Reviewed
Cakes Are Sinfully Good In Any Scale
Reisl Lackinger
Staff Writer
Who doesn't LOVE a scrumptious cake? Decadent, sinful, chocolate; or light and fluffy and ever so smooth chiffon ... It melts in your mouth and leaves you always wanting, needing, just one more bite. So many cakes, so many combinations of flavors and all with endless ways to be artistically showcased.
For foodies and others, the book to go to for inspiration in the kitchen and at your miniature table of gourmet confections is "Rose's Heavenly Cakes." Rose Levy Beranbaum, author of "The Cake Bible," has a new book out and it is stocked full of eye candy for all. The price is $40 at Barnes and Nobles, but I've found it on auction sites for half that. The hefty price tag is the only negative I find in this scrumptious book.
The race for first place in a miniature artisan's library is very close between an informative "how to" and one over flowing with colorful inspirational photographs. This book is full of those requisite color photos - they zoom in on details, single slices and whole cakes for an absolutely delightful showcase of texture, crumb, and magnificently swirled icing. There is not one, let me say once more, not one black and white photograph in this entire book. Be still my heart: page after page of color rich, luxurious cakes.
I would believe that any miniature artisan, beginner and advanced, would have a difficult time picking the cake they would recreate first from these pages. The most wonderful aspect of this book is the endless possibilities. Any artist can easily take the color of one cake, combine it with the style of another (think a 3 layer cake with floral decorations) and create an entirely new cake.
Thumb through the chapters and try to choose. A classic example is the chocolate ice cream cake found in the "butter and oil cakes" chapter. Chocolate cake, coffee ice cream and dark, drizzled chocolate offers photographs of single slices to show the artisan the crumb of the cake and texture of the ice cream to recreate a realistic miniature version.
It could easily be changed by using a vibrant strawberry ice cream between the chocolate layers.
Advance further in the book to the "wedding cakes" chapter and be inspired by the "Deep Chocolate Passion Wedding Cake." Inspiring thoughts of a fairy wood, three deep chocolate ganache-covered layers are surrounded by twig-like wavy chocolate pretzel sticks. Add colorful, contrasting forest flowers or cabbage roses or switch the forest twigs for long curling ivy. Can you tell I love this book?
Chapters are broken up into types of cakes - which really does not matter to the miniature artisan looking to recreate them in clay or other mediums - but that introduces the other great perk of this book. You can use it in the kitchen. I have not attempted any of the recipes, but I have read them and after trying my hand at artisan bread baking with NO cooking skills whatsoever, I promise if you can boil noodles you will be able to bake some of these cakes. And fall in love. With the cakes.
Custom Dolls, Houses & Miniatures / CDHM