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Bake me I’m Yours – Chocolate

You have gotta love a book with a title like that. It’s an attention-grabber but it’s what’s between the covers that will intrigue you.

Tracey Mann must be one of the UK’s most respected cake makers and decorators. She has had her work featured on covers of numerous magazines and has made wedding cakes for such “worthies” as Tom Parker-Bowles. It’s evident that Tracey has both skill and imagination.

It’s all about style. Tracey gives tips that elevate your sweet creations into something stunning. Surprisingly simple when you know how: a matter of using the aids that professional cake decorators have known about for years. The things that make the difference between the rustic homemade and something that would not shame a wedding reception at a five-star hotel. Yes, you can do it.

Tracey has a battery of basic cake recipes, although she won’t know if you use your own favourite ones. It’s the decorating techniques that’s the reason you’ll buy this book. They are amazing but accessible to the home cook. Transfer sheets are the key to several of Tracey’s sophisticated productions. These sheets enable you to create multi-coloured finishes or ornaments which are striking and edible.

Chocolate paste is a combination of chocolate, glucose and water. This is the culinary equivalent of Play Dough and can be formed into flowers or modelled into pleats or ribbons. To get a regular beaded effect then use a Beadmaker. This is a mould which creates a string of perfect beads from chocolate paste. There are any number of moulds to enable you to add three-dimensional decorations to your cakes.

Christmas is fast approaching and Tracey has a novel idea for easy but beautiful tree decorations. Use tempered chocolate (instructions in this book) to cover a festive patterned transfer sheet. Tracey suggests using white chocolate and a holly or red gingham transfer, but there are many transfer sheet designs so you could consider a holly-shaped decoration with perhaps a contemporary transfer, or a traditional snowflake transfer with a geometric cutter.

Bake me I’m Yours – Chocolate is a small-format book with 25 different chocolate projects. This would be an ideal stocking-filler for a chocoholic who loves to cook. It’s good value for money for such a smart little book. Decadent and delicious ideas.

Cookbook review: Bake me I’m Yours – Chocolate
Author: Tracey Mann
Published by: David and Charles
Price: £9.99, $14.99US
ISBN-13: 978-0-7153-3163-7