A friend of mine was given this book for Christmas. She passed it onto me just a few weeks ago because she knows I do a lot of cooking. Whereas she does not really have the time to bake. If ever I have spare time though baking is one of the things I do to occupy myself. I often make my dad's favourite Victoria sandwich cake and other times just try and test myself with something I have never made before. More often than not the recipes do not usually work out to plan. But I think that is what I love about cooking in general. I love waiting till the last minute to see if the hour or couple of hours I have worked at cooking something has paid off or not.

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CUPCAKE MAGIC AS A BOOK AND THE AUTHOR
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This Cupcake Magic book is such a cute hardback book, I love the size of it. It does not take up too much room on the kitchen top when cooking. It is approximately half the size of regular cook books in height as well as thickness. There are 112 pages. The book is red with two fantastic looking cupcakes on the front. The sort of cupcakes you dream that you could make. However, in all honesty very few people have the time to make such cupcakes with such detail. There is a sticker on the front of the book stating 'Donation made to the Battery Hen Welfare Trust with every copy sold' which is always nice to read. On the back of the book is a picture of a rose which I was puzzled to know where it fitted in with the book, but within the book she does have a cupcake recipe using sugar candied roses, so I guessed it fitted in there.

Cupcake Magic was written by Kate Shirazi who I had never heard of before seeing this book. There is a small section at the back of the cover of the book about Kate. She moved to Devon and started a cupcake order business from her farmhouse. As it can be seen throughout the book as well Kate is passionate about battery rescue hens and she has a flock of her own.

For more information about Kate and her business go to her website: www.cakeadoodledo.co.uk

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THE CONTENTS OF CUPCAKE MAGIC
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As you can imagine the book is full of different recipes specially for making cupcakes. So if you are not a cupcake fan this book is certainly not from you. Anybody 100 miles away can guess that one from the title.
Kate has started the book with an introduction about cakes, including the ins and outs of how she became in love with cakes in general. Kate's wording of the book is a breath of fresh air next to some people who write books. I can clearly see her enthusiasm, wit and humour in it. It makes it very enjoyable to read.

Kate secondly includes in the book a few pages based on the best ingredients and equipment to use to make cakes, for example, margarine makes sponges much lighter. Kate then goes onto three pages about hens and eggs which as I said earlier seems a very important subject to her which is of course becoming more and more important. She talks about using free-range hens rather than battery hens and how she came across the Battery Hen Welfare Trust (BHWT). Then Kate begins with her cupcake recipes.

Firstly she includes recipes on the different types of icings and creams to use which include glace icing, royal icing, buttercream, coffee cream, chocolate cream and lemon cream. I found these few pages very useful indeed. It means that whatever I am making cake wise, even if it is not a recipe in her book with cupcakes I can always refer back to these sections for reference of measurements for icing and buttercreams.

Kate's varied cupcake recipes really are wonderful. The different sections within the book for cupcakes includes... Low-Faff, Mid-Faff, High-Faff (I do love these names) as well as savoury and seasonal cupcakes.

I love the 'Basic no-mucking around cupcakes' to 'Cupid's cupcakes' which use a lot more detail for the Valentine's Day theme. Other cupcakes she includes in the sweet section are coffee and walnut, mocha cupcakes, mascarpone cupcakes, battenburg cupcakes (yes cupcakes with mini looking battenburg cakes as decorations which are actually just dolly mixtures... clever!) and many more. In Kate's savoury section (which isn't my cup of tea of cupcakes but each to their own)... these include a range from 'Courgette, Feta and Spring Onion' cupcakes to 'Bacon - and - Egg' cupcakes... very bizarre indeed. The seasonal cupcakes include ones such as 'Chirpy - chirpy - cheep - cheep' cupcakes (obviously Easter themed cupcakes with chicks on the front) and others such as, wedding fruit cake cupcakes. So Kate really has collated a huge range of different types of cupcakes in which I think there is a cupcake for everybody!

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OVERALL
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Overall I would say that I absolutely love this book and the cupcakes I have made so far have turned out perfectly, however, I have played it safe so far with butterfly cakes and chocolate cream cupcakes. I do not think I will bother with the high-faff decorating of cakes. I think it would take me hours. However, if I were to bake cakes for a specific occasion I may be more inclined to look more into the presentation of the icing etc.
A great book retailing at £7.99 from most retailers. However, Whsmiths are selling it online for £5.59 and Amazon at the lowest price I have seen at £4.88 plus free delivery. I think it is an excellent cupcake cook book for that price and a lovely present for somebody who loves to cook and bake.