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Sylvia Weinstock's Sensational Cakes
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| List Price: | $45.00 |
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Product Description
Sylvia Weinstock makes cakes that astonish the palate, dazzle the eye, and reward the spirit. Her spellbinding cakes have graced the tables—and grabbed the attention—at society weddings, celebrity birthday parties, and inaugural balls. Whether it’s a tower of white roses whose thousands of blossoms have all been painstakingly hand-crafted or an entirely faithful—and entirely edible—facsimile of a treasured heirloom tea set, every Weinstock cake is a work of art.
“Never say never” is Weinstock’s response when clients dare her to achieve the impossible: an array of miniature cakes shaped and decorated like Fabergé eggs; cakes that look like cars, cravats, and circus clowns; or a menagerie of fantastic creatures (bunnies, bugs, tigers, terriers, and even an armadillo), all concocted from butter, flour, and sugar.
In Sylvia Weinstock’s Sensational Cakes, America’s most famous cake designer gives you an insider’s tour of her world: the fabulous fêtes where her cakes set the scene and the artisanal workshop where she and her assistants bake and embellish the confectionary masterpieces that have made her signature—including her trademark eyeglass logo—so sought after. Best of all, she reveals some of her secrets: recipes for cakes, frostings, and fillings that will make your own guests stand up and applaud.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #149075 in Books
- Published on: 2008-11-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Hardcover
- 208 pages
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Sylvia Weinstock is the grande dame of cake design, one of the first to use imaginative forms for wedding cakes—introducing butterflies and bees, for example, to brides who had previously known only flowers. Her 25-year-old company, located in New York City, has created cakes for the Clinton White House as well as numerous celebrity weddings. Weinstock’s cakes have been featured in publications ranging from Modern Bride to the New York Times. She lives in Manhattan.
Customer Reviews
If you're looking for instructions don't purchase, inspiration and recipes purchase
I pre-ordered this book and couldn't wait for it to come. The book is beautiful as it can possibly be. The beautiful cakes in there are awe-inspiring and gives those of us just starting in the business something to strive for. Ms. Weinstock does give good suggestions about how to handle a cake tasting and planning, having the forum of the reception in mind in design of the cake, and shares her recipes with us.
However, if you're looking for instructions on how to do gumpaste flowers, how to place flowers on forms in between layers, or how to assemble a cake, look elsewhere. But if you have a good repetoire of cake decorating books or sugar decorating books, that info will probably be in there. If you're looking for a book of cakes that can inspire you and recipes that are yummy (made chocolate fudge cake, lady baltimore cake, the bc and bc fillings for a practice cake)-you'll love it!
Don't buy if you are looking for an instructional book.
I also pre-ordered this book and found it a little dissapointing. I purchased her first book and was expecting a whole lot more. There are no instructions for the cakes, beautiful pictures, but no instructions and the recipes are the same as the first book.
Disappointed
I am also disappointed. This might be personal but this is the kind of book I dislike, glossy compilation of pictures with a cold and distant narrative, not the kind of book that draws you in at all. This is not a book that will end up lovingly battered and covered in flour butter and chocolate splatters, rather the kind of book you would find languishing in a 5 star hotel room. I did not even particularly find the pictures of high quality as many of them are snapshots of clients' wedding cakes in situ rather than purposely photographed and lit for the book, and there are many pictures used as fillers. This is essentially designed like a slightly pretentious coffee table book perhaps but that to me makes limited sense because those interested in the subject are generally practitionners and not just admirers, and will therefore expect such a book to provide some insight into replicating the creations, rather than just inspiration from what is a faily large and expensive book. The editing of it is shocking, no section really makes any sense under its title, and the very few recipes at the end of the book ironically seem even incongruous. I still have to read much of the text but so far, I found what I read moderately interesting and self serving and I do not even think that the designs in this particular book are actually that awe inspiring. I really think Mrs W. missed a chance to provide an interesting insight into the business and the craft, even if she didn't want to reveal all. There is obviously an elite in the industry who make the best designs, have better skills, better clients and better funds, and for us more simple cake designers, their story is interesting and some of their tricks of experience so interesting, but honestly, this is not craft on such a scale as to pretend to devotion or that the artistry is enough to fill an art book. So, if you are a sugarcrafter in need of inspiration, this book will be interesting to see of course, but don't expect it to be a bible of any kind, and even less a point of reference for any techniques or recipes.
