Pure Artistry: Extraordinary Vegan and Gluten-Free Cakes Hardcover – April 12, 2016

I would save this book from a burning building, that's how much I love it.Let's first just talk about how beautiful it is. The photography is gorgeous and Emily is incredibly talented at designing cakes. I have spent a lot of time just looking at the pictures in this book, feeling inspired and enchanted. I am in love with the aesthetic of these cakes. They feel earthy, but elegant, and sometimes whimsical.Now the content. This is not your Wilton Cake Decorating course. Emily first discussed the ingredients she uses and why, and even offers suggestions on where you might find them in the resources section. I can find pretty much all of the ingredients at my local health food store, but obviously you could try substituting if needed or just order them online.That brings me to the recipes. They are incredible, especially for being gluten-free. The ingredients are listed in standard measuring, like cups, but also has the metric weight measurements too, in case you're looking for more precision in your baking. I always get the best results baking when I'm able to weigh out my ingredients, plus it makes it so much easier to adjust your recipe size, which Emily also gives instructions for. I love that the instructions are easy. Everything tastes so good and you can mix and match these recipes like crazy. The other thing I absolutely adore about this book is that Emily gives great suggestions on different ways you can use the recipe. For example, for her Mexican Chocolate Cake, she recommends leaving out the spices for a more traditional chocolate cake and she also mentions that instead of frosting, why not slice up some peaches and make a reduction to drizzle over? YUM.I have made the recipes gluten-free, but I have also been able to easily tweak them to use regular flour and they have turned out just fine with some experimenting. She also includes recipes and ideas for truffles, tarts, and macrons, and then in the back of the book she shows different examples of dessert tables with different themes.Finally, let me just say that this is the book that pretty much taught me how to decorate cakes, and continues to do so. I love baking, but when I wanted to up my game and start learning to how to cake decorate, I was disappointed to find out that the only classes in my community were the Wilton ones. Emily does a great job at listing the tools she uses for her techniques (and she's very adamant that you really don't need lots of fancy tools, in fact, some just complicate the job more) and there are step-by-step pictures for everything she does. The book is really great at building up on your techniques too, starting with just learning to properly bake your cakes, prepare your frosting, and how to frost your cake and make it smooth. Then she addresses working with fondant and sugar paste and marzipan, etc, etc.I'd recommend this to anyone, not just vegans or gluten-intolerant people, but to anyone looking for a great book on how to decorate cakes. Or anyone just looking for a gorgeous book for your coffee table.

As the mom of two young vegan kids, I was in desperate need for cake decorating ideas and recipes for birthday parties. This is SUCH a gorgeous book, and it gave me and my co-collaborator the confidence to attempt my most ambitious cake venture yet: a kitty cat cake for my daughter's birthday. The coconut cake itself was yummy, but I botched the fondant and sugar paste by buying/using the wrong kind of palm oil (it was marketed as "sustainable" but was red and stinky!) The fondant wasn't usable so my co-collaborator ended up whipping up a quick buttercream frosting instead, but the sugar paste was still usable and we fashioned a cute kitty out of it, which was inspired by a Pinterest post I came across.All in all, we were delighted with how the cake turned out and are grateful for the inspiration/guidance. The book contained tips and decorating tricks I never would have thought of.My request to the author for her NEXT book is to include fondant and sugar paste recipes that don't use palm oil since a lot of people in my vegan/animal rights community (myself included) try to avoid/minimize consumption of it. I would also love to see some kids cakes photos! I know she would do an incredible job with cakes for children.

I stumbled upon thjs book two years ago. The information Emily gene offers in this book is very generous. There is information of the ingredients, tools and equipment needed to put together cakes. If your a person who doesn't know how to put a crumb coat and a second later coat on a cake then this is for you.Also there is a section on how to out together a sugar flower or two.Learning how to stack the cakes are in here including photos.The recipes are full proof (especially the apple spiced cake). I find that these ingredients give a better flavor profile then cakes obtaining a.p. flour .This book is a must have for vegan and g.f. People.

