Pretty Party Cakes: Sweet and Stylish Cakes and Cookies for All Occasions

One of the best. I own a lot of cake decorating books and this is one of my bibles. As somebody said, it's looks as good inside as looks outside. Porshen work is so fresh, clean and neat that you can not stop checking it over and over. I do not like make recommendations, but either if you are a beginner or a professional, you will love this book

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!

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; w

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. S

I thought this book was amazing. I am truly inspired to try these new techniques. Just a forewarning though - this book does include a lot of molds and using marzipan. She gives a small section of information about the Wilton techniques using Royal and buttercream icing - but the majority of her flowers and such are marzipan or fondant. Still an amazingly beautifuly done recipe/technique cake & cookie book.