There is such thing as an addiction to cookbooks. There must be. And I am afraid I suffer rather terribly from the affliction. Books in general actually, we had to convert our playroom to the library in the house. There are 4 more bookcases in various locations around the house, and one of my walls is covered in shelving for books. Then there are the boxes. Well suffice it to say I love books. Cookbooks are possibly my favourite kind to find on sale, or on offer. I reread books many times (I’m not even going to tell you how often I’ve been through Harry Potter but it’s approaching treble figures now) but none so often as a good cookbook. So when I received the beautiful ‘Bake & decorate’ by Fiona Cairns, I was as happy as a pig in muck. As they say.

Now that I’m through my most difficult rotation of the year, I actually have the time to sit down and look through this and boy am I glad I do. The book is full of pictures, along with clear and concise stepwise instructions on how to create the prettiest cakes out of the most basic and great sounding recipes. The first part of the book has a host of cake and biscuit recipes that are then the basis of plenty of achievable decorated finished goods. I say achievable because often recipes in these decorate books are completely mad, and clearly aimed at master sugarcrafters. This book, however, doesn’t ask you to slave over a sugarpaste version of Michelangelo’s David, but rather it directs you to make super pretty cakes, impressive cupcakes and beautiful biscuits. If you’re out to impress your visitors and friends, I think this book is a great starting point. You can work upwards if you’re looking for anything extravagant, but the designs in this book range from ‘easy peasy’ to ‘ooooh, that looks amazing and yet so doable!’. The book will be published at the beginning of March, so keep an eye out. It retails at an altogether reasonable £12.99.