There is something very appealing about a small, individual cake. Enticing and charming, the versatility of the little cake means it can double as the perfect dessert. It's not suprising that smart little cakes are featured on café menus all around the world. And it is not suprising that Julie Le Clerc is the creative genius behind these fabulous recipes with seriously good flavours.
Everyone has seen wedding, birthday, and anniversary cakes decorated with sugar flowers. But Alan Dunn carries this familiar craft to a degree of artistic perfection that’s breathtaking. Now he shares his secrets, providing home bakers with instructions for making the botanically accurate floral designs that have made him a world leader in his field. With plans for modeling 40 different species of flowers and plants, from golden gardenias to the blue butterfly bush, plus sprays and arrangements—along with plans for 14 cakes—this is the last word in the magical art of sugarcraft.
Delight family and friends with exquisitely decorated cakes for birthdays, dinner parties, or just as a special treat. Through a simple question-and-answer format, with every procedure shown in color photographs, beginners will find out how to decorate without icing (just use a powdered sugar design); how to make chocolate curls and gumpaste flowers; how to prepare the drizzled chocolate icing known as ganache; and how to embellish tiered, bundt, and raspberry-filled cakes. See how to whip up fondant, ice petits fours, and use a pastry bag to write greetings and create adornments. The all-important wedding cake is here, too.
Greene & Greene: Design Elements for the Workshop
Considered among the highest achievements of the American arts and crafts movement, Greene & Greene furniture was custom-built for specific interior spaces, and many of the pieces still remain in their original locations. This manual, written by a nationally recognized furniture maker, provides intermediate and advanced woodworkers with well illustrated, step-by-step instructions for classic Greene & Greene details, including ebony plugs, cloud lifts, leg indents, brackets, and pulls. A discussion of the design philosophy of the period accompanies how-to chapters, and photographs of contemporary Greene-inspired furniture provide ideas for projects.
Anyone interested in color, pattern, and design--even those who aren't quilters--will be fascinated by Kaleidoscopes & Quilts. Paula Nadelstern, who confesses to being "mesmerized by the irregular order that emerges in a haphazard pile of fabric," creates astonishing, luminous quilts inspired by the kaleidoscope. The 20-page gallery of quilts shows off her creations superbly: against glossy black pages, the jeweled colors, intricate patterns, and stained-glass brilliance of these quilts positively sparkle.
