Review by Deborah Verlen:
If you have small kids that love cup cakes, this book is a way to satisfy the demand without making a dozen or more that often get wasted after the novelty of the cup cake has worn off. Plus as an added attraction, you make the desserts in the microwave in a mug. Easy and quick and generally no fuss and muss.

You’ll find clever recipes like Banana Nana Microwave Mug Cake to a delicious Heavenly Chocolate Microwave Mug Cake. The beginning of the book contains a suggested pantry list for that spur of the moment Mug Cake craving. Many who bake with some regularity will already have either all or most of the ingredients which include basics like flour, sugar, cocoa powder, instant puddings, milk, eggs, oil and the like. Actually, the one thing I didn’t have was a 16 ounce mug which works best for the liquids and the cooking.

The cakes are quick to make and are large enough to satisfy two or three toddlers. The author does tell you not to save any leftovers as they become hard and heavy. This is true. These are designed to be eaten right away. The aroma of your mug cake will certainly having you grabbing a spoon and eating it right out of the microwave!

Review by Midwest Book Review:
Simply stated, for today’s busy, time-stressed homemaker, the invention of the microwave oven is second only to that of fire. From heating up TV dinners to turning out in a matter of minutes dishes from scratch that would take an hour or longer in a conventional oven, the microwave has earned a prominent place in every modern kitchen. But until now the application of the microwave to desserts and snacks has been fairly limited to heating up some store-bought treat. No more! Not with Stacey Miller’s handy little compilation of make-your-own microwave treats she has collected within the covers of “101 Recipes for Microwave Mug Cakes: Single-Serving Snacks in Less Than 10 Minutes”! Now moms who just don’t have the time for traditionally baked cookies, cakes, muffins, or other baked pastries, can choose from ‘kitchen cook friendly’ microwave recipes ranging from Apple Raisin Microwave Mug Cake; Chocolate-Covered Peanut Microwave Cake; Berry Patch Microwave Mug Cake; and Cranberry Lemon Microwave Mug Cake; to Peach Butterscotch Microwave Mug Cake; Pumpkin Pie Microwave Mug Cake; Strawberry Cheesecake Microwave Mug Cake; and Watermelon Ginger Microwave Mug Cake. Particularly nice is the succinct one-paragraph descriptive ‘Note’ accompanying each individual recipe. Unique and very special, “101 Recipes for Microwave Mug Cakes: Single-Serving Snacks in Less Than 10 Minutes” will prove a popular addition to any and all personal and family kitchen cookbook collections!

Review by Rita Marbury:
Dede Wilson has done it again! Her new cookbook, The Birthday Cake Book is an inspiration to anyone who has ever wondered what sort of cake to bake for a particular person. With 75 ideas that can be mixed and matched, Wilson will inspire you and instruct you in baking a delicious memory for even the most difficult birthday-boy (or girl) on your list. My personal favorite of the several I have tried from this book is the plain old-fashioned yellow cake with seven-minute frosting. You can dress it up, or tone it down, but it is sure to please. Wilson’s instructions are clear and well-presented. The recipes are foolproof, and excellent. This is the perfect book for wedding showers, baby showers, or just plain old fun giving. Team it up with a couple of cake pans or piping supplies and a selection of gel food colorings. Your gift will be used and appreciated for many years to come.

Review by Eliz:
This book provides some fresh and fun ideas for the cook who wants to try something new and different for that annual event – the birthday. After years of making birthday cakes for family members, one can fall into the routine of making the same old time-tested recipe. It’s time to get enthusiastic again about birthdays!! This book gives the home cook glorious photographs of what they can create and recipes that are easy to follow. Even better, give the book to the kids and ask them to choose their birthday cake this year! The recipes are not all for the kids – there are some pretty elegant cakes for more sophisticated adult tastes. The book includes basic cake and frosting recipes for making cakes for any occasion – no need to limit it to birthdays. Your family will thank you for buying this book.

Review by :
I feel as though Mrs. Pregnall is a very good and close friend of mine, as well as a personal mentor. But, I have never met her and wish that I could. Her recipes from both books are used in my endeavors to please my family and friends with the very best confections possible. Anyone can produce these wonderful treats and relish in the compliments. Teresa is an inspiration to me!

Review by :
I just received this new book on Friday–I also have the first book she wrote–Treasured Recipes–my goal is to make all of the cakes in both books. I currently have the Brown sugar nut in the freezer–we thought it was quite good. So far our favorite is the Chocolate Pound cake–using the Dutch chocolate and sour cream. I have also made the chocolate chip cake–for some reason my chocolate chips tended to settle to the bottom of the pan–not sure if I folded them well enough. We also made the Charleston chews—you must keep this in an airtight container or they will dry out quickly. I am going to start making the cakes in the second book this week. I personally prefer a pound cake that is quite heavy–and I have found that all of her cakes are quite light–probably due to the cake mix. All of them are very good and a delight to make. If you have any experience with the cakes–personal likes and dislikes–I would love to read about them.

