The Best Cake Baking Books for Beginners

The legendary IACP Culinary Classic The Cake Bible—found in the kitchen of every serious baker and beloved for decades—with classic recipes thoroughly updated and including about 30% new recipes and methods and the latest ingredient and equipment information. The original Cake Bible is a guiding light in the world’s baking literature, with Rose Levy Beranbaum’s deep knowledge and respect for craft to be found on every page. It’s for home and professional bakers who want to make glorious, technically perfect cakes and understand why the ingredients in cakes work the way they do.

The book was hugely influential from the moment it first came out in 1988, selling hundreds of thousands of copies and going through sixty printings. It introduced the reverse creaming method, incorporating flour and butter first instead of butter and sugar. This makes mixing faster and easier, helps cakes rise more evenly, and results in a finer and more tender cake texture. And it’s among the first United States cookbooks to offer measurements in weights, highlighting the superiority of the metric system, which has become the gold standard in baking books. But a lot has changed in thirty-five years—and The Cake Bible has changed with it! This striking new edition—with new photographs in an expanded section--contains recipes for classic and innovative cakes and complementary adornments of all types, instructions for making stunning decorations, and flavor variations for every craving and occasion, with foundational recipes like All-Occasion Downy Yellow Butter Cake and Angel Food Cake and showstoppers like the Strawberry Maria, which brings together Génoise au Chocolat, Grand Marnier-flavored syrup, and Strawberry Cloud Cream. Rose also provides instructions for baking for special occasions, such as weddings, with recipes to serve 150 people as well as formulas to scale the recipes for any number of desired servings. For thirty-five years, Rose has been tweaking and reworking her methods based on reader feedback and constant conversations with other bakers and food and equipment professionals. Rose’s fans, professional and amateur alike, will love this perfect distillation of her decades of experience and the pure joy of creation.

“Whitney is one of those bakers who can turn any cake into a masterpiece! She’s an inspiration to any self-taught baker.”. ― Duff Goldman, Ace of Cakes and owner of Charm City Cakes. Everything You Need to Know to Create Pretty Cakes with Confidence. Anyone Can Cake brings beautiful, artisan cakes within reach of every home baker. Many professional cake artists appear to have a magical touch where every cake they make looks equally perfect and effortless, so it can be intimidating to home bakers. Whitney DePaoli is here to help.

As a self-taught cake artist who has been baking cakes from her home kitchen for over a decade, Whitney shares her best tips and hard-won knowledge to answer all of your cake baking questions, help you avoid common mistakes and master the building blocks that make a great cake. Discover the pride and joy of achieving the perfect consistency buttercream, the right way to crumb coat your cake and beginnerfriendly methods for popular decorating techniques. The book is overflowing with full-page photography, foolproof recipes, handy graphics, reference charts and stepby- step instructions to lead you to complete cake confidence. Whether you are looking for simple classics or creative flavors such as Pumpkin Spice Latte Cake, Double Chocolate & Peanut Butter Cake and Raspberry-Almond Impressionist Cake, the sky is the limit with what you can do. Allow Whitney to guide your cake journey and prove that everyone can create a stunning layer cake to be proud of. Learn how to:. • Bake, build and decorate layer cakes, along with all the techniques and tools you’ll need. • Master buttercream frosting, from mixing gorgeous colors to achieving a perfectly smooth finish. • Create ombrés, stripes, Lambeth piping and more with beginner-friendly decorating tutorials. • Level-up your design with in-depth guides for ganache drips, sprinkle placement and perfect piping. Featured resources include:. • Foolproof base recipes such as Favorite Vanilla Cake, One-Bowl Chocolate Cake and Vanilla Buttercream. • Creative recipes for showstopper cakes like Rainbow Striped Milk & Cereal Cake, Chocolate- Covered Strawberry Cake and Snickerdoodle Cake. • Troubleshooting tips and step-by-step instructions for preventing common mishaps every step of the way. • Luscious full-spread photography and visual reference charts.

Learn how to decorate dazzling cakes with this guide for beginners. Decorating cakes at home is easy and fun, thanks to Rose Atwater’s step-by-step guide. Rose started her “accidental cake business” in late 2009 with more than 20 practice cakes she made in the 6 months leading up to her brother’s wedding. By the time he tied the knot in 2010, her prototypes turned into a steady stream of real orders. Over the past 11 years, she has gone on to decorate more than 1,500 cakes for her blog, Rose Bakes. She shows you primer recipes and techniques in this comprehensive book!

You’ll learn basic recipes and how to choose the right equipment. After you’re comfortable with the basics, you’ll master different techniques to decorate cakes for any occasion, from weddings to baby showers to birthdays. Inside, you’ll learn the fundamentals of cake decorating with:. A list of essential equipment and tools, easy and straightforward recipes, introductory techniques, and troubleshooting tips for common problems. Step-by-step instructions to decorate with frosting, piping, fondant, and chocolate. 10 tutorials featuring photos and detailed instructions that will guide you from conception to creation. Get the skills you need to decorate cakes like a pro with Cake Decorating for Beginners.