Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Book of Inspiration!!, June 24, 2006
This is what I call a great cake decorating book. It's filled with the most beautiful AND useful photographs. There are photos for every recipe to help you see the end result and to inspire the readers.
This book is devided into 4 main catagories: cookies, cupcakes, minature cakes and large cakes. Before these, there's the basices which includes equipment that are used through out the book. The recipes includes: basice sugar cookies, gingerbread cookies, basic sheet cake (for a 12x16", or three 8 in, or about 50 cupcakes....though, I wished she had include for different combinations of the diameter or the size for square cakes), buttercream frosting, sugar syrup and belgian chocolate ganache, all of which have the optinal flavoring of vanilla, lemon, orange and chocolate (except the ginger bread cookies, of course). Then she continues on by describing and showing (in photos) how to fill cakes with buttercream and cover large cakes with marzipan and rolled fondant, assembling large cakes/tiered cakes, covering cake board with fondant, recipe for fondant icing, making basic fondant fancies, recipes for royal icing with photographs of each of the consistency of the royal icing (stiff, soft-peak and runny). The book also covers some basic piping techniques, and royal iced flowers, such as 5 petal flowers, daisies, pansies, and daffodils. The section that I find the MOST useful for me as far as technic goes, is the marzipan/fondant roses----it has photographs for each step of making the roses (see the pictures I posted).
Miss Porschen included 10 different well decorated cookies---alphabet, bollywood heart lollipops (cookies on lollipop sticks),flowers, underwater creatures, easter, birthday, baby, butterfly, catwalk and snowflake. They are all beautifully decorated with royal icing instead of fondant like in some cookie decorating books. This section is definately inspiring for me as sometimes I just don't have any idea how to decorate a cookie just by looking at the metal cookie cutter, if u know what I mean. In the cupcake category, Miss Porschen has 8 different beautiful ideas, follow by 8 miniature cakes and 7 large cakes, all of them are inspiring, romantic, fashionable, elegant, chic, stunning and spectacular. So, I definately DISAGREE with the other reviewer who mention that "more than half of this book was about cookies" (You do the math). I would say that this book is great for anyone who have a heart for decorating cookies and cakes...it might not be a book of techniques, if you want to learn about techniques, I'd suggest you subscribe to the American Cake Decorating magazine, or get all three books of the International School of Sugarcraft, but it's definately worth every penny if you need some decorating ideas.
A word of warning though, all the cakes in the book (except the ruffle rose cupcakes) is covered with marzipan/fondant, or fondant icing and she only used marzipan/fondant roses, no other marzipan/fondant flowers. So, if you're looking for cakes iced with buttercream, I suggest you go for The Whimsical Bakehouse by Kaye Hansen and Liv Hansen. However, I'm sure you can still use the ideas from Miss Porschen with buttercream instead of fondant...just use some imagination and experiments! ;)
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22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good Ideas, Taste Super Sweet, Tricks Missing, January 10, 2007
There's no doubt that Pretty Party Cakes is filled with innovations: edible butterflies, marzipan roses made with edible glitter, petit fours out of Bollywood.
BUT there is a heavy emphasis on fondant, an extremely sweet sugar dough that many find inedible, and royal icing, which is basically confectioner's sugar and egg white. In the European tradition, the cake portion tends to be dry.
I find some info missing: instructions on how to make mazipan roses leave out stuff like using the edge of a spoon to thin out the edge -- a well-known technique that is necessary to get the results in the photograph. I really find it unacceptable when cookbook authors omit these steps -- the ones them separate their finished results from yours. You're paying big bucks for the book -- they should part with all the secrets.
So, buy the book, be dazzled, pick up a few ideas, but go elsewhere for recipes -- and buy other books to expand your knowledge.
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31 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Absolutely charming!!, October 10, 2006
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!!
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