I was so excited to receive an email from Jacqueline Butler with an offer to receive a copy of her book, Modern Sugar Flowers, for review on our blog.
Although I haven’t spent a lot of time perfecting the art of making sugar flowers, Jacqueline’s book had me hooked from the first page.
The images throughout this book are beyond stunning. It is easy to forget you are reading a book about sugarflowers and that they are not actually flowers – the skill, detail and photography is simply incredible.
I loved starting off the book by reading Jacqueline’s introduction which included how she started out in the world of baking and cake decorating, before fully immersing herself in sugarflowers.
The book has a fantastic section which outlines all of the specialized tools and supplies used throughout the book, as well as recipes and basics of wiring flowers, petals and leaves, dusting and steaming.
Jacqueline walks her readers through many different varieties of leaves as well as filler flowers, before starting on the most gorgeous collection of sugarflowers – Anemone, Camellia, Blossoms, Cosmos, Dahlia, Freesia, Lavender, Magnolia, Peonies, Orchids, Ranunculus and more.
Aside from the stunning photos of the finished products I absolutely love the layout of this book. It features very clear, simple, step-by-step photos and text which will ensure everyone attempting the flowers will be able to achieve beautiful results.
Towards the end of the book, after admiring the huge variety of sugar flowers covered in this book, I was so pleasantly surprised to arrive at the next section (and my personal favourite of the book): Foundation lessons in sugar flower arranging. This section goes far beyond the basics of sugar flower making and arranging on a cake and shows the reader how to create perfectly balanced and eye-catching sugar flower designs.
In this section, Jacqueline takes her readers through, step-by-step, the foundations for creating truly stunning sugar flower arrangements on cakes including tips on colour & harmony, combining shapes, the order in which flowers should be arranged and more.
Following the tips on the foundations of flower arranging, readers are shown step-by-step how to create actual cakes with flower arrangements in various styles, including offset arrangements, over the edge arrangements, floral crowns, single and multi-tiered ledge arrangements and more.
This is without a doubt a must-have book in any cake decorator’s collection and an invaluable resource for creating stunning sugar flowers.
Thank you Jacqueline for the opportunity to read and review your new book. It is one of my personal favourites and I’m now itching to go and create some gorgeous sugar flowers!
