Book-It 'o9! Book #31
More of the Fifty Books Challenge! This was a thrift store find for two bucks.
Title: Hello, Cupcake!: Irresistibly Playful Creations Anyone Can Make by Alan Richardson and Karen Tack
Details: Copyright 2008, Houghton Mifflin Co
Synopsis (By Way of Amazon Product Description): "Witty, one-of-a-kind imaginative cupcake designs using candies from the local convenience store.
America's favorite food photography team, responsible for the covers of America's top magazines, shows how to create funny, scary, and sophisticated masterpieces, using a zipper lock bag and common candies and snack items.With these easy-to-follow techniques, even the most kitchen-challenged cooks can
• raise a big-top circus cupcake tier for a kid's birthday
• plant candy vegetables on Oreo earth cupcakes for a garden party
• trot out a line of confectionery "pupcakes" for a dog fancier
• serve sausage and pepperoni pizza cupcakes for April Fool's Day
• bewitch trick-or-treaters with chilly ghost chocolate cupcakes
• create holidays on icing with turkey cupcake place cards, a white cupcake Christmas wreath, and Easter egg cupcakes
No baking skills or fancy pastry equipment is required. Spotting the familiar items in the hundreds of brilliant photos is at least half the fun."
Why I Wanted to Read It: I'd heard good things about this book and had gotten to flip through _lady_vanilla_'s copy.
How I Liked It: Reviewing the book without trying out any of its crafts and/or recipes is difficult, but that's a bit of the beauty of it. Even if you've never taken a bit of icing to cake and/or never plan to, the book is enjoyable for the photographs alone. The pictures are gorgeous and the artists truly do use easy-to-find candies and sweets in whole new ways for these astounding creations (astounding isn't a hyperbole: the artists recreate van Gogh's The Starry Night in jaw-dropping accuracy). If you're not buying it with intent to craft, you can buy if for glorious glossy cupcake porn (oh, it exists).
Notable: Hello Cupcake! has its own website with features geared towards community and skills (and not just selling of the book, which would, admittedly, severely limit the content) and offers its own work on Flickr. What I would assume one of the most valuable tools to bakers/designers using this book actually comes from an outside source, albeit one encouraged by the company. Other Flickr users are encouraged to show off their translations of the designs and recipes features and there are the inevitable flops that can come from each design, as well as other pratfalls of the process, such as fussy ingredients and somewhat useless leftover materials. It's an interesting and necessary element that's refreshing to see included.
Title: Hello, Cupcake!: Irresistibly Playful Creations Anyone Can Make by Alan Richardson and Karen Tack
Details: Copyright 2008, Houghton Mifflin Co
Synopsis (By Way of Amazon Product Description): "Witty, one-of-a-kind imaginative cupcake designs using candies from the local convenience store.
America's favorite food photography team, responsible for the covers of America's top magazines, shows how to create funny, scary, and sophisticated masterpieces, using a zipper lock bag and common candies and snack items.With these easy-to-follow techniques, even the most kitchen-challenged cooks can
• raise a big-top circus cupcake tier for a kid's birthday
• plant candy vegetables on Oreo earth cupcakes for a garden party
• trot out a line of confectionery "pupcakes" for a dog fancier
• serve sausage and pepperoni pizza cupcakes for April Fool's Day
• bewitch trick-or-treaters with chilly ghost chocolate cupcakes
• create holidays on icing with turkey cupcake place cards, a white cupcake Christmas wreath, and Easter egg cupcakes
No baking skills or fancy pastry equipment is required. Spotting the familiar items in the hundreds of brilliant photos is at least half the fun."
Why I Wanted to Read It: I'd heard good things about this book and had gotten to flip through _lady_vanilla_'s copy.
How I Liked It: Reviewing the book without trying out any of its crafts and/or recipes is difficult, but that's a bit of the beauty of it. Even if you've never taken a bit of icing to cake and/or never plan to, the book is enjoyable for the photographs alone. The pictures are gorgeous and the artists truly do use easy-to-find candies and sweets in whole new ways for these astounding creations (astounding isn't a hyperbole: the artists recreate van Gogh's The Starry Night in jaw-dropping accuracy). If you're not buying it with intent to craft, you can buy if for glorious glossy cupcake porn (oh, it exists).
Notable: Hello Cupcake! has its own website with features geared towards community and skills (and not just selling of the book, which would, admittedly, severely limit the content) and offers its own work on Flickr. What I would assume one of the most valuable tools to bakers/designers using this book actually comes from an outside source, albeit one encouraged by the company. Other Flickr users are encouraged to show off their translations of the designs and recipes features and there are the inevitable flops that can come from each design, as well as other pratfalls of the process, such as fussy ingredients and somewhat useless leftover materials. It's an interesting and necessary element that's refreshing to see included.