If You Had To Get Only One Book...
Decorating By Quebeccakes Updated 10 Jul 2007 , 3:15am by i_heart_pastry
I know people ask all the time, but my b-day is coming up and my family might be open to giving me a cake decorating book as a present. Now, if you had only one book (or if you were going to buy only one book), what would it be? I can't really check them out by myself because it is difficult to find any of those books here (they probably would have to order it).
I just splurged and bought the WBH and Toba's "Professional Cake Decorating." I thought the WBH was pretty good & I look forward to trying the recipes. However, the Toba Garrett book is AWESOME!
PCD is written as a series of lesson plans. It starts with the basics and progresses to more difficult techniques. Each chapter explains a technique, with illustrations. Then she gives you "homework" for each lesson (specific things to practice). At the end of each lesson is a little quiz, so you can be sure you understood the key points. Some of the lessons in the book are:
Piping Skills (basic, floral, intermediate, advanced), writing, RI flowers & designs, icing a cake, hand modeling, marzipan & chocolate modeling, advance RI piping, rolled icing design, pastillage, gumpaste flowers (basic & advanced), mini cakes & cookies, cake boards, color charts, painting, and more. There are also recipes and patterns.
I'm completely self-taught, as there are no classes where I live (except the Wilton ones which I haven't taken). I look forward to going through this book chapter-by-chapter and treating it as if I'm taking a course. I picked up this book at Borders. It's a bit expensive, but if you sign up for their email list you get 20% off coupons, which is what I used.
Hope this helps - enjoy whichever book you end up getting!
Bec
I just splurged and bought the WBH and Toba's "Professional Cake Decorating." I thought the WBH was pretty good & I look forward to trying the recipes. However, the Toba Garrett book is AWESOME!
PCD is written as a series of lesson plans. It starts with the basics and progresses to more difficult techniques. Each chapter explains a technique, with illustrations. Then she gives you "homework" for each lesson (specific things to practice). At the end of each lesson is a little quiz, so you can be sure you understood the key points. Some of the lessons in the book are:
Piping Skills (basic, floral, intermediate, advanced), writing, RI flowers & designs, icing a cake, hand modeling, marzipan & chocolate modeling, advance RI piping, rolled icing design, pastillage, gumpaste flowers (basic & advanced), mini cakes & cookies, cake boards, color charts, painting, and more. There are also recipes and patterns.
I'm completely self-taught, as there are no classes where I live (except the Wilton ones which I haven't taken). I look forward to going through this book chapter-by-chapter and treating it as if I'm taking a course. I picked up this book at Borders. It's a bit expensive, but if you sign up for their email list you get 20% off coupons, which is what I used.
Hope this helps - enjoy whichever book you end up getting!
Bec
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