Learn to bake with Britain's favourite women's fiction author, Marian Keyes

I looked at the impressive stack of Saved by Cake at the Village Bookshop in Matakana on Friday and said to myself, how on a minute Marian Keyes is a highly popular fiction author not a cookery writer. Then I read the inside cover blurb-

Saved by Cake gives an extremely honest account of Marian Keyes' recent battle with depression, and how baking has helped her. A complete novice in the kitchen, Marian decided to bake a cake for a friend and that was it - she realized that baking was what she needed to do in order to get her through each day. And so she baked, and she wrote her recipes down, and little by little the depression has started to lift, along with her sponges . . .

With chapters on cupcakes, cheesecakes, meringues and macaroons, chocolate cakes, fruit cakes and favourite classics, Marian's recipes are aimed firmly at beginner bakers, offering hints and tips to help along the way. Never patronizing, always honest and witty, accessible and full of fun, the bakes and cakes that Marian serves up in this cookbook will put a smile on your face and make you happy. From her Consistently Reliable Cupcakes and Very Chocolately Macaroons, to the ease of her Fridge-set Honeycomb Cheesecake, you will want to have a go at making all of Marian's recipes. The shoe and handbag biscuits particularly. Very covetable. Very Marian.

It is a beautiful, quite girly book, (lots of pink), and most attractive with every recipe illustrated in fine full colour photographs. And a snip at $37 for a hardcover book, it will make a great gift for any baker friends and family. Or for new bakers like me who, like Marian have found that baking is good for the soul. I can recommend the Rocky Road Cake, (admittedly it is a no-bake cake but everyone loves it).Keyes trademark humour is noticeable throughout this most appealing book.

About the author:

Marian Keyes is the UK's most popular writer of women's fiction. Her international best-selling novels include Rachel's Holiday, Last Chance Saloon, Sushi for Beginners, Angels, The Other Side of the Story, Anybody Out There, This Charming Man and The Brightest Star in the Sky. Two collections of her journalism, Under the Duvet and Further Under the Duvet, are also available from Penguin.
Marian lives in Dublin with her husband.

Publisher - Michael Joseph
RRP - $37.00 - Hardback