What lovely photographs this book has, an excellent guide to decorating cakes. Anyone wanting to start a new hobby will find clear instructions and troubleshooting tips to help them along the way. Plus inspiration and confidence to try cake decoration themselves.

Excellent pictures and tips... As a rookie, I didn't feel overwhelmed. I think that even more advanced readers would find this book very helpful... Highly recommend it!

This is really a beginners guide to decorating cakes. It has a lot of pictures and makes cake decorating look so simple. Filled with step by step instructions, i would recommend this to people who want to learn how to decorate cakes

I received this e-book ARC through Net Galley from Quarto Publishing Group - Creative Publishing International in exchange for a truthful review.
From supplies to techniques, baking cakes to decorating them, this book has it all!
Step-by-step instructions (with accompanying clear, color photos) are ideal for the beginner to learn what's involved in cake decorating.

This frosting-technique book starts with the basics and explains how to use all those tools that I have no idea how to use. It showcases some (to me) fairly advanced cakes, giving me hope that someday my cakes will be similarly advanced. Even though I know that my first attempts won't manage to look like these cakes, I have the knowledge to start trying....

Creative Publishing International and NetGalley provided me with an electronic copy of First Time Cake Decorating: The Absolute Beginner's Guide. I was under no obligation to review this book and my opinion is freely given.

First Time Cake Decorating is a beginner's guide to all aspects of cake decorating. This comprehensive book includes segments such as: Basic Cake Preparation, Piping Techniques, Fondant and Gum Paste Accents, and Miscellaneous Techniques. With new techniques depicted step by step, with full color photographs, readers new to cake decorating will be able to proceed on their own. Tricks of the trade and troubleshooting tips are located throughout the book, giving advice that can be quite helpful to those starting out.

This is a book for the basics, giving a foundation to cake decorating that beginners can build upon. It should be said that First Time Cake Decorating is more of a guide than a cookbook, as there are few recipes. The author instead chose to focus on the fundamentals of cake decorating, providing a guide with which readers can use as a reference in future decorating endeavors. As an experienced cake decorator myself, I would have liked this book when I was just starting out. The only place that First Time Cake Decorating falls short is in its lack of finished projects. Working on techniques is all well and good, but readers would benefit from some goals with which to aspire. I would recommend this book to those have a desire to learn to decorate cakes, as it is a well developed guide to all aspects of the art.

5 stars for thoroughness of techniques, 3 stars for a newbie decorator being able to perform each technique with ease.
This book is very thorough from the tools needed to the various techniques used to create beautiful cakes. I have decorated cakes for 45 years and have used 98% + of the techniques used in the book. With lots of practice and the patience to follow the directions given a newbie could turn out a beautiful cake too.
This book has plenty of pictures to use as a visual aid for each technique.
I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for my honest review.

Wonderful! The details and steps to cake decorating is really wonderful if you have never really decorated a cake before. It is helpful and well written including the photos makes it a great guide for cake decorating. It is also very helpful when providing ideas too so if you have decorated a cake before you'll enjoy this too finding it useful.

First Time Cake Decorating is a great book that provides beginners many techniques on how to decorate a cake using piping, mould and stencils to name but a few.

The book is split into four man sections including Basic Cake Preparation, Piping Techniques, Fondant & Gum Accents and Miscellaneous Techniques.

Basic Cake Preparation explains the tools required, now to crumb a cake and how to stack cakes. There is a cake chart with sizes of various pans which gives details of how much cake batter quantity is used, how long to cook and how much filling, icing & fondant is required along with how many it serves.

Piping Techniques section has detailed information on:

how to fill a piping bag
making a parchment cone
tips usage
basic pipings
borders
writing
pattern presses
simple & advanced flowers
brush embroidery

The basic pipings covers shapes such as a leaf , fur, grass, basket weave and ruffles, and borders has similar shapes such as round, star and pear, plus many more. A page with photographs of the tips shows what shapes they make, making it easy to identify from your own sets.

Fondant and Gum Paste Accents section starts off with a recommendation to use pasta machine to create flat fondants. It also provides information on:

using a clay extruder
use of borders & accent moulds
roll & cut gum paste/fondant – cookie, plunge, making flowers, bows & ruffles
hand modelling animals & people

The animals & people modelling had a couple of postures to try and gives details on how to make a face look realistic.

The final section, Miscellaneous Techniques, provides details on how to decorate a cake with sparkle & shine, edible pictures, stencils, edible glitter & dusting powder, edible frosting sheets, paint & colour fondant and airbrushing.

