This is a reprint of Deacon’s book – Quick and Easy Novelty Cakes – that was originally published in 1996. It has 35 recipes for make quick novelty cakes with fondant. There’s even a recipe for a burger and chips that’s a lot like the one the contestants on masterchef recently had to make (the one that ousted poor Dave…)
I’m liking
The ideas seem really simple and there are templates you can photocopy for some of the designs to make your fondant cutting more accurate. A lot of the ideas look like they’d be really quick to make, and I don’t think you’d need to be particularly arts and craftsy to be able to pull one off.
Most of the designs have simple cake shapes, so there’s not too much cake carving which can be daunting for beginning cake decorators.
The front part has some basic recipes and good tips and techniques for cake decorating.
The recipes themselves are very clearly set out and go through each process carefully step by step. She even gives gram amounts for how much fondant to use for the little details so every thing stays in proportion (very important if you saw the size of some of the sesame seeds on Masterchef!)
Things that made me go hmmmm
I don’t really like the taste of fondant and the recipes use a lot! Often the cake will just be a simple shape in the middle then all the details are made with shaped fondant. My guess is that all that fondant would then be removed before the cake is cut.
The conclusion
This would be a great book for people who are starting out decorating cakes, maybe making their child’s birthday cake who need a bit of guidance and structure.
