Extreme Cakeovers by cakelava-My Book Review

Extreme Cakeovers
Book's Official Website.
Great information about substitutions, sources and lovely photos of fans sharing pictures
of their own cakes inspired by the book.

Extreme Cakeovers is finally in my cake book shelf!! ( insert happy dance here)

This is a book that I had been waiting to have since cakelava announce it on their blog Cake 5-0 . I have been following Rick and Sasha's blog and cake creations for a long time. I am such a fan of Rick's creativity, style and cake design.

Let me just say that this is NOT your typical Cake Decorating Book! The cakes in this book are truly showstopping creations-NO baking or experience require. 

You won't need fancy cutters and tools that you will use once and then they will be in 

your kitchen drawer forever.

For those of you who do not know Rick and Sasha Reichart, allow me to give you a little background... they both own an innovative and unique cake design studio in Oahu, Hawaii. Rick's cakes have been feature on the Food Network Challenge and many international and national publications. Sasha runs cakelava's business and she also has a culinary and marketing background. They both travel the world a few times a year teaching advance cake decorating classes.

Now that you know who they are , let's talk about this piece of art. 

Extreme Cakeovers is a candy lovers dream, featuring easy techniques that anyone can do. You won't need mad decorating skills to create a homemade master piece cake for your special someone's birthday.

Extreme Cakeovers feature 40 show-stopping cakes organized by themes, from a jukebox cake to roller skate an even a banana split cake so realist that you won't believe is cake instead of ice cream.

Instructions in the book are very easy to follow, ingredients are listed by brand name with lots of gorgeous pictures ( just in case you are a visual person like me). 

One of the difficult parts in this book... is to choose what cake to make!! 

There is truly something for everyone.

Since my husband is Mexican and I am from Costa Rica, my assistant and I decided to bake and decorate the "Dia de los Muertos" cake, this is holiday we both celebrate in our countries. 

Before I forget, I also want to mention that in this book, Rich and Sasha show you how to use store bought cake and icing to create the cake of your dreams,which is perfect for people who are intimidated of baking from scratch. 

But this book is also written for experience bakers and cake decorators, who like me, like the complete homemade experience. In the book your will find a few recipes for basic cakes and frostings. 

Cami and I choose to make the vanilla cake with vanilla frosting, delicious and very moist. 

Here is a little pictorial of us working our cake away.

We absolutely loved working the eye's area of this cake, such a display of colors.

Another of my favorite parts to decorate was the teeth/mouth. 

Here is a picture of the cake from the book and our cake.

So what do you think? did we make a good job? 

"Dia de los Muertos" Cake

(Original design by Rick and Sasha Reichart of cakelava)

Extreme Cakeovers shows you a variety of techniques that make it well worth buying, especially if you have never decorated a cake before and are nervous about it.

Disclosure: I received a book for review from Clarkson Potter /Publishers. However I was going to but the book any way because I am such a fan of cakelava and their amazing cakes and techniques. 

All opinions are my own.