Sweet Celebrations: The Art of Decorating Beautiful Cakes [Hardcover]

Sylvia Weinstock (Author), Kate Manchester (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 13, 1999

In Sweet Celebrations the woman InStyle called "New York's reigning cake diva" shares her recipes, designs, techniques, and tips in a gloriously illustrated book.

Bon Appétit called master baker and decorator Weinstock "the Leonardo da Vinci of wedding cakes," and her stunningly original creations have graced the celebrations of Oprah Winfrey, Ted Turner, and Whitney Houston. Her repertoire includes not just grand, romantic, floral wedding cakes but cakes appropriate for all of life's festive moments. Now she shares her expertise with bakers who want the perfect cake to commemorate that very special occasion.

Sweet Celebrations includes cakes for birthdays, anniversaries, bon voyage send-offs, victory parties, and more. Graded according to difficulty, there are cakes for the beginning as well as the experienced decorator. Present your favorite graduate with a richly bound pile of books, welcome a newborn with a delectable stack of pastel-colored blocks, or serve the charming cottage cake at a housewarming. Each of the featured twenty-four cakes is shown in full color, with complete step-by-step instructions for baking, assembling, and decorating. In addition there are many inspiring photographs of the fabulous cakes Weinstock has created for clients around the world.

The book provides recipes for cakes, frostings, and fillings, as well as detailed illustrated instructions on decorating techniques. Sweet Celebrations is a must-have volume for home and professional bakers who want to make and serve cakes that taste as good as they look.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Sylvia Weinstock designs beautiful cakes. Sharing that opinion are Oprah Winfrey, Donald Trump, and several Kennedys, among other clients of Weinstock's New York cake business. In Sweet Celebrations, Weinstock and coauthor Kate Manchester show readers how they can produce similar edible fantasies--bedecked beauties for all occasions, from weddings, birthdays, and anniversaries to bon voyages, bar mitzvahs, and baby christenings. Readers wanting to learn or refine cake-decorating skills, or those interested in this ever-evolving craft, will welcome the book.

Beginning with basic cake, filling, icing, and wash (syrupy soak) recipes, Weinstock then presents fundamental and advanced cake-designing techniques, including sugar dough work, flower and ribbon creation, and piping methods of all kinds. She then offers 24 cake projects of her own design, each illustrated in color, with detailed blueprints for their construction. Of these, readers will doubtlessly be most entranced with Weinstock's signature flower- and fruit-wreathed marvels such as her Peach Rose Wedding Cake and Marzipan Fruit Cake, but other Weinstock classics, including the Hatbox Cake, the "lace"-covered Cornelli Heart Cake, or the Clown Cake (perfect for children's parties), will prove equally tempting. Weinstock offers a level of difficulty notation for each cake so readers can choose their projects wisely and advance as their decorating skills develop. Not the least of Weinstock's success is due to her commitment to producing cakes that taste as good as they look, further cause for celebrating with her special creations. --Arthur Boehm

Review

Town & Country Exquisite, edible sculptures...unforgettable.

Pepole The rich and famous call Sylvia Weinstock to make their sweet dreams come true.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Edition edition (October 13, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684846756
• ISBN-13: 978-0684846750
• Product Dimensions: 10.6 x 9.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #379,256 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Nice but only for decorating your table, February 18, 2006

By 

Toni "the bookworm" (Chicago, Illinois United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Sweet Celebrations: The Art of Decorating Beautiful Cakes (Hardcover)

I normally have a great affinity for any cake decorating book, but as I have progressed in my knowledge and skills, I have learned what "industry secrets" are needed to truly educate. Unfortunately, Ms. Weinstock only offers information in the guise of wanting to share, but in reality, she gives very little.

Much of what is in the book is very generic information on cake decorating. There is little actual teaching because I feel that in the world of Master Cake Decorating, there is a fierce competition and trade secrets are heavily guarded.

She shows you several complex cakes that many people simply will not be able to replicate, due to the intense detail and need for training/education that it requires. You need tools and recipes and formulas and knowledge, which she has failed to impart. Yes, there are the obligatory simple recipes and basic skills given, but you do not get a true cake decorating education.

This is a nice book for working towards the skills needed to reach those fabulous looking creations, but do not expect much in the way of education. If you wish detailed instruction and education, there are several other wonderful books in which to choose.

29 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Highly over-rated!, July 30, 2000

By 

jen (Lexington, KY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sweet Celebrations: The Art of Decorating Beautiful Cakes (Hardcover)

I am a professional cake artist, and have of course heard of Sylvia Weinstock for some time. I was glad to finally have a chance to see some of her work. For someone with such a big reputation, the cakes were very disappointing. Most of the novelty-type cakes were fairly amateurish, and all the wedding cakes have the same basic design, iced smooth and smothered with gumpaste flowers. Seems like piping is definately not her skill. I expected much better quality in the flowers for someone so well known and who commands such high prices! I know many other cake artists whose flowers are much more realistic. Also, the directions were very vague and sometimes inconsistent. This is definately more of a coffee-table type picture book than a serious cake decorating book.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Puny pictorials, pleasingly practical, March 28, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Sweet Celebrations: The Art of Decorating Beautiful Cakes (Hardcover)

I was so nervous about whether to invest in this book (due to some of the reviews in here)I actually took it out at the library to check it out first. I was pleasantly surprised.
It is true that the cakes featured here aren't that spectacular, so if you are looking for a coffee-table book on cake art, this isn't it. I saw only 4 or 5 cakes that stood out from the 40 examples shown. Some pictures in the book were used as filler, I guess...a few of these were nice cakes, but had no directions to go along with them.
However this book offers so much still. First and foremost, it is for American cake enthusiasts. There is no rolled fondant here; (not that there is anything wrong with fondant, but culturally, here in the states-it is not something familiar.) It is a book that can be enjoyed by cake decorators of all levels and nationalities, since many cake styles/techniques are represented. Weinstock rates each cake featured as to its level of difficulty and gives good directions on how to complete each project. You don't need any fancy cake pans or special ingredients for the most part, to make these cakes either.
I think that Weinstock probably wanted to focus on making a book that is more of a manual that anything else. The two main features of this book are the range of styles/techniques offered and the author's interest in motivating the reader to explore inventive possibilities on his/her own. The examples shown are well-known to cake novices...marzipan, cornelli lace, structured cakes, character cakes, white-on-white, basketweave, tier, gumpaste florals, and dotted swiss. The instuctions are clear and complete. Creativity is encouraged by showing one cake style and variations of that same style with additional photos.
Although there is hope that Weinstock will find time to produce yet another book with a lot more fantastic visuals-perhaps adding some autobiographical data on her business (more information than she had in this book)...I think this is a useful book to have in any cake decorator's library just for the recipes alone. As someone with a long history in culinary arts, I know these recipes are good. This is a definitive textbook on cake decorating.