[.ca] Sweet Celebrations: The Art of Decorating Beautiful Cakes (ISBN 0684846756)

From Amazon.com:
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

Puny pictorials, pleasingly practical:
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.

One Recipe Made Me A Fan!:
Weinstock's recipe for yellow butter cake was worth the price of the book. I'm not an experienced baker but was able to follow her recipe without a hitch. And the cake itself was THE BEST I've ever eaten (and believe me, I've eaten some cake!). In fact, friends and I first ate the cake plain --unable to wait for the icing! I'm a fan--so much so, that I keep a copy of Weinstock's butter cake recipe on the frige. When I bake cakes for people I love, it's Weinstock's recipes I use.

Not for beginners but what eye candy!:
Sylvia Weinstock is an artist, her canvas flour and buttercream and gum paste. The fault I found with this book is her rating system...beginners level, in your dreams maybe, advanced...Mr. Da Vinci we need you. The only other fault is no recipe for gum paste or pastillage. All in all a beautiful book, worth the price if only for the photos of several incredible cakes. I wanted this book for a long time and was not disappointed.

Excellent reference book:
I love Ms. Weinstock's cake and buttercream recipes. She provides recipes for yellow, white, chocolate, almond cakes..as well as many variations on her buttercream fillings and icings. They are the basis for a truly elegant (and tasty!) cake. Her cakes really are masterpieces... very inspiring. She provides color pictures, numerous sketches, and in-depth directions on how to create several of her cakes (wedding and other celebration cakes). I have some cake decorating experience under my belt, but believe that even novices could understand the author's instructions. I have found this book to be very inspiring and fun. I frequently consult it when I need to come up with a cake for a special occasion.

Buy it!:
I have been a cake designer for only a few years and have many books and recipes. The recipes and instructions in this book are amazing. The cakes are rated for difficutly and the first one I tried turned out great. She gives wonderful directions for the Italian Meringue Buttercream which can sometimes be difficult to make. All of the cake recipes I have tried are perfect. She gives a good variety of different types of cakes so that you have a lot of different examples to get ideas from. She has basic tiered cakes, including the very popular gift box type cakes. She also has round cakes, and many other sculpted cakes. There are also a lot of other pictures of cakes scattered throughout the book for inspiration. She gives great directions for making gum paste flowers and marzipan fruit. If I had to pick just one cake book to keep in my collection, this would be the one, hand down. I highly recommend this book.