Rating: 
Summary: A BUSY ENTERTAINER'S DELIGHT!
Review: Not only did I buy this book for myself, but for several friends as well. As a person who took many Wilton cake decorating classes and produced "storybook" birthday, anniversary, bon voyage cakes, etc., I find this book to be a breath of fresh air that allows for creativity, and baking from "scratch" using a cake mix. This book actually makes it fun to try something different each time, and each time you try one of the recipes, it's a winner! I would highly recommend this book to anyone who loves to entertain and doesn't want to pour hours into making an exquisite dessert! Just by keeping some cake mixes on hand and some basic ingredients, you will always be prepared! And the author's tips are worth their weight in gold!
Rating:
Summary: For those who like to bake AND for those who don't like to
Review: I've spent many hours just looking at the PICTURES of the cakes! I've had this book for about 2 weeks and am getting ready to make my third cake. There is a wide variety of cakes to choose from and some are very simple, while some can get to be very involved, but I've found the end result to be worth it! The directions are clear and easy to follow, but sometimes call for ingredients not often "on hand," ie., german chocolate. The index is thorough, so it is easy to find an appropriate recipe using the cake mix you have on hand. The cakes in this book will definitely garner a WOW whenever made for company. This is a great book to add to your collection, or to give as a gift for someone with your sweet tooth. Be warned, you WILL gain weight if you buy this book!
Rating:
Summary: This Book is a Treasure!
Review: I purchased this book three weeks ago, and have been in the kitchen, churning out Ann Bryn recipes, ever since. I have spent years curling a lip at cake mixes, sifting, incorporating dry ingredients,and spending long periods of time baking cakes from scratch. These cakes are every bit as good as cakes made from scratch (and some are better). My husband swooned over the Double Chocolate Rum Cake, my friends said that the Applesauce Spice Cake with Caramel Glaze was the best that they had eaten, my team loved the Buttermilk Devil's Food Cake with White Choclate Frosting.....I could go on and on. But, I won't. :-) Instead, I'm going to get busy and order all of the rest of her cookbooks.
Rating: 
Summary: A little help for the semi-baker...
Review: Usually I'm a great proponent of doing things from scratch, but there are some good reasons why people might want to use Byrn's recipes that turn cake mixes into... well, cakes, but not quite the cakes you'd get if you just followed the directions on the box. Byrn makes a good case for the benefits of cake mixes. For example, they're made to be very mistake-tolerant. You can mix them too long or not enough, have an oven that's a bit off temperature-wise, or muck up the amount of liquid, and as long as you haven't gone *too* far off you'll still end up with an edible product. More often, anyway, than if you were starting from scratch. Also, while many from-scratch cakes are actually quite simple and easy, some cooks simply feel daunted by them. Starting with cake mixes can feel less like making a real commitment to something. And in some cases, the cake mix version really is easier or quicker or cheaper. Of course I mentioned that these cakes don't come out tasting like cake mix cakes. Ann makes sure to add things to her cake mixes that you won't find on the box. One of these ingredients is usually butter--lots of butter--so these aren't diet recipes. She also adds a dash of something flavorful. Then she combines her cakes with other things, such as the wonderful icing and frosting recipes she includes. There are only a couple of things that keep me from giving this cookbook 5 stars. One is that really, most cake mix cakes aren't that much simpler than starting from scratch--this cookbook is great if you aren't a very good cook and your cakes tend to mysteriously fail, but not so amazing if you know what you're doing. The other is a structural problem. Some of the recipes had odd little structural issues that I've never had with "normal" recipes, like a grainy icing or a "chocolate syrup cake" (syrup baked into the middle of a ring-shaped cake) that simply fell into pieces when we attempted to remove it from the pan. There are handy tips and hints for working with cake mixes and cakes. There's a huge variety of recipes for almost every cake imaginable. The front of the book includes tiny color photos of (I think) all of the recipes. The recipes are uniformly delicious, but they do sometimes have other issues. Buy the cookbook if you need a little help when baking, and make sure to try a recipe ahead of time before making it for company.
Rating:
Summary: Awesome!
Review: This is an excellent cookbook! Any recipe I have made- cakes, frostings, bars, comes out wonderful. They always get rave reviews! It also has great tips on all aspects of cake baking. I am so glad I have this cookbook, and I use it all the time.
Rating:
Summary: Great Tasting Quick Cakes
Review: My first try was the Lemon Buttermilk Poppy Seed Cake. After a few minutes baking, the whole place smelled like a wonderful lemony bakery. I took the cake out of its pan, let it cool, and after painfully waiting, cut myself a slice. Let's just say that there were no crumbs left. The tips and other helpful information are well worth the read. Some though, would make a great appendix or given as tables in the front of the book. I've since put colored index tabs in my book to mark the really useful ones, like pan size conversions and tips for baking cookies. One feature of this cookbook I really like is its use of a color photo listing of every recipe. I can scan through and pick out a cake that not only sounds tempting put looks tempting. I found all of her helpful hints just that, helpful. Another very thoughtful feature is in the back of the book. An entire page of conversion tables! These cover liquids (US, Imperial and metric), oven temperatures (Fahrenheit, Gas Mark and Celsius), weights (US/UK and Metric), and a few approximate equivalents for things like granulated sugar, egg yokes, honey and such.
Rating:
Summary: A BUSY ENTERTAINER'S DELIGHT!
Review: Not only did I buy this book for myself, but for several friends as well. As a person who took many Wilton cake decorating classes and produced "storybook" birthday, anniversary, bon voyage cakes, etc., I find this book to be a breath of fresh air that allows for creativity, and baking from "scratch" using a cake mix. This book actually makes it fun to try something different each time, and each time you try one of the recipes, it's a winner! I would highly recommend this book to anyone who loves to entertain and doesn't want to pour hours into making an exquisite dessert! Just by keeping some cake mixes on hand and some basic ingredients, you will always be prepared! And the author's tips are worth their weight in gold!
Rating:
Summary: Dessert Lover's Dream Come True!
Review: I love this cookbook! It is full of easy recipes that take just minutes to prepare; and require ingredients I almost always already have in my pantry. Anne Byrn also made it interesting reading by filling the book with facts about the recipes and the cake mix industry. I have tried many of the recipes and so far have only found one "bad" recipe...don't use her Cream Cheese Frosting recipe, it is more like a sauce than a frosting.
Rating: 
Summary: Cake Doctor Review
Review: I bought this book thinking that it would contain some easy and quick recipes. It does, however, the ingredients lists for the recipes are as long as recipes you make from scratch. I would have been more satisfied with a recipe book that required a pre-packaged cake mix + 3 or 4 ingredients, not 5-8!! You might as well make them from scratch.
Rating:
Summary: great for easy baking
Review: I love to bake cakes, but don't always have the time to bake from scratch. This book is great!! It begins with a color picture of each cake ( so I've ended up making some I never thought of wanting to make before because they just looked so good). The recipes are easy, the cakes are good, and there are lots of extra tips for making a cake original, for storing a cake, and to make baking the cake a success.
|