Each technique has full easy to follow instructions with plenty of co!our photography to accompany these steps.

I received this book from netgalley in return for a honest review.

I love to cook. It is more of a hobby to me then a means to survival. I can cook or bake anything but to decorate a cake I am sorely lacking. This book has made it sound so easy though, It has given me tons of tips as well as recipes for homemade cake mixes, icings, and more.



The book is broken down into sections. There is a section on tools. Baking the cake, torting and filling cakes. How to use food coloring and more. Then you get to the section on how to icing the cake or using fondant. It even gives you a chart on what sized cakes are needed to feed and how many people. How to transport cakes and so much more.



This is the perfect book for anyone interested in learning how to decorate cakes, as there are several pages showing how to make the decorations and making the cake look amazing.



I received this book from the Author or Publisher via Netgalley.com to read and review.

A wonderful guide for newcomers to the world of cake decorating. It gives detailed tips on the techniques to achieve specific ornaments and piping in an easy to follow details, with both illustrations and photos. Definitely a recommended guide for people who want to start decorating cakes.

As mentioned in the introduction to First Time Cake Decorating, cakes are an integral part of celebrations. There are very few celebrations which don’t have their own special cake front and center.

This book is designed not only for the beginner decorator but also as a go-to guide for those who have more experience.

There are four basic sections in the book, starting with Basic Cake Preparation. Nothing could be more important before decorating than to prepare a good foundation.

Tools For Making And Decorating Cakes gives you a list of the desired tools needed for cake decorating. Not all of the tools are strictly required, but are all practical and will enhance your process.

Next comes Baking The Cake, which covers all aspects of creating your cake including various factors which will affect the outcome. Torting And Filling Cakes comes next explaining how to add fillings between cake layers complete with step-by-step instructions.

Filling Recipes are next with a couple of simple filling recipes and information about using fresh fruit and icing as filling. Icing recipes follow with a few standard recipes, including of course the so popular royal icing recipe.

Food Color is covered next with the complete list of all of the different types of food colorings and helpful information. There are complete instructions on how to color both icing and fondant.

The rest of section 1 includes:

Icing A Cake In Buttercream
Buttercream Iced Cakes With Texture
Covering A Cake With Rolled Fondant
Storage And Transportation Of Cakes
Cake Boards
Stacking Cakes
Cake Chart

Section 2 covers Piping Techniques. In this section, you will you learn how to use pastry bags, tips, and couplers. It will also instruct you in creating a basic piping, piping borders, writing, creating simple flowers, advanced flowers, and brush embroidery.

Fondant And Gum Paste Accents are covered in section 3. This section also provides you with a required equipment list. You discover all you need to know all about silicone border molds, accents, rolling, cutting, flower making, and hand modeling.

Various Miscellaneous Techniques, like stencils, shimmer and sparkle cakes, edible frosting sheets, painting and coloring on fondant, and airbrushing are covered in section 4.

Clear To Follow Directions

Throughout the book, the step-by-step instructions are accompanied by many pictures. It could only be easier to follow along if you had a one-on-one demonstration in person.

This is the kind of encyclopedia-like book that you would refer to many times. I am sure that the claim in the introduction that even an experienced decorator would get something out of this book is entirely correct.

While the book makes everything look extremely easy, I am completely sure that it will take a lot of practice in order to create some of the delights presented. But I do believe that this book makes it a lot easier.

See the full review and the Baking The Cake instructions at The RecipesNow! Reviews And Recipes Magazine. This review is written in response to a complimentary copy of the book provided by the publisher in hopes of an honest review.

I loved First Time Cake Decorating by Autumn Carpenter from Quarto Publishing Group. This is a beautiful book with wonderful pictures and thorough information for cake decorating. There is just about everything someone would need to be successful at cake decorating from baking charts with pan size, servings, amount of batter needed, amount of icing needed, baking time and temps to making the dreaded (but very useful) parchment cone. Covered in this book you'll find chapters on Cake Preparation, Piping Techniques, Fondant and Gum Paste Accents in addition to Stencils, Adding Shimmer and Sparkle, Edible Frosting Sheets, Painting and Coloring on Fondant and Airbrushing. I have been decorating cakes for close to 20 years and I picked up a few tips and techniques from this book. You may be a beginner when you start this book but you will learn so much more than first time cake decorating, you are getting quality instructions for techniques that many decorators have to take several courses to learn. Excellent book.
Thank you Autumn Carpenter, Quarto Publishing Group and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC.

This book is perfect for a beginner. It takes through the decorating process step by step.

