Notes about Recipes in this book

• Swiss meringue buttercream

  • Astrid5555 on February 28, 2021

    This makes a silky, very delicious buttercream. Added 1 teaspoon of coffee extract and one packet of instant espresso powder for a delicious coffee flavored buttercream.

  • Zosia on December 03, 2020

    Super silky and very easy to spread. I made the large recipe but reduced the butter to 454g and the sugar to 350g. It was still quite sweet so I'll use only 300gsugar next time. I used it to make the blueberry galaxy cake.

  • stef on August 03, 2020

    Made the medium recipe. It's easy to make and very delicious. Will be my go to.

• Chocolate drizzle

  • Zosia on November 22, 2020

    Bittersweet chocolate drizzle that retains its gloss even when hardened. Best applied to a chilled cake when it's between 85-90F. It was used on the Chocolate millionaire's cake.

• Caramel sauce

  • Zosia on November 22, 2020

    Good, basic salted caramel sauce that was used for the Chocolate millionaire's cake.

• Chocolate millionaire’s cake

  • Zosia on November 22, 2020

    There were a few components to this cake (oil-based chocolate cake, salted caramel, fudge frosting, bittersweet chocolate drizzle) but each was easy to make and though individually they were good, they came together to make a rather spectacular celebratory cake (for my son's birthday, chosen by him). Completely decadent but very good (and easy to cut into very thin slices!)

  • stef on September 20, 2021

    A lovely moist cake. Instead of shortbread cookies I used amaretti cookies. Skipped Caramel sauce and drip. It was still a delicious cake. With crushed cookies between layers it tasted like crushed candy bar. Will repeat

• Butterscotch banana cake

  • Zosia on November 23, 2021

    There were quite a few components to this delicious and decadent cake: banana cake, Swiss meringue buttercream, butterscotch sauce, ganache - but they came together easily. The cake was fluffy and had good banana flavour and the buttercream was silky and tasted of butterscotch. I reduced the sugar in the cake by 65g and in the buttercream by 140g. I also used only(!) 454g butter in the large batch recipe of the buttercream. The flavours were balanced and the bittersweet ganache (and sugar reductions) prevented the cake from being too sweet.

• Vanilla passion fruit caramel cake

  • Zosia on May 01, 2023

    This review is for the buttercream and caramel only. The buttercream consists of the book's fantastic Swiss meringue buttercream and 6-8tbsp passionfruit concentrate. My buttercream split after the 4th tbsp passionfruit was added. I was able to rescue it but was reluctant to add more. The fruit flavour was quite delicate and the consistency wasn't as creamy and silky as the original buttercream. I think I'll stick to adding fruit curd to flavour this type of butterceam as it results in good fruit flavour and doesn't seem to affect texture. The caramel was made merely to use up the remaining passionfruit concentrate. It tasted very much of the fruit and was delicious on vanilla ice cream.

• Blueberry galaxy cake

  • Zosia on December 03, 2020

    Really lovely cake in both flavour and appearance. The lemon and blueberry flavours were subtle and went really well with the vanilla frosting. The poppyseeds were just for show and could have easily been omitted. I substituted the book's Swiss meringue buttercream for the American-style whipped buttercream.

• Fancy-pants peanut butter chocolate cupcakes

  • cpascale on August 04, 2019

    Delicious, moist and very chocolatey. I cut both sugars by 1/4 cup with no compromise in texture. This is my go-to devil’s food cupcake recipe. I skip the caramel corn and use America Test Kitchen Perfect Cake Peanut Butter Frosting (3 cups), a less sweet very peanut buttery American buttercream. I take 1 cup buttercream, add 1/2 cup chopped peanuts to fill the cupcakes, then use the remaining smooth buttercream to frost. I top with coarse chopped peanuts and chocolate sprinkles. These went at work in minutes and I was asked to make them again. No one missed the 1/2 cup sugar.

• Sticky toffee date cake

  • amystar on January 11, 2022

    I made the cake and sauce component as cupcakes and they were fantastic. i paired it with a white chocolate american buttercream and they were too die for. the cakes stayed moist for 4 days. be sure to dice the dates finely (not chunky)

• Eat Your Books by Jenny Hartin

  Just as brilliant, if not more so, than Layered. This is a must have for any level baker!

  Full review