Book Review- Deco Cakes

Junko has written several cookbooks with some of the cutest ideas and designs, well illustrated and explained to be easy to recreate in your home kitchen. Unfortunately, most of them haven't been translated to English. Just this one so far!

This was a great choice to translate, and I'm so glad to have it. There are a lot of fantastic designs. For Mother's Day, Christmas, Valentine's, and all-occasion cakes, this is a great collection. There are tips for decorating and packaging to turn your gorgeous cakes into gifts for friends. Believe it or not, the decorated versions are even better than the cover photos. The baked inlaid designs are impressive looking on their own, combined with themed decorations, it takes it right over the top into something that looks very professional.

To start with, you'll need a 25x25 cm swiss roll pan to make the cakes following the recipes in the book. Unfortunately, that's not a common size in the USA, but a 10x10 inch square pizza pan will work just fine. I imagine a 10 x 10 inch cake pan will work too, but it's easier to get the cake out of the shallow pizza pan than a deep cake pan. A 10 inch pan is just a tiny bit bigger than 25x25 cm.

The instructions are written originally in precise weight based measurements that are used commonly, and to get the exact cake recipe recommended, you'll also need a kitchen scale. However, US style volume measurements are included.

After that, it's just following the step by step instructions, which also include filling ideas. These cakes have lots of flavor and texture coming from the combination of cake, cream and fruit fillings. If your only experience with jelly roll cakes is the kind sold in supermarket bakeries, or worse luck, those chocolate dipped, plastic wrapped individual cakes- these will be a revelation. Great flavors using good ingredients makes a big difference.

The designs are fantastic, for the more complex designs, there are stencils to trace on parchment paper to follow. For the simple designs, they are well illustrated and the techniques explained well. You don't need to be an artist to make a fantastic looking cake using this method. It's nearly as simple as a coloring book. Some of the designs have elements painted on after baking, but most of the design is done before that.

I absolutely recommend it. If you have your own ideas, but just want to practice with the technique and get a good recipe for making these gorgeous confections- it's a good starting point. If you want to be able to make impressive looking from scratch cakes with minimal effort, it's a good choice.

Published by Vertical Inc., check out  their Facebook page!


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I received a complimentary copy of this book to review, I received no other compensation, and my review is my honest opinion of the book. You can read more about my review policy here.

Silky whipped cultured cream

That cream in the photo? It's amazing. I got the idea from a vintage French desserts cookbook from a thrift store. The Chantilly cream recipe in it called for creme fraiche. Since I've had this obsession lately with coming up with a chocolate cream pie that really fulfills all my chocolate cream pie fantasies in flavor and silkiness- I decided to try making and whipping creme fraiche.

You will need:
1 cup heavy cream
2 TBS cultured buttermilk
a very clean jar
spoon
2 TBS caster or superfine sugar
1 tsp good quality vanilla (I used a Mexican vanilla this time)
silicone or rubber spatula
whisk or mixer- I use a large balloon whisk
cold bowl

Time- 12-16 hours, but not much actual working time.

Mix the cream and buttermilk in the jar, cap loosely and keep it at room temperature until set. I put it out the night before.

The next morning check to see if it's thickened. You can taste it at this point if you'd like. Put it in the fridge until it's very cold.

Because it's so thick, you may need to use the spatula to get it all out of the jar into your cold bowl.
Whip it, if it's too thick, add a spoonful of very cold milk. Mix in the sugar and vanilla and whip to soft peaks. Then serve it over fruit, chocolate or however you think it will be best.

The culturing makes the cream super silky and a bit tangy. It's almost like a cross between sour cream and cream cheese except even better. It's so good that my daughter used her finger to "clean" out the bowl. This is absolutely going to be a component in my dream chocolate cream pie.

Book Review- The Daily Cookie

The Daily Cookie - 365  Tempting Treats for the Sweetest Year of Your Life by Anna Ginsberg is wonderful collection of cookie recipes that would make a good gift for yourself or a wonderful birthday or holiday present for the baker in your life.

I was enthused about this cookbook with it's full color photos and all the cookie recipes. Many of those recipes are based on traditional favorites, some are old fashioned cookies, some are based on other classic desserts in a cookie form. Then my daughter saw it, and she loves it even more than I do. She's been reading it for pleasure.