Learning to bake cakes that are both beautiful and delicious can be challenging and intimidating but renowned confectionary artist, Autumn Carpenter, uses her expertise to break everything into simple steps that even the newest beginner can follow. First Time Cake Decorating is just like having an instructor like Autumn right beside you, guiding you through the entire process from beginning to end. You’ll learn everything from how to bake and prep a cake to essential piping techniques for creating borders, writing, and flowers, to even working with gum paste and fondant to create gorgeous roses, daisies, lilies, and more. I really found the instructions to be simple and straight forward, they were very easy to follow. I have to say that I really enjoyed it. This really is the perfect how-to guide for beginning bakers as they learn to decorate cakes.

This is a pretty solid introduction to basic techniques in cake decorating.

It includes sections on:

Basic cake preparation - This explains tools of the trade, types of icing, and how to ice cakes with them, as well as things like how to stack cakes. It doesn't include details on actual cake recipes, but does tell you how to set up pans for baking them. It was a bit odd not to include at least a single basic cake recipe, as many recipes just aren't suitable for the kind of heavy decorating this book is designed to facilitate. It did include recipes for icing, but they're ... questionable. The buttercream uses "high ratio shortening" and butter FLAVOURING?! If I received a cake with butter FLAVOURED buttercream I wouldn't be happy. Just use butter??? I know the price of the stuff went up a lot lately, but we're not in some kind of butterless post-apocalypse scenario yet. Fortunately that was the most objectionable thing about the book.

Piping techniques - Step by step images, with written explanations of what different piping tips do, how to make borders with them, writing, and several different types of flowers. While the step by step were quite thorough, I think I've been spoiled by video tutorials, because I just didn't find the still images that helpful for picturing the fluid movements required to ice some of the more complex designs, and the text didn't help much. Obviously I can't criticise a book because it doesn't have video, but in terms of usefulness, Youtube is a much better resource in this regard I'm afraid.

Fondant and gum paste accents - This includes step by step instructions for making all sort of add ons for decorating. From using moulds, to hand-shaping flowers and basic animals, it's a good overview of basic methods regularly used.

Miscellaneous techniques - More step by step instructions on stencils, adding sparkle dust, using edible frosting sheets, and painting and airbrushing fondant.

What's missing from this book is inspiration on how to use these techniques. There are only four images of completed decorated cakes in this whole book, including the one on the cover, and so you don't see most of the techniques as part of a greater whole. There are many other books that will show you step by step how to create specific looks, but I really think this book could have included a few more examples to show the beginner what they can do with what they've learnt.

In general, I view this as a decent reference manual, the kind of thing you'd pull off a shelf halfway through baking to go 'wait, how do you pipe roses again?' Because it's been a year since you last made an anniversary cake and you're just a hobby baker. For actually learning the techniques themselves, there are many incredible channels on Youtube (How To Cake It is one of my favourites) going into great detail, and showing you a far greater range than could possibly fit in any book, so I find it hard to recommend this as a sole resource for a complete beginner.

Even the most novice of decorator could learn something from this book. It goes from the very beginning of how to cover a cake, how to pack a piping bag, to more complicated like how to lay fondant, and how to make characters. Each skill is fully illustrated with real life pictures and tips. They may not show off tons of gorgeous cakes, but at the same time, if you're a novice would all those gorgeous creations make you more nervous to start something new. Instead this book focuses on the small things. You have to master the beginning before you can become a master. This book is well done from beginning to end.

This book is amazing it has great tips, and explains all the tools you need to get started making great cakes.It has a troubleshooting page to help with any mishaps that may of occurred during baking. It has step by step explanations, with pictures which makes creating amazing decorations for your cakes easy. It is packed full of different techniques and all the tools you will need to achieve them to a high standard. I will definitely be buying the Hardcover of this book. It’s a must have for anyone who wants to learn how to decorate cakes.

Excellent. I am not a beginner at cake decorating, but this book has so much information on different techniques that I learned several new tricks I had never seen before. The information is complete, step by step directions with beautiful photos to enhance the instructions. There is plenty here from basic icing, fondant, gum paste and transfer sheets. Definitely a catch all, complete book to keep at arm's reach when starting a project.

This will be your cake decorating reference book for years to come. Anyone who wants to learn how to decorate a cake needs this book. It is filled full of step by step instructions to make all your basic cake decorations using buttercream icing, fondant and gum paste. An easy to learn method of using frosting tips to making basic fondant decorations for your cakes are in this book. Would make a perfect gift.