Simply beautiful book! My son is getting married soon, and has many friends who have food allergies. I saw a review of the book on the freepeople.com blog, and ordered it instantly. It doesn't disappoint! There are recipes for cakes and frostings and sugar paste and so on... there are instructions for creating and attaching decorative elements... and the photography alone is gorgeous. I haven't made any of the recipes yet, and I don't know whether we'll actually be making a wedding cake, (might be pies!) but I wanted to be prepared. I have also had e-mail correspondence with the author, and she is both friendly and generous in addition to being amazingly talented!

This book is fantastic. As a chef, I appreciate the concise instructions and how-to photography. The step by step instructions are fairly straight forward to follow with a little practice.Secondly, as a culinary artist.. I have to say the style, imagination, and beauty of the cakes are amazing. It's takes a true talent to create these works of art.But regardless of how much skill you have, it's a beautiful book to have for the inspirational and imaginative artistry that goes these cakes.Learning one step at a time.... this book is helping me get there. I totally recommend having this in your cooking reference library.

This gorgeous book exceeded my expectations! It makes a lovely gift (I've bought several), for anyone from beginner to chef wanting to explore vegan cake making. Anyone who skims the pages can see that cakes are a true work of art...but to tell you the truth, I was SO excited to find the author's flour recipe inside (as well as recommendations for store bought)! The techniques and tips in this book are real, and do-able for a novice like myself. Not only will the book go to good use in my own kitchen, but I will continue to gift it to other health minded friends and family!

To me it is highly overrated. There are only a few cake recipes and they are not really good. Plus the selection is senseless. No sponge cake, but a carrot and a coconut cake...sure...The ingredients of her flour mix seem to be choosen by how hard it is to get them not by taste or the effects on the batter. The harder to get the better.

This cookbook is heavily focused on decorating techniques, techniques that may be a bit on the difficult side for a beginner.There are many hidden goodies in this book, and by hidden I mean to say that recipes are not exactly organized all by section, but rather ordered by which cake they ultimately make. For example there is a recipe for truffles, and this recipe follow the truffle cake design, as apposed to being placed in a section of perhaps toppings or in a 'chocolate' section. All of these items are indexed though.So far I have tried the chocolate cake recipe, Vanilla bean cake recipe, Vanilla buttercream and the royal icing recipe. I have also read many of the narrated sections. A lot of insight into how the recipes were developed and insight on why certain ingredients are important is given, thus giving control to you to alter them based on your needs. Whether you eat nut free, soy free or corn free as well as vegan and gluten free; there are options for you. As far as the recipes I have tried, the cakes are to die for. They do not have the typical 'cardboard' taste of gluten free and they certainly hold their shape. They are also very flexible cake recipes, I added fruit to the vanilla batter with no issue, I even blended 2 ripe banana into the vanilla cake and this did not ruin the cake (it tasted amazing). The royal icing recipe was very helpful, not very complicated at all and helps to make the royal icing more flexible and stable. The buttercream recipe is a very silky buttercream, I did find myself adding more powdered sugar but this is an easy alteration.I included an image here of my cupcakes (not yet frosted). The cupcakes in the image are the ones with fruit incorporated into the batter. When I left the recipe plain there was far less to no cracking on the top.

I bought this book for use when making vegan wedding cakes, not being vegan myself. It's really lovely and covers everything.

The book is visually beautiful and well written however the measurements seem to be off both in metric and imperial/units. 2 cups equates to a metric size in one recipe only be be totally different in another. I have had major fails following these measurements. I have had to adjust the recipes myself. I have also tried to contact the author in messenger and her Facebook page but have been unsuccessful so far. The book also uses millet as the base of cake recipes however I found it very dense and had more success with buckwheat. A much better product. I will continue to use this book but have to adjust measurements and always worry I fail first time before adjusting to correct measurements.

lovely book