My mom, in her unending support of all of her (grown) kids' obsessions, has said that she wanted to buy me a cake decorating book, but when she looked at all the books on this site was overwhelmed with the choices and left it up to me to pick one. Well, I'm a bit overwhelmed with the choices, too, so I'm asking you if you have any that you would recommend...
Thanks in advance
Susan

I love the whimsical bakehouse book. I've tried alot of the recipes and have loved them all.

I love Collette Peter's books. Thery are a little out there for beginner decorators like me, but still, I love to look at them and get ideas on how she does things. Some things I would have never thought of. Even where she gets her inspiration.

I would look on eBay or Half.com for a copy of the "Wilton Way Encyclopedia, Volume 3" I have all 3 volumes, and would rank them 3,1,2 in the order of my preference. They are oldies but goodies!! Volume 3 has so many different border ideas, you could almost try a new one every day!

I really like Decorating Cakes by Wilton. It has a pink cake on the front with 2 different colors of pink roses on it. It has just about everything in there. It has instructions for just about every flower you can make out of butter cream and royal icing. It also has an how to on fondant in there to. I don't know how advanced you are but, it is like a cake decorating manual. lol. It's on page 7 under cake decorating books on here. I think is like the third one down.

Momsandraven-----where can I find the encylopedias???? I've tried searching but came up empty...Help!!! thanks

Try Amazon.com under used. Not sure if this is the same thing but what a deal for a 200+ page book.

If you're a beginner, then just pick any one or two that has beginner or first time in title. A lot of beginners like the Wilton annuals; they have beginner to more advanced in them.
If you're further along then any of the Colette Peter's books are fun to go through. Lots of great ideas. I think you would get something out of just about book.
Lucky person having someone willing to buy you a book!!!

Can you go to your library and look at any of them? There are some books, like Collete Peters, that I love to look at, but don't need at home, since I won't be attempting anything like that for a while! I would love to own a copy of Kate Sullivan's book or Whimsical Bakehouse.

I want to get The Well Decorated Cake by Toba Garret and would LOVE to get her new one coming out in Sept, its $60 though
I've heard great things about Toba's book though (the well decorated cake) , its supposed to be great for beginners or pros and its only $13 something in the CC store