My Sweet Kitchen: Recipes for Stylish Cakes, Pies, Cookies, Donuts, Cupcakes, and More-plus tutorials for distinctive decoration, styling, and photography

This is an updated review. I bought 3 of Linda Lomelinos books and found 2 recipes so far that has missing ingredients from the recipes. In tgis particular book the lemon poppyseed cupcakes with blueberry frosting is missing the blueberry powder and amount from the ingredients list. The picture shows a bright purple frosting, instructions call for blueberry powder but list of ingredients calls for an optional 3 tablespoons of blueberry puree.

I like this book a lot; the organization, detailed how to pieces, pictures and recipes.The book would have been first-rate except for the cheap paper it was printed on - the great pictures look muted.Also, having the ingredients displayed in grams would significantly improve the book, at least for me.

One of my new favorites! I love that you can bake gourmet treats without too many remaining to tempt you down the road to perdition...The recipes are easy to follow and easier to make than large batches. I love that some of the recipes have healthier options, without compromising flavor one bit. Highly recommend this one!

Beautiful book filled with inspiration for any level of baker .Have already tried a few recipes .

Gorgeous cook book! Can't wait to bake from it.

Great book!, amazing tips for baking.Can't wait to try all the recipes

I was prepared to love My Sweet Kitchen. The photography and food styling is brilliant, with a beautifully shot full page photo accompanying every recipe. None of Linda's recipes in My Sweet Kitchen could be considered boring or same-old. Every offering is a decadent twist on a well-known sweet, and I'd probably bake about 50-70% of the recipes here, which is higher than many other baking cookbooks (although this is a pretty short cookbook). I'm particularly interested to try the Pavlova Roulade with Mascarpone and Raspberries, the Hazelnut Cake with Espresso and Nutella, the Caramel Macadamia Tart, and the Chocolate Cake with Meringue Brulee. I'll update this review with my take on the results.In the meantime, there are unfortunately a number of flaws that keep it from being a great cookbook or a great resource for food photography, styling, and decorating. Perhaps it's a case of trying to do too many things in a limited space.In general, the recipes contained in My Sweet Kitchen should be more specific. It's fine to tell the reader to "beat until creamy" or "beat until light and creamy", but the difference of a minute or two in creaming can significantly impact the final texture of a baked good (cakes, cookies, cream cheese frosting, etc), so giving some estimate of time is very useful here. Sadly, very few recipes include any advice on time beyond how long to bake/cool/refrigerate. Similarly, there are a few recipes calling for a "large pan", "long bread pan", or "small cast-iron skillet". Those sizes are rather subjective, so while I know I can probably reason my way through what the cooking time will be for my pan based on how the final product should look like, I don't understand why relevant information was omitted. Also, the lack of gram measurements is particularly disappointing in a baking cookbook.Several of the recipes have minor but problematic flaws, like the blueberry-lemon cheesecake layer cake recipe not specifying how large the springform pans need to be for the cheesecake. It's layered on top of regular cake, so pan size is important beyond simply baking time. It becomes obvious on a read-thru, as the pan size is specified for the cake layers later on, but that important detail belongs in the instructions for the cheesecake too. The lemon and poppy seed cupcakes with blueberry frosting call for 3 tablespoons of pureed blueberries in the frosting as optional, but then the instructions and the header both refer to blueberry powder (and not pureed blueberries), without giving any amount for the powder. This won't ruin the frosting as the baker can taste along the way, but all of this does make me hesitant to suggest My Sweet Kitchen to a novice baker.The organization of this cookbook makes little sense. The content is organized into recipes under Garden Dreams, Autumn Inspired, Citrus Flavors, A Taste of Chocolate, and Nuts and Caramel. Inserted between those sections is guidance on baking essentials, cake decoration, and styling and photography. It seems bizarre that only after the 20-plus page Garden Dreams section is the reader presented with the author's opinion on egg size, salted butter, what milk to use, how to measure flour, etc. We've already been shown multiple recipes that rely on this guidance and not everyone is likely to read a cookbook from cover to cover before the baking.Since the reason I stumbled across Linda's work is her photos, I certainly appreciate the section on her styling process and photography tips. It is well done, with examples of the same photography following different styling, light source, f-stop, and editing tweaks. It's a nice insight into her creative process, but it doesn't seem like those 14 pages are necessarily worth the cost of the book, as similar information and tutorials are available online.In summary, this is a nice cookbook/photography reference, but it doesn't excel at either offering. There is a lot of great creative content in here, but it could be much better given more specificity in instructions and sensible organization.

Excellent

Lots of variety with this book - I like it a lot and I know I'm going to get a lot of use out of it. There are already a number of recipes and designs that I'm ready to try. I think this very soon be in my classic 'go to' libary.

Good quality

Wonderful book with beautiful photos

Lovely Book with fab recipes.

Libro bellissimo. Le foto sono stupende, hanno un sapore vintage, anche gli ambienti sono vecchi. Un libro con molte ricette che spaziano dalle torte a stati ai biscotti ai cupcake alla pavlova e ancora potete potete trovare tecniche di base, appunti di cucina e ingredienti, persino pagine dove si spiega come fotografare i dolci!! Davvero un libro completo. Unico neo: scritto in inglese e di conseguenza troviamo le misure di peso inglesi. In compenso c'è una piccola tabella che facilita le equivalenze degli ingredienti con i nostri grammi.Un libro anche solo da sfogliare. Consiglio.Imballo adeguato e tempi di consegna rispettati!