Review by LLM:
My favorite recipe in this book is the Carrot Pineapple Cake. What I also like is that the recipes respond well to tweeking, therefore you can make a recipe your own. The cakes have that homemade taste to them. There is also some useful info in the front about the different ingredients, which is a must for any serious baker. There are directions for decorating cakes and recipes for sauces, frosting and glazes in the back. Every recipe end with instructions on how to store the finished cake, and contains variations of the original recipe. I am a recent graduate of a professional baking and pastry program, and I can tell you that I use this book for cakes more so than my textbook. I took away one star for the lack of photos. There are some in the middle of the book as well as some illustrations in the decorating section, but I usually like more photos in my books. But don’t let that stop you from buying this book. This is my bible for cakes.

NOTE: Taste the batter before you bake, I find that I have to add a little sugar to the recipes.

Review by Samantha:
What an amazing book!! Filled with over 250 recipes of beautiful and do-able cake recipes. What an absolute steal for this recipe collection. Be forewarned: The book is not laden with photos. In the middle of the book there are eight glossy color photo pages. Photos are fun and helpful . . . but don’t let that turn you off from this gem of a book. I’ve tried one recipe from it already, and although the recipe was challenging – it was worth every bite, and then some!

Review by jerry i h:
This book is a valuable collection of Italian cakes that you probably have never eaten, much less even heard of before. On the down side, half of the recipes in this book simply do not work as written.

If you are an experienced baker, this book is an invaluable encyclopedia of Italian cakes. Each and every recipe that you can get to work from this book will be a revelation to your dining guests, in that they are neither German, Austrian, American, nor French in influence. The combination of flavors are uniquely Italian, underappreciated in this country, and therefore valuable and sure to amaze and surprise your diners. You are on your own, however, in choosing those recipes that will work, and being able to get faulty or incomplete recipes to work correctly.

If you are an average home cook, however, avoid this book. There is no educational information, and no helpful hints. This is a big problem, in that many recipes are rather tricky and require experience to pull off correctly. Almost all recipes need additional techniques to do correctly, and these techniques are not spelled out (an experience baker, however, should be able to supply the missing bits). The recipes appear to be a simple cut and paste affair, cribbing from many sources far and wide, but without all the explanatory stuff you would normally expect to get in addition to just the recipe.

Review by Harold McFarland:
This book is typical of the superb quality you expect from Reader’s Digest publications. Excellent photography, clear instructions, all the information you want is included at the end of each recipe – number of servings, preparation time, cooking time, skill level, and number of days it will keep. All cookbooks should include this information along with the recipes. This is the way a cookbook should be done.

The book includes lots of traditional cake recipes as well as recipes you are not likely to find anywhere else without a great deal of effort. Some of the recipes include Chocolate nut strudel, banana chocolate strudel, chocolate chip-amaretto cake, double chocolate brownies, Pennsylvania Dutch Funnel Cakes, and even Baklava.

Since the entire book is about cakes, it is organized by the type of cake recipe. Those types are butter cakes, pound cakes, chocolate cakes, fresh fruit and nut cakes, dried fruit & nut cakes, sponge cakes, festive cakes, meringue cakes, strudels, charlottes, cheesecakes, no-bake cakes, tarts, small cakes & muffins, yeast cakes, special cakes, fillings & frostings.

Some people will have a problem with the small typeface of the ingredients list. Make sure you can read it before ordering the book. Other than that one small item, this is the epitome of the craft of cookbooks. Cakes: 1001 Classic Recipes from Around the World is highly recommended.

Review by Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Man:
A very practical cookbook with an easy-to-read format that clearly show the serving size for each recipe, a brief explanation of the origins of the recipes, precise listing of all the ingredients involved, detailed listing of the instructions about how to make it and some tips you can use to make the recipe as good as it can possibly be. If you like to be held by the hand as you cook, then this is the book for you. There’s even an extremely educational look at some common cooking ingredients at the beginning of the book that will make anyone a better cook.

Review by R. Maung:
I baked a few pieces from this cookbook and it’s excellent!! I love the pictures (I’m quite visual person) and it’s rather comprehensive. The only thing is….it’s probably not for the health conscious, but then most dessert recipes aren’t exactly the most healthy foods, are they? Easy to follow instructions too.

