Tessa Huff - Icing on the Cake: Baking and Decorating Simple, Stunning Desserts at Home

To Brettmy most favorite person.
Thank you for our wonderful life.

For me, the icing on the cake means much more than frosting. It is taking a sweet treat and elevating it to something even more delightful. It is that little something extra that transforms our homemade baked goods into beautiful, show-stopping desserts. In a literal sense, the concept includes meticulously piped frosting on sky-high cakes and gardens of buttercream rosetopped cupcakes, but it also means ultra-chic French macarons with marbled icing, a kaleidoscope of seasonal fruit tarts, and all the sugar-filled and sprinkled-covered decorations of our dreams.

If you dont know where to begin, fear not. I didnt always have the confidence to experiment with complex decorative designs. My baking journey didnt begin until I was nineteen. In a borrowed kitchen, armed with mismatched baking pans, I started down an unfamiliar path that would eventually feel like second nature to me. I taught myself how to cook and bake during my first few years away at UC Davis. My meals were quick and simple, and mainly provided the bare essentials in order to survive my communications lectures, dance team practice, and busy social schedule. However, my love for baking developed from something much more than just needing to refuel. Baking became a mental vacation from my active college life. By concentrating on a recipe or meticulously measuring ingredients, it was a way for me to escape the chaos of my rowdy roommates, the stress of exams I didnt study enough for, and any other emotional hiccup that came with early adulthood. Baking also presented an opportunity to be creative. Even if my first cakes were nothing short of a disaster, I still had fun practicing my elementary piping skills and arranging store-bought candies on top to make them extra special.

Over the years, the setting has changed, but the scene remains the same. The crowded college kitchen transformed into the one I shared with my older brother after graduation, to the local bakery where I worked nights until I could fill and frost a cake in five minutes flat, to my own cake shop, to the kitchen in the city condo my husband and I recently renovated. Whether in a professional kitchen or at home with my family, Ive learned that I enjoy baking for the emotional connection and artistic outlet it provides.

I opened The Frosted Cake Shop in my mid-twenties. Making cakes for clients stunted the emotional aspect of baking, but I still enjoyed bringing their visions to life. Four years later, my husband and I moved from California to Vancouver, Canada, and closed the doors to my shop indefinitely. Missing that sense of community and working one-on-one with clients, I started my blog, Style Sweet. A bit lonely and lost in a new country, I began baking just for me again. Baking at home instead of in a commercial kitchen allowed me to experiment with flavor pairings, truly enjoy the baking process, and rediscover my passion for dessert design. I taught myself the art of food photography and styling in order to document my creations and share them with my online community. This turned into my first book, Layered: Baking, Building, and Styling Spectacular Cakes.

Having readers create and enjoy my recipes with their own families and friends and seeing copies of my book in their homes has been surreal. Writing a cookbook is an honor, and after completing my first one, I realized that I still had so much more to share! My first love will always be layer cakes, so Ive included plenty of brand-new cakes in this book. However, Icing on the Cake contains a wider array of decorative desserts and is more of a tribute to beautiful recipes and a passion for pastry than a sequel.

When putting together ideas for this book, I sat down and asked myself, Why do we bake? What draws us back into the kitchen before every birthday, holiday, special occasion, or even random Thursday night to bake up something from scratch? What motivates us to stay up past midnight anxiously watching a perfect butter cake rise in the oven, to commit to making finicky macarons even after a dozen failed attempts, to research and retest pie dough over and over until it feels just right between our fingertips? Most of us dont have the time to spend countless hours hiding away in the kitchen piping buttercream roses or the like, yet if we are truly passionate about it, we find a way to do it anyway.

For me, I bake because it is both communicative and creative. I love molding, shaping, and weaving together ingredients with my bare hands into something deliciouseach pastry with my own signature flair or unique flavor combination. Baking for others is how I communicate feelings of love and gratitude. Most often we dont put in all the attention and effort required for these baking projects unless they are for someone we completely adore, so when you cant find the words you need to express your love or admiration, then say it with cake and pastry!

And when I bake, I love to create beautiful foodwith swirls of pastel buttercream and delicate icing flowers, as well as rustic beauty in the form of sharp sugar shards and golden rivers of dripping caramel sauce. Most of the time, my desserts would still taste great without the extra flair, but I do it because its fun, and sometimes thats all the reason we need.

Like most bakers, I enjoy the process of creating delicious desserts from scratch; the way pastry comes together between my fingertips; and transforming a pile of ingredients into spectacular works of edible art. First and foremost, recipes should taste great, but if baking is a form of therapy, then decorating is my favorite type of creative expression. From delicate meringues to rustic pies, I strive to make each of my recipes beautiful and delicious from the inside all the way to the icing on the cake. I hope that my stories and recipes will encourage you to do the same.

I hope you find this book equal parts inspirational and educational. My goal is for you to learn from my experiences, find joy in the narratives, and get so excited and inspired by the images and ideas that you are instantly drawn into the kitchen. Within these pages, Ive included my favorite combinations for technique, design, and flavor. You will find a Featured Decorating Techniques list on each recipe, which highlights the different decorating techniques you can learn while making that particular dessert, as well as step-by-step photos for some of the more complex designs. For example, some of the designs include:

Many of the projects reflect a particular aesthetic and/or pair well with the flavors within the cake, but I encourage you to mix and match the different elements as you wish to create truly one-of-a-kind confections. There is something for everyone and every season, but do not feel limited by the images and recipe pairings Ive chosen to showcase. Swap the loopy ruffles on the Cannoli Cake () and vice versa.