Have you ever tried making birthday cakes or other fun cakes during the holidays? Like many people, I try avoiding going to the bakery to buy cakes since it is extremely expensive (and usually tastes better). Unfortunately, while my cakes usually taste amazing, they often aren’t the prettiest. If I want a cake to look beautiful, that is usually when I will look into going to a bakery, where I pay for more for a cake than it ordinarily seems worth. Don’t get me wrong, there are amazing bakeries, but most seem to have very generic tasting cakes with overly sweet icing. One of the things I want to learn this year is how to properly decorated cakes so I can share more cake recipes with you guys and make my cakes much more presentable to family. Luckily, I recently had the opportunity to learn how to decorate cakes with a brand new book that was just released – Buttercream Basics: Learn the Art of Buttercream Decorating. After my complimentary copy arrived in the mail, I couldn’t wait to share it with all of you!
Buttercream Basics: What is It?
Do you want to learn to make beautifully decorated cakes at home? If so, we think you will love Buttercream Basics: Learn the Art of Buttercream Decorating by Carey Madden. This innovative food instruction book makes it possible for anyone to learn how to decorate a cake like a pro, giving details, easy to understand instructions and covering issues that most people face when trying to decorate cakes at home. It even has detailed pictures to help teach various techniques, making it a valuable book for anyone wanting to learn to work with buttercream. Here is what the publisher has to say:
Create exquisite designs and bake shop quality results with Carey’s easy-to-follow decorating techniques.
Satiny smooth buttercream is the perfect medium for creating decorated cakes that taste as sublime as they look. Buttercream’s popularity can be attributed to its simple sweetness, versatility, resiliency and ease of use. Working with buttercream may seem intimidating, but with Carey’s expert and easy-to-understand advice, you’ll be creating and decorating stunning cakes in no time.
This concise, comprehensive and easy-to-follow guide offers all the information you’ll need to get started — from invaluable instructions on decorating fundamentals and techniques to over 360 step-by-step color photographs.
With just a little time and practice you’ll soon develop the coordination and muscle memory necessary to decorate beautiful cakes. You can start by making some of the less complicated projects/cakes and then work your way up to more intricate projects once you start to feel confident about your decorating abilities. Soon you’ll be able to use Carey’s techniques and advice to create your own unique and sensational designs.
Full color throughout and mouth-wateringly gorgeous, you’ll have 40 projects to choose from and there are even gluten-free and vegan options.
Buttercream Basics: Our Thoughts
I will freely admit, I have purchased a few books in the past to teach me how to decorate and most were a bit..umm…small. Like, less than 20 pages and really weren’t that helpful. I was truly blown away by Buttercream Basics: Learn the Art of Buttercream Decorating since it was extremely down to Earth, easy to understand, and filled with so much information! Just from a quick skim when it first arrived I was amazed by the amount of detail and how the author does a great job discussing issues most people experience with decorating and how to get around common difficulties. I even love many of her decorating ideas, enabling you to easily create a beautiful cake with just a bit of patience. Honestly, if you are someone who loves to bake at home, I consider Buttercream Basics: Learn the Art of Buttercream Decorating an absolutely must to add to your cookbook and food technique collection!
Buttercream Basics: Where to Purchase
Want to purchase this awesome book for your own family? You can buy Buttercream Basics: Learn the Art of Buttercream Decorating on Amacon.com for only $24.95!
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About Susan Bewley
Susan Bewley is a professional writer who has been writing content online & in print format for over 10 years. As well, she is an alumni of the University of Louisville with a Masters Degree in Special Education. When not working as an online business consultant or ghost writing, she can be found writing on Budget Earth, on her own novel, or working with various entities in the pet industry.
I much prefer buttercream to fondant, it tastes better
This would be a good book for my sister. She makes very good cakes.
This sounds fantastic! I want this book. Thank you for sharing your review!
