Cake Days: The Hummingbird Bakery is an absolute joy if you love all things sweet. Full of indulgent cakes, whoopie pies and cupcakes extraordinaire, it has elevated the art of bakery to a new level at home.

This is the second book from the legendary London bakery that first opened in Portobello Road and is now delighting new customers in Kensington and Soho, introducing them to the joys of authentic American baking.

Owner Tarek Malouf believed that “indulgent cakes and bakes were virtually non existent” in London when he opened in 2004.

So expect serious sweetness on each beautifully designed page… his sweet-and-salty chocolate cake has a salty caramel icing that gives it the edge, and his maple and pecan layer cake is even iced with a maple syrup icing.

Slightly less indulgent but big on flavour is his pistachio loaf, and big on impact is the blood orange cheesecake with its red jellied topping.

Whoopie pies feature all over the place in chapters dedicated to Halloween, rainy day treats and of course, Christmas, Easter and Valentine’s Day.

Cake Days is published by Harper Collins, and is available for R300 at bookstore countrywide.

CAKE DAYS ON YOUR IPHONE

If you have an iPhone or iPad, you can get the book as a downloadable app too.