Each day has a specific holiday or event listed, and sometimes the cookie recipes are themed for that holiday. November 11th, Veteran's Day features lemon rosemary shortbread because rosemary is for remembrance. Those sidebars frequently have a bit of information about the holiday, and sometimes other events that happened on that day.  That's the reason I think this book makes a great gift. Those little sidebars with an event for each day are charming and interesting.

The cookie recipes are great, they cover a really wide range of tastes, textures and types. Bar cookies, rolled cookies, shaped cookies and drop cookies. If you're stuck in a cookie rut of using the same recipes over and over (for me it's snickerdoodles and chocolate chip cookies), the variety will inspire you. There are fruity, chocolates, nutty, vanilla, candy, buttery and other flavors.

The other thing that makes this cookbook a stand out single theme cookbook is the various indices in the back of the book which list the cookie recipes by batch size, pan size, cookie type and even how easy they are to make. There is also a more traditional index by recipe name and flavor ingredients. The instructions are written in American style volume measurements, the end of the cookbook does has an equivalency table for people using metric which also includes Fahrenheit t to Celsius conversions and lists British gas marks.

This book does consider brownies to be a type of cookie and there are several brownie recipes for the people who love chocolate.

My daughter is simply charmed by this book, it's not just the cookie recipes, it's also the events and layout. I like the fact it has so many great cookie recipes that can quickly become family favorites, and that the recipes and instructions are well-written and easy to understand and follow.

Published by Andrews McMeel Publishing.
I received a complimentary copy of this book to review, I received no other compensation, and my review is my honest opinion of the book. You can read more about my review policy here.

Book Review- Sweet Macarons

Sweet Macarons- Delectable French Confections for Every Day by Mercotte starts with the author explaining her goal in the book, which is to demystify the making of these wonderful treats.

The author does a wonderful job. If you've never made macarons before, or have no experience with piping, meringues or the basic fillings, she walks you through the steps in a conversational and reassuring way. Starting by explaining the ingredients and giving you tips and tricks for making the cookies including handy things like the best way to fill the pastry bag and how to space them on a cookie sheet.

Then she gets into more detail. Rather than having you go straight into working with meringue whipped egg whites and almond meal, she walks you through 3 cookies that help you learn how to pipe correctly, how to bake meringues and then finally, working with almond meal. After that, she explains how to make the batter for macarons. She gives 2 methods, the more involved Italian meringue recipe, or the simpler, easier French recipe for meringues, and how to turn that into macaron batter.

The next part focus on fillings, and the basic filling recipes given can be flavored many ways. Her basic filling recipes include buttercream, a couple thick creamy fillings, some ganache fillings, jam and praline filling.  Using just this section of the cookbook, and varying flavors and colors on the fillings, you could make a lot of types of macarons.

Then the recipes, which are fancy enough to impress anyone. Starting with salted butter caramel, then getting into lots of other flavors. I'm not a fan of licorice flavor, but even skipping the anise/fennel and the licorice flavored cookies, there are still a lot of great options. Some are fruity, some are spicy, some have tea or floral flavors. These are recipes that can be paired easily to echo the flavors of tea, coffee or wine for entertaining. The creme brulee ones are amazing.

If you like traditional cookbook formats, this one may not be your cup of tea. The tone is conversational, and the recipes aren't laid out traditionally. Instead of line by line ingredient lists, the ingredients are listed in a single paragraph separated by commas. The instructions are very well written with good detail. The recipes are also followed with tips for modifying that recipe to suit your own tastes. There are also ideas for things to do with failed macarons and tips on fillings for really quick macarons for when you have cookies in the freezer and just want a fast fix.

My 17 year old daughter is very excited by macarons, and the instructions are perfect for the way she learns. So I'm just thrilled with the layout and the detail. The only thing that would make this book better for my daughter's and my macaron adventures is a spiral binding so it would lay flat. The photographs are gorgeous, the recipes are good, and the step by step breakdown of the process of making macarons is well written.

Published by The Taunton Press.
I received a complimentary copy of this book to review, my reviews are always my personal and honest opinion. You can read more about my review policy here.