|
| Pretty Party Cakes: Sweet and Stylish Cakes and Cookies for All Occasions | 
 enlarge | Author: Peggy Porschen
Brand: Random House
Category: Book
List Price: $30.00
Buy New: $17.80
You Save: $12.20 (41%)
New (30) Used (9) from $16.83
Avg. Customer Rating:  25 reviews
Sales Rank: 175172
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 144
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.9
Dimensions (in): 10.7 x 8.8 x 0.7
MPN: 3707
ISBN: 0307337073
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.86539
EAN: 9780307337078
ASIN: 0307337073
Publication Date: April 11, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
|
| Customer Reviews:
 Edible Artworks January 9, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This book is full of fabulous ideas for every occasion. Cake decoration loses its "all the same" look when you use ideas from this lovely book. Full colour illustrations and good instructions make it easy to follow. A really
great book to have in your collection.
Pretty Party Cakes: Sweet and Stylish Cakes and Cookies for All Occasions January 5, 2007
2 out of 11 found this review helpful
Book arrived on time in excellent condition as advertized. Price is more than reasonable, and Amazon is a wonderful way to shop and buy books.
I'm Enchanted January 3, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I read the reviews and bought the book and I must say it is a masterpiece!I swooned over the pictures and wanted to make each one NOW but chose the christmas tree cakes.Her mini cakes are drenched in syrup (I overdid it and cake crumbled)and then lathered in preserves and buttercream and then drenched in Fondant after topping with marzipan. Two things,,,,,,,,they were too high to stand without toppling over,so make sure your two cake layers are thin and TASTE your fondant before coating these beauties,some are nasty!!! Your marzipan WILL stick if you don't use a generous amount of powdered sugar. Her techique for making the sugared topping made me feel like a professional baker!!! She is very generous with her pictures,techniques and recipes and she oozes original,very hip, talent!
Decorating is easy enough for most!! December 5, 2006
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is my ideal type of cake decorating book. I am not personally a cake decorator, but this book has techniques and designs that most people should be able to do easily. The instructions are clear, there are plenty of pictures to go by, and on many of the recipes there are pictures of how to decorate step-by-step. Peggy Porschen takes out the mystique of making gorgeous cakes.
Her book has many recipes of cakes, cookies, icings, and fillings to use inside the cakes. I like that she takes the time out to make sure the cake is not only going to look good, it is going to taste good as well. The begining of the book describes the decorating tools you will need. For many of the cakes in the book you will not need all of the tools, so this book is an excellent choice if you are just starting out.
Basic instructions are given on a variety of piping techniques, so when it comes time to employ what you have just learned, you will be able to decorate your cake. I like this book because it has designs that are "fresher" than many of the Wilton cake design books. She has you using piping techniques, marzipan, and fondant to help make your cakes look wonderful.
She has many different designs for decorting cookies, cakes, cup cakes, wedding cakes, and so much more. This book is extremely dense when it comes to presenting many different ideas in one book. This has to be one of the most inovative cake decorating books since Colette's cake decorating books. While the cakes are as pretty as Colette's are, I feel many of these decorating techniques makes the book more accessible by those of us who do not decorate cakes all of the time.
Absolutely charming!! October 10, 2006
30 out of 35 found this review helpful
You know how you wonder if a book is as good on the inside as it looks on the outside? The old cliche of "don't judge a book......"? Well, go ahead and judge this book because the cover is definitely a peek into what is on the inside!!
Absolutely charming! Absolutely wonderful! Absolutely educational! Those words will pretty much sum up the volume of this cake decorating tome. Ms. Porshen has outdone herself in this well-planned, well-executed cookie and cake decorating manual that has covered the wide range of frilly, silly, and elegant presentations.
