Happy Birthday [Hardcover]

Anna Von Marburg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2000

From cake-maker extraordinaire Anna von Marburg comes Happy Birthday, a book of fabulously easy cakes for kids that would make them want every day of the year to be a birthday or special occasion! From a bumblebee cake called Bzzz to an unpotted sunflower cake, from Sandcastle and Fish Tank, to creations for the young ones in your life who are feeling kind of sporty, these spectacular cakes will have you wowwing kids of all ages. While amazing to look at, the cakes are quick to whip up, and make use of everyday ingredients such as lollipops, candy and ice-cream. Lavishly illustrated with full-colour photographs, and with detailed step-by-step instructions and helpful hints, Happy Birthday will make the next birthday cake you bake an inspiration...and a masterpiece! Anna von Marburg was born in the US but now lives in Australia with her husband and their three children. Anna is the author of the best-selling Cakes in Bloom, published in 1993 by Allen & Unwin.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Anna von Marburg's cakes make for a delightful picture and recipe book." -- The Bloomsbury Review

"Beautiful and unusual." -- Northwest Herald, July 2, 2003

"Birthday cakes will never be the same...This is one cookbook that will any cook's collection or coffee table." -- L.A. Parent Magazine

"Edible modern sculpture." -- Sacramento Bee, June 25, 2003

"Just reading through the book and feasting the eyes on these whimisical cakes is a treat." -- The Record

"Just reading through the book and feasting the eyes on these whimsical cakes is a treat." -- The Times, July 2, 2003

"Simply explained and easy to follow." -- Tri-City Herald, July 2, 2003

"The cakes in this book are glorious, unique creations, and the decorating instructions are easy to follow." -- Working Mother

About the Author

Anna von Marburg is the author of Cakes in Bloom and is the owner of Anna von Marburg Cakes, which makes elegant and inspired creations for hundreds of clients.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 96 pages
• Publisher: Allen & Unwin Pty., Limited (Australia) (October 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1865081442
• ISBN-13: 978-1865081441
• Product Dimensions: 13.3 x 9.7 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,192,180 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Happy Birthday Cakes the easy way!, September 4, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Happy Birthday (Hardcover)

What a great book! Finally something that lets even the most novice of bakers look like Martha Stewart! If you need a reference cookbook that will give you the abilities of a master chef but in reality, has a real life that fills your waking hours, then seriously consider Anna's efforts as presented in this wonderfully fun book. The photos are large enough and tempting enough to show you how fabulous it will look and the recipes are simple enough to make you feel confident in your skills. There is enough array of themes to give you quite a selection to choose from; in fact, the "cupcake cake" is SOOO easy, its impossible to plead novice! My only reason for 4 stars instead of 5 is because I also have her first book, "Cakes in Bloom"; THAT book is the ultimate in cake creations! You definitely need more time, patience, and skill but what fabulous works of edible art! Nothing yet has surpassed that book.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nice pictures, but several important editorial mistakes, August 16, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Happy Birthday (Hardcover)

One of the featured cake's pictures is missing, sloppy layout errors in a table of cooking times/cake size/recipe amount, and an error in ingredient quantities of one of the basic cakes made this book a disappointment. It is lovely to look at, but the errors make me doubt the overall accuracy of the recipes.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not Good for Kids' Birthdays, August 4, 2001

By 

Ed Levy (St. Louis, MO United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Happy Birthday (Hardcover)

I bought this book hoping to find some good ideas for my daughter's first birthday cake. I also figured it would come in handy as she gets older. Unfortunately, while the cakes all look very pretty, they are not the sorts of cakes that a child, or possibly even a teen-ager, would find exciting. For the most part, they are very adult in their themes (with the notable exception of a cake designed to look like a diaper). The Penny Whistle Birthday Party Book has much better ideas for children's birthday cakes, albeit without color photographs. If you intend to use this book for adult parties, it might work for you. I think the title is misleading, however, in that many of the cakes tend more toward garden themes.