Couture Wedding Cakes

3.5 stars is actually what I would have liked to have given, but I gave 4 because it's so full of lovely cakes to make that I thought 3 was a bit harsh. Though I agree with Marie Jones, this is a fantastic book with amazingly designed cakes, which falls down on its design.When you first get this book, you'll think "wow"! It's packed with fullpage glossy pictures of stunning modern wedding cakes that would grace any wedding table and as the author suggests "be the star of the reception"However, it's on closer examination i.e. when you actually get down to the nitty gritty of how you're going to make the cake, that you realise that one or two steps are missing in the instructions, and you have to flip back and forth for pictures and information you need to complete the project.A strange mix of excellent and average, means the pictures are fantastic, while the instructions for projects in general and specifics like chocolate roses and sugar flowers are average, the section on tiered cakes is very good.All that said, this is a wonderful book full of ideas for stunning wedding cakes, with something for everyone, regardless of taste or level of skill. I would recommend it, with the above mentioned caviats.I also bought  The Wedding Cake Decorator's Bible: A Resource of Mix-and-Match-Designs and Embellishments  which has excellent instructions on both chocolate and sugar flowers, and the two books together should help me create the perfect wedding cake.[If the graphic designer is reading this, I was taught that good design looks good but is practical, this falls short on the latter, and the editor, you should check both these areas, and as such made the necessary revisions before going to print!]

This is a really good book deserving all the praise written here, whether you are new to the craft, a professional, or a bride seeking inspiration. The quality of the editing is always important I think, and that alone make for a pleasant book to use and refer to, whether you are reading it in bed or using it in the kitchen, as everything in that book is interesting, useful, clearly laid out and generally well put together in a quality but not too glossy book.Most most of all, there are many designs of cakes to chose from or inspire you and all of these are really beautiful cakes with wide appeal, modern, classy and not always so difficult to achieve - although some are deceivingly difficult and need an experienced and steady hand.Like other viewers, I note the abundant use of fresh flowers, and I feel that in fact, this only serves to show that it won't works unless the flowers are really amazing in quantity and quality and thus very expensive, meaning it is not always going to be the right solution nor the expected shortcut for the cake maker or the client, over sugar flowers.The reference pages (recipes, sizes, fillings, setting up, pillars, etc.) are excellent. If you are are student or new to cake decorating, this will not necessarily be a comprehensive bible of all techniques such as piping, flooding, royal icing, flower making etc, (there is a hint of coldness in the explanations but to be fair, Mich has been very generous overall) it covers a fair amount and what it does perhaps show, is how even limited use of these techniques, in a modern way, can make a commercial cake.

This book has some fabulous idea's for decorating your wedding cakes. Not only that but it also has recipes for a selection of different cakes apart from the usual fruit. I have already tried one recipe and I have to say it was quite possibly the best lemon sponge I have ever made. Everyone who tried it, absolutely loved it. So next week I am going to use Mich Turner's Fruit cake recipe, which looks fantastic too. Slightly different to other fruit cake recipe's I have tried but I trust the recipe after trying the lemon sponge. There are only a couple of little niggles for me, one is that the recipe's are for a 6 inch cake and anything bigger I have to work the weight of the ingredient's out whereas I would have liked them already worked out for me. The other is that I would have loved there to have been a few more cakes in the book.

I made my chocolate wedding cake from the recipe in this book. It looked great and tasted great, and you are probably asking well why only three stars?!The layout in this book is crazy. You have to flick back and forth for the different recipes. They are all at the back. Then you have to calculate for the different size cakes the proportion of icing, sugar syrup, marzipan, chocolate ganache. Its a lot of hassle especially when you need a couple recipes at once and they give you a giant recipe for one and a small one for the next. The cakes are expensive to make, but its an occasion cake. I liked it for the ideas but for a beginner(which I am not) it would be crazy and very disheartening.

This book was purchased along with another Mich Turner book, Spectacular Cakes. I wish I had only bought this one! The cakes in here are asbolutely stunningly beautiful, and the recipes are exactly the same as in the other book, so you aren't gaining anything there. I am so glad that I bought this one though. It's a beautiful book with lots and lots of different designs and heaps of helpful hints, instructions and photographs.

I'm glad I bought from amazon as saved a lot from the high street.No one can compare to mich turner when it comes to couture wedding cakes, she reigns over the rest. Definitely the best book of it's kind. However ,decorating the cakes is not as straight forward as it looks. I should know did one for my sisters wedding cake.