Cakes by Melissa

Book excerpt: More than 120 recipes for fabulous cakes, icings, fillings, and toppings for endlessly delectable combinations from the founder of Baked by Melissa. Melissa Ben-Ishay believes baking should be fun and easy—and that incredible flavor can be in bite-size amounts. This ethos and her lively, personal style are infused throughout Cakes by Melissa. A simple-to-follow crash course in making baking more like crafting, it offers Melissa’s fresh takes on traditional cakes and inventive ideas to make dessert in any form extra sweet. The cookbook will encourage home bakers to be creative and spontaneous in their baking, even including fill-in-the-blank ingredient sheets to individualize their special treats. From the very recipe that started it all—the tie-dye cupcake—to peanut butter banana cake batter and icings and crumbles that inspire the baker in us all to create scrumptious desserts, Cakes by Melissa is filled with unique and totally irresistible recipes to devour. Replete with 125-150 photographs and stunningly designed pages that mirror the down-to-earth and colorful Baked by Melissa aesthetic, Cakes by Melissa is a celebration of the joys of baking for experts and novices alike, and is a must for Melissa’s fans.