Richardson Alan - Cake my day: easy, eye-popping designs for stunning, fanciful, and funny cakes

It has been an amazing journey creating our four decorating books, and this time out, we are especially proud to be A Rux Martin Book. We have been lucky to have worked with Rux on all four books and have a wonderful recipe for working together: We give her confection, and she gives us class.

We feel bad for authors who cant call their agents close friends. Martha Kaplan does both jobs exceedingly well, and we love her for it. After all these years working together, we probably dont need to call her to confer on every minute detail, but we think she might miss the drama.

At times it seems Larry Frascella is the ringmaster of our show. He raises a flag when a creation falls short, applauds us when we hit the mark, and then writes about it three times a week on our blog (you may recognize him as the Cupcake Historian at hellocupcakebook.com). Thanks to Larry, this show is still on the road.

Ellie Ritt has been with us in the kitchen for more years than we would like to mention. She keeps our batter mixed, our candy organized, and our spirits high. (She also reminds us when its time to stop and eat lunch, and we love that!)

Michaela Sullivan has held our hands through the art direction of four books now. We love her patience with our process and her enthusiasm for our designs (nothing encourages us more than hearing which of our projects she has recently made and how they turned out).

Susan Dickinson, our eagle-eyed copy editor, once claimed that reading our manuscript was like training for the brain. After two books with us, Susan must be a genius. Thanks also to Jessica Sherman for her astute editing and ace typist Jacinta Monniere for turning our scribble into typed words. Everyone needs a Laney Everson on their team. She is the person who dotted every i and crossed every t to make sure we had put all the parts in place... bet shes good at the Sunday puzzle!

We are so lucky to have Elizabeth Van Itallie once again bringing style and wit to the design of our book. Many authors live in dread of seeing their pages: We dance around like little kids on Christmas morning anxious to see what Elizabeth gave us.

Sandy Ploy first came to us as the Milwaukee Cupcake Queen. She is now not only a friend but also a collaborator. Sandys wonderful cake illustrations help us create all those aha! moments in the book.

Cakes are bigger than cupcakes in so many ways, including organization. Sue Caruso cracked the whip in the kitchen and made our lives a breeze.

Our interns Manuela Rincon and Sandy Arana are now masters at tinting frosting, baking cakes, rolling candy, testing recipes, and listening to our same bad jokes with a smile every time. We couldnt have had better assistants.

Aunt Hank doesnt know it, but her 1960s-era, mostly knit, polyester fabrics with wild prints lend panache to our photos every time we use them. They were well hidden in the attic; now they are in our prop closet.

Deb Donahue is the other fashionista in our lives, offering us fabrics, plates, cake stands, and a joke whenever we need it.

Erik and Liam Tack have grown up to be our best test audience. If they give a cake the thumbs-up, we know it turned out well.

Joan McCoy is the gift that keeps on giving. She never lets any of our cakes go to waste, taking slices to her friends (along with copies of our books). She told two friends, and they told two friends, and so on. She may just be Mom to us, but for our books, she has been a one-woman marketing machine.

We have to give a big thanks to the publicity, sales, and marketing team at our publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Everyone on the team has been incredibly supportive of our books over the years, and without their talent and skills, there wouldnt be a Cake My Day! We are your fans.

We also want to recognize our partners in the cake and candy world. The folks at Duncan Hines, SweetWorks, OXO, McCormick, Reynolds, Ziploc, Sara Lee, the National Confectioners Association, and so many more have been incredibly generous with products and support over the years. We appreciate it.