50 Easy Party Cakes ~ Debbie Brown

Debbie Brown's cakes are awesome. These might be easy party cakes, but if you can manage to pull off a single one of these then everyone (especially the kids) will think you are very, very talented. The great thing about Debbie's book though is that she is very thorough and methodical in stepping you through the cake decorating process, making what looks impossible suddenly not so.


Take for instance the Mouse house cake which is pictured on the cover. Debbie steps you first through colouring the sugarpaste and covering the board and then through cutting, joining and shaping the cakes. Following this she guides you through covering the cake and positioning it on the board, smoothing it and cutting the windows, then replacing them with the black sugarpaste. Her next two steps outline in detail how to make the mice and placing them on the cake, and the last is to step you through adding the stalks and leaves and the chimney. There are photographs of several of the various steps and components, making the shaping of the cake and the moulding of the mice far simpler. Brown has also listed basic recipes for Madeira sponge cake and Sugarpaste at the beginning of the book, and provides a very useful table of bakeware and ingredient quantities required to produce each of the cakes in the book.

It's hard to decide which of the fifty cakes featured are my favourites, as they are all great. I do really like the Castle guards and the Treasure map, and both Dotty dragon and Playful kitten are very cute. The Shopping frenzy cake makes me think of my sister Carmen and my friend Seema, and the Party bags with a little teddy bear in the top of each would be fantastic for a birthday party. Don't make me choose!

Recommended for patient cooks and cake decorating afficionado's.

- Kath

Gelati, Sorbets and Ice Creams ~ Elsa Petersen-Schepelern

This is one of those very pretty little books that is as fun to look at as it is to cook from. With the majority of recipes offered a double page spread there certainly isn't room for hundreds of offerings, however the 30 recipes supplied are varied and interesting and don't leave you feeling shortchanged.


The book begins with the traditional recipes, Gelato di créma, Traditional italian gelato and Rich traditional gelato, followed by liqueur-flavoured, fruit and spice gelati and chocolate, coffee and nuts. There are sections featuring sorbets and sorbetti and a section on asian flavours. There are some delightful recipes throughout the book such as the Pineapple, rum and coconut gelato, the Marscapone, cognac and clove gelato and the Orange and cardamom gelato. I'm not one for melon so I'd skip the Sorbetto melone, however the Gingered poached pears with ginger gelato are a whole different story and would make a very nice complete dessert. I think my favourites though would be the Italian lemon sorbetto, the Lemongrass gelato and the Thai coconut and mango ice - Yum!

Recommended for anyone with an ice-cream machine (it's a bugger to make the stuff without one).

- Kath

Feeding Babies and Toddlers ~ Family Circle (Murdock Books)

I'm a parent of twins. Twins are a handful, especially when they are babies, and apart from sleeping, feeding is the most difficult aspect. This book was a godsend - so very helpful and so very useful at a time when all sense of time and reality is distorted. The book starts off with a large section on breast and bottle feeding and then progresses through introducing mixed feeding and then onto feeding toddlers and older children. There's a section on vegetarianism and natural foods and one on food for special occasions such as when travelling with a baby. The subject matter is approached in a very logical and straightforward manner, and although there are particular biases (I have yet to see a book about parenting which has no bias), it is reasonably well balanced in its approach.


It's not the kind of cookbook which is of much use to those without (or not expecting) babies and toddlers. For those who are expecting - the chapter on mixed feeding provided exactly the kind of information we wanted and needed when we started thinking about introducing new foods in the first year. We made mistakes (such as offering a second meal choice when the first was rejected - not at all what the book would have us do) and now have one very good eater and one not so good, but the advice we took from this book was invaluable. There are recipes in the book, starting from the mixed food chapter with exciting stuff like Apple and sweet potato and Junket, progressing to toddler foods such as Spaghetti with meat sauce and then onto things for the third year such as Fish mornay or Meatballs in yoghurt sauce. Don't buy the book for the recipes though - buy it for the very well put together information that just might help you keep your sanity.

Recommended for all new parents. Get this one before you get to the pulling your own hair out stage.

- Kath

Vegetarian Barbecues ~ Sue Ashworth

I suspect that there are many of you who would find the term 'vegetarian barbecue' somewhat anomalous, but as a former vegetarian I can safely put your mind at rest and let you know that there's no need to stop barbecuing just because you stop eating meat, fish and poultry. And you shouldn't feel limited to reconstituting TVP (textured vegetable protein) or using a felafel mix to just make burgers, not that they can't be quite tasty. If you can cook it on a flat surface then you can barbecue it.

Tofu - even the word sounds awful - I've no idea why anyone thinks vegetarians should enjoy that flavourless muck. Skip the recipe for Smoked tofu and mushroom brochettes and head straight for the Grilled Cypriot cheese with tomato and red onion salad - light and fresh with a good bite and enough substance to satisfy. The Tasty barbecue sauce is great on the Cheeseburgers in buns with barbecue sauce, or alongside the Char-grilled vegetables with sidekick dressing or even just with a big juicy field mushroom, and you could do a lot worse than accompanying these with any of the Three-way potato salad and the Carrot and cashew nut coleslaw. Finish the meal off with Char-cooked pineapple with ginger and brown sugar butter or Toasted tropical fruit kebabs with hot chocolate dip and you're smiling.


Recommended for vegetarians.

- Kath

The Illustrated Cookie ~ Piet Halberstadt

For what is essentially a book about biscuits, this book doesn't have loads of recipes. What it does have though is loads of idea's and information about making your plain old cookie dough into something more. That's not to say there aren't some good recipes, with Butterscotch refridgerator cookies, Gingerbread cookies and Olga's mother's almond macaroons, however the focus of the book is as much about how to roll and press and mould and decorate cookies as it is on providing a multitude of recipes.


I find it quite telling that this book was published in New York, as the word 'Cookie' really brings two things to my mind - first is Cookie Monster, and the second is the Black and White cookie featured in a Seinfeld episode. I think this cookbook would suit an American audience where shaped, cut and decorated biscuits would be more the norm - I tend to think of the Australian biscuit-goer as more varied in their tastes and less meticulous in their presentation (no Australian biscuit cookbook would seem complete without Anzacs). Still, there is definitely plenty to keep me satisfied in the book, and I'd happily chomp away on one of the citrus variations of the Rich basic dough cookie, perhaps topped off with some Cream cheese icing. Not bad at all.

Recommended for cookie lovers.

- Kath