Does anyone have any favorite cake decorating magazines that they subscribe to? Is American Cake Decorating Magazine worth it or is it more for experienced professionals? How about Mailbox News Magazine for Cake Decorators? Any others? Thanks for the feedback!

I would like to know the answer to this question as well..

I subscribed to american cake decorating for a year and was disappointed by the quality of the cakes in the featured articles.

I apologize to anyone I may offend by saying this.

I've gotten Cake-craft and decoration before and I really like it. Its published in England. The web site it www.cake-craft.com. I also get ACD. I like it well enough, but I would like to see more cake decorating in it. I agree with you, Kayakado, the cakes in the featured articles are truly not of the quality I'd like to see in such a publication.

My subscription to Mailbox News will be running out and I won't subscribe again. I thought it was a big disappiontment. I don't know if this counts as a true magazine but I thought you could use the info.

Thanks for your responses. I was planning on going to a bookstore and browse through a few cake decorating magazines to see if they are worth subscribing to. It sounds like the consensus is there is none. Oh well...maybe it's better to buy each magazine on an issue by issue basis and not subscribe.

I actually prefer books. I only have a few so far but I have found great techniques in each one and beautiful pictures.

Here is a thought...the folks at ACD are really nice. Maybe an e-mail to them with our concerns would be helpful. I just filled out an online survey for them so I know they are interested in making the magazine better.

I also think that ACD could provide better quality articles...They all tend to be on the beginner side, and they tend to use the same decorators over and over.

I stopped getting Mailbox News because the cakes in that were usually so bad my husband and I would just laugh at them. I was emailing another decorator for a while who said that she and her husband played a game called "find the ****" (insert decorator's name here.) When they get the magazine she would find the pages where this person's cakes were and he would guess which one it was based on their awfulness.

I subscribe to Cakes and Sugar craft, Cake Craft and Decoration, and Wedding Cakes: A Design Source. They're all British magazines and I have to pay extra to have them sent to me, but they're better than anything that you can get here.

I have subscribed to Mailbox News for many years and ACD since the very first issue. They both changed a few years back and not for the best. The original magazines were much better. They weren't so full of advertisements like they are now. Don't get me wrong, because sometimes I like the advertisements so I can find the supplies I'm looking for. Sometimes it just seems like not enough content. I used to send my pictures in all the time but I don't bother anymore.

Kurn-- I sent pictures in to ACD once and they put one of my cakes in. I was all excited until I saw the cake that they'd put in next to mine. It was a barbecue cake with something on the barbecue that I swear to god looked like a bunch of pink cr@p (literally.) I think it was suposed to be hot dogs. Well, that took me down a couple of notches when I realized what kind of pictures they were willing to print!

I subscribe to both. I love the older issues the most. When ACD was started it was strictly geared toward buttercream which is what american style decorating use to be. I do love getting the magazines. Bit I loved them more when they had the original owners publishing them. I would not think of not subscribing to them. I have orderd a few Cake Craft magazines. I like them but I like to get ideas and think of how I would do them in buttercream with fondant accents.