At first glance, it has a thin spine so one might wonder what can be held within that could possibly divulge so many avenues of learning. But therein lies the fun of how much she has given us; if you are given the basic facts and techniques, the rest of your abilities will come from your imagination. The book itself is large enough to be able to see the details of all the confections that she wishes to teach you. The photography by Georgia Glynn Smith is pristine in detail; you will have no need to wonder about any aspect of what Peggy is trying to show you. And the book cover and jacket are in a bright, happy, I-can't-wait-to-get-started pink so how can you not get excited? And there are are no penciled drawings; everything is shown with bright, clear photographs.
Your education begins right away with:
(Chapter One) The Basics:
equipment
cookies (basic recipe for sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies)
cakes (basic sheet cake recipe and its variations plus frostings and filling; sugar syrup for "wetting" the cake with flavor; Belgian chocolate ganache; how to fill and cover cakes with frosting, marzipan, and fondant; assembling the cakes; assembling tiered cakes)
fondant icing (how to make this plus using it for petit de fours)
royal icing
piping techniques (how to make those lovely thin, piped lines and dots as well as the royal icing flowers like 5-petal flowers, daisies, pansies, and daffodils)
marzipan roses (how absolutely lovely and sweet!)
(Chapter Two) Cookies:
alphabet cookies
heart cookie lollipops
flower basket cookies (and individual mini-flower cookies)
underwater sea creatures (lobsters, tropical fish, starfish, sea horses, seashells, octopus: for these you need templates or the actual cookie cutters)
Easter egg cookies
birthday razzle dazzle cookies (use templates or cookies cutters)
baby shower (diapers, rattles, toys)
butterfly cookies
catwalk cookies (handbags, shoes, dresses; make templates or use cutters)
snowflake cookies
Chapter Three) Cupcakes:
garden cupcakes
daisy cupcakes
kaleidoscope cupcakes
bollywood kitsch cakes (this is the middle of the book so the center pages have a huge photograph of this cupcake and the details make you swoon!)
heart cupcakes
Christmas cupcakes (they are photographed as tucked into a silver cupcake liner with a pale green icing, then decorated with a single royal icing "tree" that is covered in edible sparkles; wow!!)
ruffle rose cupcakes
butterfly cupcakes (this was very interesting in that you make the multi-toned butterflies with royal icing that are air-dried on folded sheets so that it gives a 3-D effect, not one-dimensional; placed on top of a pretty pastel-colored cupcake or cake or cookies, this just POPS at you and is just lovely to look at; it will be the talk of any party!)
Chapter Four) Miniature Cakes:
pansy pots (you actually make "clay pots" to hold the cake/cupcake, then create the lovely flowers that sit on top!)
tea rose cake (this is the cover project; how delicate and charming; a must for a very special occasion!)
treasure boxes (did you ever think of making a "box" or "cup" from fondant? Well, here it is in all its beauty and fun!)
swirly whirly (very 60's and very groovy)
wedding (mini-wedding cakes sitting on a tower of cake pedestals!)
canapes (all striped and make of chocolate!)
stripy rose (all striped from the top of the cake by the center flower down the sides of the cake)
fantasy slices (individual slices with all their own decorations)
Chapter Five) Large Cakes:
Valentine heart cake
3-column wedding cake (3 same-shaped but various sized cakes connected by a cascade fall of piped and molded flowers; definitely a fun challenge but very doable!)
gift box (how fun for your present to be this "present" cake; very easy!)
pink wedding cake
English rose wedding cake (this used the art of "brushed embroidery" which is a technique where you paint a flower and use a small brush to "fan out" the details; very dramatic effect yet simple to master)
daisies cake (how exquisite!!)
romantic rose tower cake (exactly what she says it is, a "tower" of roses in a conical form with lovely butterflies springing out of the sides)
Templates
Glossary
Suppliers
Acknowledgements
Index
OK..................by now you can tell that I am entranced with this book and what it offers. This is absolutely one of my top ten cake decorating books, hands down. But if you need more objective reasons to add this to your cake library, figure that if celebrities like Elton John, Gwyneth Paltrow, and others in the U.K. have requested her services, she must be quite good. A most gracious thank you to Ms. Porshen, from across the pond!!
|
|
|
| |