Review by Denise Floyd:
The receipes in this book are the cakes that my grandmother made when I was a child. I can remember her in the kitchen baking all day and then placing a towel on the counter and displaying all her baked cakes for our family. The photography in this book is awesome. From the coconut cake on the cover to the buttermilk cake is a replicate of the real thing. The receipes are easy to follow and well written. If you love the southern heritage of cakes made by your grandmother or your mom, you’ll find them all in this wonderful book. I found the ingredients to be readily available in my pantry and the stories about each recipe add to the interesting reading. A nice addition to my collection.

Review by C. Young:
This is the first southern cookbook that has cake recipes that taste like the cakes I grew up with. Those cakes were made by the amazing cooks in the Black Baptist church I grew up in. I haven’t tasted cakes like those for years. The White Chocolate cake and the Caramel cake are amazing! The recipes are easy to follow and produce a wonderful taste and texture.I HIGHLY recommend this book if you want authentic southern cake recipes because this is the real deal!

Review by S. D. Fischer:
The author used to keep cookies on hand for her family and guests who showed up unexpectedly. She has since realized that cakes are even easier to make – and just as well-received.

I liked that the cakes are fairly easy to make (and fairly quick, since none are frosted). Glazes are suggested for some cakes, and the author suggests what to serve with some cakes to dress them up (fruit, ice cream, flavored whipped cream, etc).

The ingredients should be in just about any grocery store with only a few exceptions (such as maple extract, coconut extract, fresh lavender leaves, and cream of coconut). Even better, most of the ingredients are likely in your cupboard and refrigerator on a daily basis so if you have only an hour’s notice of a friend coming to visit, you’ll have your choice of many cakes to whip up and serve warm.

The author covers a wonderful variety of flavors (chocolate, vanilla, coconut, espresso, lemon, nuts, fruit, etc.) without focusing on any single one too often. As I went through the book, I kept thinking of friends who would like one recipe or another.

There are recipes for 100 cakes and 37 are pictured.

Chapters include:

-SNACKING CAKES: Apricot Jam Cake, Blackberry-Pecan Snack Cake, Chipotle-Chocolate Cake (with four variations), Chocolate Cherry Snacking Cake, Chocolate Malted Snacking Cake, Chocolate Gingerbread, Cinnamon Pudding Cake, Fresh Strawberry Cake with White Chocolate Chips, Graham Cracker-Chocolate Chip Snacking Cake, Hummingbird Snacking Cake, Neoclassic Gingerbread, Oatmeal-Chocolate Chip Cake, Super-Delicious Whole-Wheat Carrot Cake, Maple Syrup Gingerbread, Poppy Seed Cake, Sour Cream and Lemon Cake, Spiced Orange and Cranberry Snacking Cake, Stout and Chocolate Snacking Cake with Chocolate-Stout Glaze, Semolina and Yogurt Cake, and the World’s Quickest Yeasted Coffee Cake.

-ROUND CAKES: Almond-Brown Butter Cakes, Apple and Cheddar Cheese Cake, Apricot and Olive Oil Cake, Chocolate Cake with Panforte Spices, Cornmeal-Almond Cake, Cream of Coconut Cake with Chocolate-Coconut Glaze, Everyday Yogurt Cake, Fig and Cornmeal Cake, Pear Cake with Sea Salt-Caramel Sauce, Honey and Walnut Cake, Zebra Cake, Apple-Walnut Upside-Down Cake, Chocolate-Caramel-Banana Upside-Down Cake, Cherry-Cornmeal Upside-Down Cake, Mango Upside-Down Cake, Orange-Almond-Caramel Upside-Down Cake, Peach-Buttermilk Upside-Down Cake, Pineapple-Gingerbread Upside-Down Cake, Classic Pineapple Upside-Down Cake, and Plum-Blueberry Upside-Down Cake/

-LOAF CAKES: Brown Sugar Pound Cake with Raisins, Anise Pound Cake, Chocolate-Raspberry Marble Pound Cake with Chocolate-Raspberry Glaze, Chocolate Cream Pound Cake, Citrus and Black Pepper Pound Cake, Orange Blossom Honey Pound Cake, Clove-Scented Chocolate and Apricot Loaf, Lavender and Lemon Pound Cake, Orange-Chocolate Chip Pound Cake with Sour Cream Glaze, Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chip Pound Cake, Nutella Swirl Pound Cake, Maple-Pecan Pound Cake, Marble Molasses Pound Cake, Rich Yellow Loaf Cake, Sweet Potato Pound Cake, Sesame Seed Pound Cake, Tea Cake, Triple Ginger Pound Cake, Walnut-Whiskey Pound Cake with Whiskey Glaze and Pumpkin-Chocolate Chip Pound Cake.

