SWEET CELEBRATIONS : The Art of Decorating Beautiful Cakes

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Summary: Great Gift
Review: I received a copy of this beautiful book for Thanksgiving. It has solved almost all of my Christmas shopping problems. The pictures are great for looking and the contents great for doing. And the price is right.

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Summary: Sylvia Weinstock's cakes
Review: I was given a copy of the book as a gift from a friend in the States. Mrs. Weinstock did my wedding cake and I was so thrilled that she finally wrote a book! The cake recipes were easy to follow, but most of all I really appreciated the diagrams for the sugar figures and flowers. It was an easy read and easy to follow. I think Mrs Weinstock is a true artist and culinary expert. Thank goodness it was not just another coffee table book of impossible cakes to make! Thank you, Sylvia!

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Summary: Puny pictorials, pleasingly practical
Review: I was so nervous about whether to invest in this book (due to some of the reviews in here)I actually took it out at the library to check it out first. I was pleasantly surprised.
It is true that the cakes featured here aren't that spectacular, so if you are looking for a coffee-table book on cake art, this isn't it. I saw only 4 or 5 cakes that stood out from the 40 examples shown. Some pictures in the book were used as filler, I guess...a few of these were nice cakes, but had no directions to go along with them.
However this book offers so much still. First and foremost, it is for American cake enthusiasts. There is no rolled fondant here; (not that there is anything wrong with fondant, but culturally, here in the states-it is not something familiar.) It is a book that can be enjoyed by cake decorators of all levels and nationalities, since many cake styles/techniques are represented. Weinstock rates each cake featured as to its level of difficulty and gives good directions on how to complete each project. You don't need any fancy cake pans or special ingredients for the most part, to make these cakes either.
I think that Weinstock probably wanted to focus on making a book that is more of a manual that anything else. The two main features of this book are the range of styles/techniques offered and the author's interest in motivating the reader to explore inventive possibilities on his/her own. The examples shown are well-known to cake novices...marzipan, cornelli lace, structured cakes, character cakes, white-on-white, basketweave, tier, gumpaste florals, and dotted swiss. The instuctions are clear and complete. Creativity is encouraged by showing one cake style and variations of that same style with additional photos.
Although there is hope that Weinstock will find time to produce yet another book with a lot more fantastic visuals-perhaps adding some autobiographical data on her business (more information than she had in this book)...I think this is a useful book to have in any cake decorator's library just for the recipes alone. As someone with a long history in culinary arts, I know these recipes are good. This is a definitive textbook on cake decorating.

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Summary: Fabulous book --- best cake designs & recipes in print!
Review: I was VERY impressed with this book. If you have ever dreamed of baking a grand cake, then this is THE book to own. Sylvia Weinstock presents many different cake designs and recipes, even so far as to explain the best method for assembling them. The variety of cakes was impressive; this is the best book on cake design I have ever seen. The book features wonderful color photographs of every cake, very professionally done, which made it easy to see the end-result of the recipes. I was grateful for those photographs, which helped to select the appropriate designs I wanted to try. The photos are truly beautiful --- it is tempting to keep the book out upon the coffee table. When I tried some recipes, I was pleased with the results. The directions were easy to follow, written in a straightforward manner, and offered explanations along the way. For anyone interested in baking, both amateur or sophisticated bakers, this book offers many ideas and techniques to try. After seeing and hearing about magnificent cakes in magazines and on television, the book was great fun to read, to look at and to attempt those cakes on my own! Thank you, Sylvia!

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Summary: A Disappointment
Review: One would think that if the doyenne of NYC cakebakers would finally write a book on her craft it would contain at least fabulous photos of her most ravishing creations. It certainly does not. Compared to the quality of photos of Colette Peters' books, this tome is [...]indeed. HOWEVER, having eaten her cakes many times, they are flawless, and while she really doesn't offer all that much clear, organized info on the production of her most beautiful designs (she has some photos of them, but doesn't discuss them), her cake recipes are almost worth the price of the book.

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Summary: Great book!
Review: Sweet Celebrations is a great cookbook. The photographs are so beautiful they encourage even the beginner to try. The only difficult part will be selecting which cake to try first. Thank you Sylvia!

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Summary: Not for beginners but what eye candy!
Review: Sylvia Weinstock is an artist, her canvas flour and buttercream and gum paste. The fault I found with this book is her rating system...beginners level, in your dreams maybe, advanced...Mr. Da Vinci we need you. The only other fault is no recipe for gum paste or pastillage. All in all a beautiful book, worth the price if only for the photos of several incredible cakes. I wanted this book for a long time and was not disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: Not for beginners but what eye candy!
Review: Sylvia Weinstock is an artist, her canvas flour and buttercream and gum paste. The fault I found with this book is her rating system...beginners level, in your dreams maybe, advanced...Mr. Da Vinci we need you. The only other fault is no recipe for gum paste or pastillage. All in all a beautiful book, worth the price if only for the photos of several incredible cakes. I wanted this book for a long time and was not disappointed.

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Summary: Good book for serious bakers
Review: The cakes and photos in this book are glorious, but this is not a book for a casual baker. The decorations while beautiful are not simple and require special tools. I liked the book very much. The recipes taste good, and the pictures are very detailed and helpful.

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Summary: I was expecting something much better
Review: The directions are very simplistic and very vague. Some of the photographs are printed backwards! The photography seems amateurish. I was very disappointed!