Financiers, a traditional French cake; photos from 'Small Cakes' © Sian Irvine
The first surprise you get when looking through this book is that quite a few of the recipes are not, in fact, for particularly small cakes!
There’s a very proud looking Dundee cake (one of several recipes made in 16cm diameter tins), and even a 26cm chocolate cheesecake, for example. But this is only a slight quibble, and I’d much rather emphasise that the recipes give very precise measurements (so a set of electronic scales would be useful) and clear instructions, and that many of them are quite short and simple. Add to that the clean photography by Sian Irvine, and a design which generally places recipe and photograph side-by-side, and you have a rather seductive – if at 64 pages rather slight - collection of baking recipes.
Dundee cake
However, in those pages, the book crams in a reasonable three dozen or so recipes in total, covering everything from those contemporary must-haves, cupcakes (with a range of vivid toppings, from peppermint cream cheese to classic buttercream), to raspberry & coconut buns, muffins, and classics like Bakewell tarts and Eccles cakes, not forgetting the Florentines and fondant fancies of the strap-line.
Something in the precision and method of the book tell you that it comes from the mind of a pastry chef, and I must express my pleasure at finally seeing a book by Roger Pizey, the Manchester-born baker who was once responsible for all the good things which filled the tiny Peyton & Byrne shop on London’s Tottenham Court Road (and also their cafe at the Wellcome Collection, round the corner on Euston Road), before he moved on to rejoin his old mentor Marco Pierre White at the latter’s new restaurant at Chelsea Football Club’s Stamford Bridge ground. Roger isn’t one of those “chefs” who has enjoyed overnight success, sprung on us by a TV company promoting cooking as a game show; he’s acquired skills and experience the hard way, working first for the Roux brothers and then MPW, before taking time out to help Oliver Peyton get his baking venture off the ground.
Profiteroles
He’s also proved himself as more than capable of passing these skills on – World Chocolate Award winner Paul A Young says “Roger Pizey taught me discipline, attention to detail and to work hard… It’s about being meticulously correct every time, which is the really difficult bit” – and this book brings his methodical approach to the average reader.
I’d happily recommend this book to any keen cake maker, but most of the recipes are so straightforwards that even a relative novice wouldn’t be out of their depth. A great first book, Roger; how about a follow-up with your Scotch egg and sausage roll recipes?
I’m not quite sure that I get the idea of a cookbook aimed at girls rather than children in general, but presumably the publishers had thought about this when choosing a title which excluded all those budding Jamies and Gordons in favours of the Delias and Nigellas.