I think I have made homemade cakes from scratch only three times in my whole life. I made those with my grandma before my grandpa and her moved away. Then I turned into a box person and a store bought cake person. When my kids were growing up and a few times I made cakes with my grandkids, I let them do the decorating, & it was by no means professional!! I never really had the urge to decorate a cake. I have always thought buttercream frosting was too sweet. And now that I am a Diabetic, I mostly make goodies for holidays. I really don’t know anyone my age that still gets into baking.
I like that it has more details than other books. Sounds very thorough!
Oooh I would LOVE this!! I try to make all of my sons birthday cakes and man is buttercream hard to work with!! My last one looked so rough!!
“Easy to understand” is what I picked up from your review! lol. I’m the “which can of frosting should I use this time” kind of cake baker.
I would love this book – I try to do fun designs for the holidays. Turkey cakes, Easter bunnies, etc.
This was very helpful to me
Lots of things to learn about decorating cakes indeed
I would love to learn how to decorate with butter cream. Thanks fro sharing this.
I’m very interested in learning to decorate cakes. I will check into this! Thank you!
This sounds like a good book for those that are into baking. It’s truly an art.
I would appreciate the detailed pictures. They would help me to master the techniques.
My family loves buttercream! This was great. A lot of good information here. I will have to check on the book. Thanks!
I wish I would have had this book when i was in school and had to decorate a cake. I just used the icing made out of shortening and it didn’t taste that good.
I need this book. I bake a cake at least once a week and I am running out of ideas.
I love decorating cakes ,this is awesome .
This book sounds amazing. But I am a terrible cook, a terrible baker, and I am not sure I have the talent.
My cakes usually taste good but trouble making them look nice especially when I want to have them for a special occasion. This book would be so helpful.
I always think “I can do that” with cake decorating until I actually try it. But I would prefer buttercreme to fondant as well.
Real buttercream frosting is one of my favorites. Our wedding cake was made of real buttercream and everyone commented on how good it tasted. My wife and I like to bake together.
The cakes that she is making here all look so very yummy! I appreciate the nice review highlighting these fine desserts.
Loving the book love to learn how to make this
I love the idea of decorating cakes, I just don’t do it that often! 🙂 I usually make my kids one each year on their Birthdays, I definitely need to get this book to learn some methods. Thanks for sharing!
This book sound amazing and i would love to read this book…Great review….
If I could just learn how to keep the crumbs out of the icing, I’d be happy…the rest, would be, as they say….icing on the cake 🙂
The last time I made a cake was, well, I can’t recall. I do know that it was a box mix and store bought frosting. I messed it up. I’m not much of a sweets lover. If I have a craving for some I buy a cupcake.
I would love this book. I’m always decorating my cakes with Buttercream icing.
I would love this book! I love baking and would love to beautifully decorate cakes!
This sounds like a grear book.I’d love to have it.
I love this – I was looking for cake decorating books at the library, but they didn’t have any. This one is perfect I want it!
I’m learning to prepare buttercream and use piping techniques to create shapes etc.
This is a great gift idea for my daughter’s BFF. She loves to bake and fancy with frosting.
I don’t bake, but I like to watch shows where people do, and they always make me hungry for their buttercream frosting! I’m not a fan of the whipped icing you see on cakes. Always a big disappointment when you’re expecting buttercream.
I found this book on Amazon I think I might grab it for my daughter, she’s on a baking kick.
Yeah, I could use a little help in this area – my attempts at cake decorating have been more of a comedy of errors. I realize the taste is the same, but pretty couldn’t hurt!
Many years ago I used to make & decorate my own cakes for friends and family. I even did my younger sister’s multi-tier wedding cake, but I could just never get the hang of making roses. My cakes were pretty for homemade, but I would have loved to be bakery perfect. This book might actually get me a step closer to my idea of perfection! Thanks for the review!!
I’m not into baking. Too much time and mess involved.
I fix everything from scratch. I have to because of my numerous food allergies. I couldn’t have real buttercream because I am allergic to all dairy. I do think if someone wants their cake to look beautiful, this really does that.