Passion Fruit Streusal Cupcakes

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2018445 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-14
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 144 pages

About the Author
Betty Saw is a veteran chef with more than 30 years of experience. She is a well-loved and respected food consultant, as well as a household name in Malaysia, where she lives. Betty has appeared on a number of television programmes and is a prolific writer with 13 titles under her belt, including Asian Delights: All-Time Favourite Recipes, Asian High Tea Favourites, Asian Retro Food: Dishes of Yesteryear, Cookies Galore, Everything Beancurd!, Hooked on Fish, Rasa Malaysia, The Best of Chinese Cooking, Time for Dessert and her immensely popular column, From Betty's Kitchen, in Malaysia's New Straits Times.

Customer Reviews

Enticed, but disappointed
I was drawn to this cookbook because of the interesting array of ingredients represented in the featured recipes shown in the book's Amazon product summary.

Upon receiving "Tempt," I loved the absolutely beautiful photographs appearing on about every other page, and the prospect of making such varied recipes as "Chocolate Rum Raisin Cupcake," "Peach and Passionfruit Streusel Cupcake," "Hazelnut Pear Cupcake," and "Pumpkin Seed Spice Cupcake with Lime Glaze Icing" (featured on the cover). I was so taken with the book that I took it to work to show a friend who's a much more advanced baker/decorator than I.

She borrowed it, and between us we've made four recipes from the book. So far, the results have been disappointing. My friend ended up tossing two of the batches she made (from two different recipes) because they just didn't taste good enough to serve guests. The third recipe she made turned out just like the one I made -- although different recipes, both were chocolate cupcakes, and both resulted in far too little batter for the number of cupcakes the recipes were supposed to make. We each ended up with cupcakes that were dense, and about 1/2 an inch high! Additionally, we each encountered omissions in some of the book's recipes. My recipe said to melt the chocolate and set it aside...but then the recipe never mentioned the chocolate again! I had to guess at what point to incorporate the chocolate into the rest of the batter.

I hope that other readers have had better luck than my friend and I did with this cookbook -- because the photos and ingredients are truly "tempting"! However, with all of the cupcake cookbooks out there, I don't know that I'll gamble on trying any more of this book's recipes. Perhaps the issues are related to translation to English (the author is a well-known chef in Malaysia), or the substitution of Asian ingredients with their American counterparts -- I don't know. [As an FYI, this book's recipes do utilize both Metric and American measurements. Conversions are sometimes necessary (the amount of vanilla was shown in teaspoons, butter was shown in grams), but there is a chart in the back of the book.]

Whatever the reason for the recipes' failings, I will likely wait a while before making any more cupcakes from this book. Until then, I'll probably use "Tempt" as eye candy...it IS a treat to look at!