Favorite Cake Books for Baking and Decorating Amazing Cakes

These best-selling cake books will revolutionize the way you prepare and design cakes. From fundamental cake baking techniques to sophisticated cake decorating techniques, you’ll be creating stunning cakes in no time.

I am a voracious reader. You might say I’m fascinated with books. I’ll read practically anything if it contains food, especially cake.

I have a large collection of cake books, both recipe and decorating, and I thought I’d share some of my favorites with you in case you’re as obsessed with books as I am, and in the hopes that you’ll love them as much as I have.

Let’s get started. It should be noted that these novels are not included in any specific order of significance. I adore all of them. I attempted to organize all of the baking books first, followed by the cake decorating books.

I’d also want to point out that I haven’t attempted all of the recipes or instructions in these books. There are just too many to experiment with.

To see the book on Amazon, click on the red link below each image.

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The Perfect Cake by Americas Test Kitchen:

The Perfect Cake by Americas Test Kitchen

This book is fantastic. There are several cake recipes here that are terrific solid traditional cake recipes.

Milk Bars All About Cake by Christina Tosi:

Milk Bars All About Cake by Christina Tosi

This is really out of the box, yet it is quite intriguing to read. Her suggestions are fantastic. They’re rather involved and diverse, but she has a large following, so she must be doing something well.

Im Just Here for More Food by Alton Brown:

Im Just Here for More Food by Alton Brown

This one delves further into the science of baking, and leave it to Alton Brown to make understanding the science of baking enjoyable and simple.

Roses Heavenly Cakes by Rose Levy Beranbaum:

Roses Heavenly Cakes by Rose Levy Beranbaum

Rose Levy Beranbaum is the queen of cakes, and this book has some incredible recipes. Her cakes are incredibly light and delicate in my opinion.

The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum:

The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum

Another one by Rose Levy Beranbaum, and this one is quite comprehensive, delving deep into the science and process of cake creation. She discusses the formulae used to put together cake recipes, which is quite helpful in understanding how all of the components and ratios work together. Oh, and she invented the reverse creaming procedure, which you can learn about here.

Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg’s The Flavor Bible:

Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg’s The Flavor Bible

This book is excellent. It’s one of my personal favorites. It’s not about creating cakes, but about how diverse tastes combine together. It can be used in cooking or baking, but it truly affects how tastes blend and how things that shouldn’t go together really do.

This is more of a reference book. It will list a taste and then list all of the other flavors and pairings that go with it, as well as why.

I loved this book so much that I purchased it twice. Once for myself and once for my son, who enjoys cooking and experimenting with new cuisines.

Lindsay Conchar’s Simply Beautiful Homemade Cakes: Extraordinary Recipes and Simple Decorating Techniques:

Lindsay Conchar’s Simply Beautiful Homemade Cakes: Extraordinary Recipes and Simple Decorating Techniques

This book was recommended to me by another baking blogger. The recipes don’t need any unusual ingredients, there’s a fair diversity of tastes, and the images are stunning. There are also some basic cake decorating lessons included in this section.

The Cake Mix Doctor by Anne Byrn:

The Cake Mix Doctor by Anne Byrn

Anne Byrn is the queen of the doctored cake mix, and if you like utilizing cake mixes as the foundation for your cake creations, this is THE book for you. This book has a TON of cake recipes. You’ll also receive a bunch of taste combination suggestions. This is the first cake mix doctor book, although there are many more available.

Cupcakes from the Cake Doctor by Anne Byrn:

Cupcakes from the Cake Doctor by Anne Byrn

This is another one of Anne Byrn’s that I like, but this one is all about cupcakes.Cupcakes made with cake mix. Again, she has a lot of ideas.

How Baking Works by Paula Figoni:

How Baking Works by Paula Figoni

This is not for the faint of heart; it is for the serious baker who wants to know all the ins and outs of baking science. It’s not just about the cake.