-BUNDT CAKES: Applesauce Cake with Oatmeal Streusel, Banana-Chocolate Chip Bundt Cake, Black Pepper and Spice Cake with Lemon Glaze, Chocolate-Zucchini Bundt Cake, Dulce de Leche Coffee Cake, Blueberry-Cornmeal Bundt Cake, Chocolate Walnut Prune Cake, Cold-Oven Cream Cheese Pound Cake, Cream Cake, Cranberry-Walnut Bundt Cake with Maple-Espresso Glaze, Espresso-Hazelnut Bundt Cake, Hungarian Coffee Cake, Mississippi Mud Cake with Espresso-Bourbon Glaze, Triple Chocolate Bundt Cake, Orange-Ricotta Pound Cake with Marmalade Glaze, Pumpkin-Sage Ring, Pistachio-Polenta Pound Cake, Pineapple and Toasted Coconut Cake, Whole-Wheat and Honey-Nut Bundt Cake, and Peanut Butter-Sour Cream Bundt Cake with Butterfinger-Ganache Glaze.

-CRUMB CAKES: Blueberry Buckle, Cherry-Almond Crumb Cake, Chocolate Chip Crumb Cake, Cranberry Cake, Nectarine Cake with Cinnamon-Nut Topping, Coca-Cola Chocolate Cake, Coffee-Heath Bar Crunch Cake, Peanut Butter and Jelly Crumb Cake, Rhubarb Streusel Snacking Cake, and Red Grape, Polenta and Olive Oil Cake.

-ANGEL FOOD & CHIFFON CAKES: Coffee Angel Food Cake with Hazelnut-Coffee Glaze, Brown Sugar Angel Food Cake, Cocoa-Chip Angel Food Cake, Coconut Angel Food Cake, Lemon Poppy Seed Angel Food Cake with Lemon-Cream Cheese Glaze, Cinnamon-Nut Chiffon Cake, Lime Chiffon Cake, Vanilla Bean Chiffon Cake, Banana-Macadamia Nut Chiffon Cake, and Chocolate Marble Chiffon Cake.

If you like this book, you may also enjoy Coffee Cakes: Simple, Sweet, and Savory by Lou Seibert Pappas as well as Cakes from Scratch in Half the Time: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Bake Cakes Forever by Linda West Eckhardt. I prefer Cake Keeper Cakes over those two, and it is the least expensive.

This book is well-worth the price.

Review by M. Hill:
This is a gem of a cookbook. There are 100 simple recipes and I hope to bake my way through them all. I was particularly impressed with the snack cake section because that style of cake, in most general cookbooks, is often ignored or relegated to a couple of uninspired recipes. The beauty of the snack cake is the speed of preparation, the freedom — its small size (8 x 8 inches) requires little commitment so many different recipes may be tried with abandon. Usually after two sittings the cake is gone, and, like a small batch of cookies, there is joy in filling the house with the scent of a fresh cake baking.

I prepared two cakes from the book – the Chocolate Malted Snacking Cake and one of the bundt recipes — the Applesauce Cake with Oatmeal Streusel. Both cakes baked perfectly and were absolutely delicious and distinctive. The Chocolate Malted snacking cake had the appropriate slightly coarser texture of a snack cake and the batter possessed a heavy scent of malt. Once baked, dark chocolate was the predominate flavor with malt providing depth and interest in the background. The recipe came together quickly with little effort and produced a cake that was both delicious and different.

I added a picture of The Applesauce Cake with Oatmeal Streusel since it isn’t photographed in the book. The streusel has body because of the oatmeal so it keeps its distinct texture through baking. The spices include cinnamon in the streusel and cardamom, cloves and vanilla in the batter which creates a cake that is lightly spicy with undertones of citrus from the cardamom. I chose to prepare this cake because it would serve two functions — dessert and a breakfast sweet. Slices freeze well which for me is always a consideration because unless prepared for a function or party, it takes a while for us to finish a large cake.

The negatives are few. The book is a paperback so it refuses to stay open by itself unless turned to the middle pages. A cookbook holder would be helpful. The font size is a little small – it looks like 10 point at the most — but the dark brown ink keeps it readable. Each chapter contains a particular style of cake – snacking, round, loaf, bundt, crumb and angel food/chiffon. There are approximately 37 photographs of the 100 recipes. The lack of pictures is something I usually find annoying, but since most of the cakes are straightforward and organized by shape, actually seeing a picture isn’t necessary. These are not cakes that are extensively decorated so while a photograph would have been nice, it isn’t a fatal flaw. I would recommend this cookbook of delicious imaginative cakes to all bakers.

Review by Laurie Filipiak:
Excellent book. Step by step instructions with beautiful pictures. It’s so nice to be able to see what the recipe is supposed to look like. The bread recipes are excellent and the jams and jellies are unique.Highly recommend!

Review by Billy L. Curry:
Bought this book for my wife who loves all kinds of teas and tea related things. She loves the book and has added it to her growing collection of high quality tea and cake books.