Southern Cakes, Sweet and Irrestible Recipes for Everyday Occasions

There is a lot to like about Southern Cakes, Sweet and Irrestible Recipes for Everyday Occasions – especially, of course, if you enjoy baking cakes. Two of the first chapters immediately jumped out at me and pretty much won me over. The first is entirely devoted to pound cakes, a Southern staple and a type of cake that just doesn’t get made as often as it should. The second chapter is full of antique and heirloom recipes, which can help to make up for the fact that you might not have had southern grandmother full of classic recipes to pass on directly.

The recipes throughout the book are fairly basic and easy to follow, but almost every one is (or can be) dressed up a bit, with something like a sprinkling of toasted pecans or a drizzle of caramel sauce – touches that are Southern and take a dessert from good to downright delicious. All of the recipes can be considered to be are Southern favorites (of course), but the book does not only take a broad approach to the region. Rather than including only “generic” recipes, there are several very specific regional specialties in here, too, which adds a lot of local flavor to the book.

My final thought is that this is a great book if you like to bake cakes for parties and celebrations. The cakes are beautiful to look at, and despite the fact that they could – as the title suggests - be made for everyday occasions, any special occasion you might have would definitely be enhanced with one of these cakes.