This is basically a text book, and there is SO MUCH material in it that it will take some time to read. It’s not so much a recipe book as it is a book that teaches you how to combine and heat ingredients as well as how to work with them.

After reading this, you will feel very knowledgeable.I haven’t finished it yet. It is best to take it in chunks and really soak it up.

Baking with the Cake Boss by Buddy Valastro:

Baking with the Cake Boss by Buddy Valastro

I’m sure you’ve heard of the Cake Boss. This book covers the fundamentals of baking. It has more than simply cake recipes, as he also provides some basic cake design instructions.

Valeri Valeriano and Christina Ong created 100 Buttercream Flowers:

Valeri Valeriano and Christina Ong designed 100 Buttercream Flowers.

This book has a TON of buttercream flowers (well, at least 100 of them) and instructions on how to create them.

Chic & Unique Celebration Cakes by Zoe Clark:

Chic & Unique Celebration Cakes by Zoe Clark

There are cakes for every occasion at this shop. Zoe Clark is the lace cake design queen, but she also offers other techniques in this book, largely fondant creations. She also has more titles available.

Lindy Smith’s The Contemporary Cake Decorating Bible:

Lindy Smith’s The Contemporary Cake Decorating Bible

This book has a lot of fondant designs and several extremely lovely cake techniques. There are a lot of methods in here that you can expand on.

The Wilton School Decorating Cakes Book:

The Wilton School Decorating Cakes Book

This is an excellent basic cake design book. There is a lot of information about buttercream piping in here, as well as some pretty adorable cake tutorials (mainly buttercream).

Great Cake Decorating by Erin Gardner:

Great Cake Decorating by Erin Gardner

This book has several adorable fondant cake tutorials. Use these to spark ideas for cake designs.

Valeri Valeriano and Christina Ong’s Modern Buttercream Bible:

Valeri Valeriano and Christina Ong wrote The Contemporary Buttercream Bible.

This book is entirely dedicated to buttercream. There won’t be a lot of fondant cake instructions in this one. No, this book shows you how to execute some wonderful buttercream skills.

Toba Garrett’s The Well-Decorated Cake and Professional Cake Decorating:

The Well-Decorated Cake by Toba Garrett

Professional Cake Decorating by Toba Garrett

Toba is a legend in the field of cake decorating. In these two books, she discusses her cake spackle method as well as many other cake decorating basics. Her style is more traditional, although there are some lovely patterns in these volumes.

Confetti Cakes by Elisa Strauss:

Confetti Cakes by Elisa Strauss

This one has a lot of incredibly adorable cake tutorials, most of which are fondant creations. She also covers some fundamentals. This book has a broad range of lessons, from adorned cookies to handbag cakes and baseball hat cakes.

Sensational Sculpted Cakes by Rose Macefield:

Sensational Sculpted Cakes by Rose Macefield

This book appeals to me since it covers the fundamentals of creating sculpted cakes. Not extremely weird sculpted cakes like you’d make for a cake show, but typical sculpted cakes like tennis shoe cakes, guitar cakes, monster cakes, basket cakes, and so on.

This book will teach you the fundamentals of sculpted cakes, and you may use the techniques in it to create different designs.

Cool Layer Cakes by Cheri Olofson:

Cool Layer Cakes by Cheri Olofson

I received this book as a present, and it has a lot of fascinating cake decorating lessons. Many of them, but not all, are fondant. There are various entertaining methods in this book, such as how to create checkerboard cakes, zebra cakes, small cakes, ruffle cakes, animal cupcakes, and so on.

I realize that was a lot of books. I really have more than this at home, and I’m sure I’ll keep adding to it.

I hope you like them and find them helpful in your cake making and cake decorating adventure!

Other Posts You Might Like:

• 25 Insanely Useful Tips for Baking Cakes
• 12 Must Have Tools to Start Baking Amazing Cakes
• You Only Need a Few Dollars to Begin Decorating Cakes

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