by April Carter photographed by Danielle Wood
This is a cookery book with style.
Decorated is April’s third book and she has a fresh modern approach to baking. The book has a gorgeous cover photo, a clever ‘shabby chic’ take on the humble Victoria sponge. It is made up of a pyramid of cakes of different circumferences, adorned with fresh flowers and fruits a simple idea, executed brilliantly. It is so refreshing to have a book full of cakes that are neither novelty cakes or covered in a layer of white icing.
“When it comes to food, I prefer a simple approach and one of my favourite ways to create some drama and make a cake look special is by adding height with lots of layers’
April’s shows how to make perfect even layers of cake, filled with smooth buttercream.
A modern take on an old favourite
One of the secrets of her success is that she is adaptable and experiments with different flavour and colour combinations. She keeps notes on what she is doing so that she can replicate a cake or adapt her recipe next time.
Gingerbread cake with Whiskey and Caramel
The styled shots are mouth watering. There are also excellent clear step by step photographs. For example we are shown how to fill and cover a cake with buttercream or chocolate ganache. We can see how to level a split cake and how to assemble tiered cakes. There a photo’s of the correct way to split a vanilla pod, melt chocolate and use food colouring.
The last part of the book has some interesting extra’s: Crystalized Rosemary, nuts painted with edible gold lustre dust and covering fruit with edible glitter, making crystalized rose petals.
We are also given vital advice on how to transport cakes, and for the bloggers amongst you, the best way to photograph them.
This review was originally part of The Decorated Blog Tour organized by April’s publishers.
Published by Hardie Grant at £20
creativecolour.org 