Sweet Art Creature Cookies

Photos courtesy of the publisher; used with permission

I like to bake cookies. Most of the time, they're drop cookies, like chocolate chips. Sometimes, though, I like making roll-out cookies and decorating them. I'm particularly fond of cookie cutters that emboss designs into the cookies, because that means I can color in the lines rather than freehanding the drawing.

I decided to review Creature Cookies because I know I can use some help with my cookie decorating technique.

The cookies on the cover are adorable, but that's just the beginning. Browsing through the book showed me just how far I need to go.

Yikes. the designs of some of these cookies are freaking amazing. Some look like fairly simple designs, but they have personality. Others are a little more complicated. Most of them are above my current abilities. Which is great. I wouldn't want a book that showed me exactly what I already know what to do.

Most of the cookies are flat, but some are layered, like the dinosaurs and polar bears where the heads are a separate piece, or the bumble bees and ladybugs, where the wings are separate pieces.

Swim, little fishes! SWIM!!!

And then there are the 3D jumping dolphins, where the dolphins are leaping out of a round cookie that's got frosting "water."

Besides decorating instructions, there are recipes for cookies and icing, as well as information about tools, tips, and techniques.

I haven't decorated any cookies based on this book yet, but I have a few favorites picked, including the fish and sharks.

These look fairly simple to do but they're still cute. And they'd look so great on a plate, with the sharks chasing the fish. Or the fish chasing the sharks.

Artisan Cake Company's Visual Guide to Cake Decorating

I aspire to be a better cake decorator. I'm a heck of a lot better at it than I used to be, now that I've mastered the technique of piping flowers all over a cake.

I thought it might be nice to up my game a bit, so I have in my hands a cake decorating book. It's the Artisan Cake Company's Visual Guide to Cake Decorating. And there are a lot of photos, for sure.

The book starts with information about tools you'll need, then moves on to some important basics, like a few cake recipes, baking tips, and several different frosting recipes. Then it moves on to other basics, like tips on filling a piping bag.

It sort of eases you into the scary stuff. Like actually assembling and decorating a cake.

What I thought was really interesting was the section where good cake design and bad cake design were compared. In some cases, I looked at the "bad" and thought that although it wasn't stunning, it was okay.

Then, after I read the explanation of why the design wasn't great, I could see the flaws. Aha!

There are a lot of fondant-covered cakes, but also a section on texturing buttercream. I'm definitely going to try that, the next time I'm faced with a cake that requires frosting. I'm not a huge fan of the flavor of fondant, so I'm much more likely to use buttercream. Or some other similar frosting that isn't fondant.

The book doesn't hang around with beginners forever, though, and it gets into some quite complicated techniques, like using modeling chocolate, gumpaste, or fondant to form decorative figures and flowers. There's instructions for making a cute little elf that looks like it should be easy ... maybe.

The sugar flowers look amazing. I don't know how successful I'd be at making one of them, but the instruction seem clear, and the photos would be very helpful if I wanted to give it a shot.

To be perfectly honest, I have a feeling that I might never get too far beyond the cake and frosting recipes and the most basic decorating projects, but it's nice to know that if I ever do want to tackle something more complicated, I have somewhere to look.

How about you? Are you ready to take on a project like that elf in the top left corner of the book cover? Or the flower or the balloon cake?

I received this book from the publisher at no cost to me.