 | Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com | When Duff Goldman, Food Network's "Ace of Cakes," envisioned Charm City Cakes in Baltimore nearly a decade ago, his goal was to make wonderful cakes for friends and family. As word spread about his fabulous creations, his dream grew into a nationally renowned business staffed by a team of talented professionals, including musicians, artists, and creative souls with experience in architectural modeling, graphic design, deejaying, coffee making, performance art, dog walking, sculpture, painting and more. Aces of Cakes: Inside the World of Charm City Cakes is a celebration of the bakery that started it all. This colorful scrapbook is loaded with stories about Duff's early days as a graffiti artist turned young chef, his successes and hilarious disasters, and the amazing team he built step-by-step. Through candid interviews and profiles and hundreds of photographs, illustrations, and collages, the book shows how energy, inspiration, collaboration, and a bit of luck can conspire to help anyone achieve their creative vision. Of course, at the center of this stunning book are Charm City's Cakes. From the simple to the breathtakingly complex, Duff shows off some of the bakery's more unusual techniques and tools that shape their famous creations. He also offers a behind-the-scenes look at his Food Network show, shares his most incredible customer stories and requests, and reveals some of the bakery's favorite cake facts and tips--along with a comprehensive episode guide and a monster cake montage featuring seven years' worth of the bakery's astonishing cake creations. |
Average Customer Rating:   Excellent book! If you are looking for recipes this is not the book for you. If you want to find out how the team at Charm City Cakes got to be and how they go about making those awesome cakes, it is!
Great pictures, fun interviews and of course all the strange and funny remarks from Duff, Mary Alice and Geoff. Fun companion to the show This is not a book about cake, but rather a fun read about the quirky, lovely folks who make them. For those that like (love!) the show, these backstories had a whole new depth to the cake artists. By the time you're finished with the book, you really appreciate all the talented folks who make Baltimore their home and truly love what they do. It's so easy to imagine hanging out with Mary Alice and the crew, tipping back a few drinks while listening to some great music! Ace of Cakes Inside the World of Charm City Cakes I always enjoy watching the antics of Charm City Cakes and now got to enjoy reading about them. Chef Duff had such an interesting life growing up. All the other members of his team are also greatly talented and I feel like I now know them a little better. I just wish I could go to the bakery and be an intern for a week. That would be a dream come true. Basically Just Like The Show! I found this book to be intriguing and interesting. My wife and kids are big fans of the show.
The book is laid out like a scrapbook, with lots of pictures, but a surprising amount of text and information. Each person on the show is featured, including the TV production crew, with about 3 pages each. Frequently, there are two page displays with lots of very small pictures on a single subject, for example every cake they have featured on the show.
Interesting Notes:
Each decorator has made a cake just for the book. It was interesting to see how and what they produced when left to their own choices.
The family pictures of each person are very nice, and I like the way the book is laid out.
This is not really a drawback, but just a note. When the book says it was written by Duff and his brother, I think they mean it. Each article, about every single person, sounds like it was actually written by a single author. The information is different for each person, but the writing style is so very similar that I think it must have been written by one person. They all read like the way Duff talks, so maybe he did the writing from notes the people provided. It is either one author, or somehow everyone writes and sounds just like the others! There are so many pictures and different facts that it works, and it certainly provides a seamless read. By the way, the writing is excellent (just uniform).
I found out a lot of information about the bakery and the show. A couple of more interesting ones are that the cakes are not eaten with the fondit attached - the fondit is removed before eating. Also, they were very careful to state two facts. First, the cakes taste good (they have about 50 flavors), and they DO wash their hands - frequently - but they just don't show it during the show. As for the rest - read the book! There is lots and lots of interesting stuff for fans of the show.
There is nothing in this book that would be objectionable to kids of any age. Highly recommended. Not what I expected but still interesting Somehow, I was hoping for more cake-related material but this book turned out to be more about the people. Still, it was interesting and did provide a lot of information and inspiration. |  |
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