There aren’t a lot of baking cookbooks out there that just wow me. I mean, there are the ones that I depend on and there are others I marvel at the pretty pictures (call me six but there must be a plethora of pictures in my cookbooks). In the long run, I end up writing down the worthy ones into my personal notebook adding my revisions if necessary. Eventually, I do forget about the book unless there are useful conversion charts to reference. However, that is not the case with A Baker’s Field Guide to Cupcakes by Dede Wilson. To me, this is a very useful handbook that gives great ideas, encourages improvisation and simply inspires the artist within.

The book provides “The Master Recipes” which include a chocolate cupcake recipe, white cupcake recipe and a yellow cupcake (among a couple others) as well 5-6 different frostings to play with. Then the rest of the book demonstrates how you can take those basic recipes and combine them any which way to create some of the most crowd-pleasing cupcakes ever!

What I appreciate about this book is that there is no need to be repetitive with its recipes; the focus is on decorating and presentation. It provides the steps, tips and tools needed to create beautifully decorated cuppies.

As an added bonus, each cupcake instructional comes with Field Notes, suggested Life Span and a legend to indicate if the cupcake is quick to make, if they keep well, if they are kid-friendly and if they are extra fancy and require more time.

It says a lot when I’m in the bookstore and I come across another book in that series and I immediately grab the book for purchase without perusing it (the book is A Baker’s Field Guide to Chocolate Chip Cookies – seriously, did I really need another reason? Will report back on it once I give it a thorough once-over). A Baker’s Field Guide to Cupcakes is worth picking up. It opens the door to many possibilities. Who knew you can do so much with suck a tiny little cake.