I've never met a cookbook I didn't like. That said, I've never met a cookbook I'd like to have an affair with... until now! Sweet & Vicious (Oh how I do so love the title) is just that kind of a cookbook - I absolutely loved it!

Infused with Libbie Summers' humor and peppered with wonderful personal anecdotes, Sweet & Vicious offers recipes that take you a little out of your comfort zone - that make you a little less timid, a little more adventurous. They beg you to test your limits just ever so slightly - or sweetly... These recipes dare you to have fun, to enjoy, to be a little risky -or risque... It's a book you not only want to look at, but you will want to read - the back stories to many of these recipes are wonderful.

Accompanied by eye popping photographs by Chia Chong, Libbie tempts us, chides us and humors us with creative takes on traditional treats. Sweet & Vicious: Baking with an Attitude welcomes you to the unexpected with layers that are sweet and complex. Sweet & Vicious encourages you to be fearless by flavoring your recipes in a way that makes them more personal and more provocative. She encourages you to have fun, to be sentimental, to charm everyone including your pets, with a fabulous selection of baked in a section specifically for your pooches.

Sweet & Vicious is about exploring, about having and adventure and most of all it's about having fun!

Try your hand at one of the many recipes including:

Hot and Heavy Baby Cakes with Kiss Me Frosting
Sunday Morning Panettone Muffins

Virgin Cake (Gluten free)

Post Coital Pie
Eyes Wide Shut Bread
Monet's Favorite Sandwich
Cake Scrap Cookies and
Backhanded Compliment Cookies

Learn tricks to decorate and trim your pie crusts

Salty Pumpkin Spice Cake

Girly Girl Lavender Cake

Bridge and Tunnel Cheesecake

Salvation Cinnamon Rolls

Meatball Muffins

Pull Apart Boy Bread

Libbie Summers

Many thanks to Rizzoli for providing me with a copy for review.

All photographs property of Rizzoli International Publications and Chia Chong

Sweet & Vicious is available for purchase in the United States and Canada. To obtain your copy click here.

BUT before you go anywhere or do anything else, including purchasing this book, you MUST watch this Youtube video! She has her own channel and her short and sweet videos are worth a look-see!

Now, won't you excuse me please... I think it's time to get steamy in my kitchen!

Tom Dixon

In my mind as long as I have a great book, great food and a great kitchen I'm in heaven! If I can't have the latter, give me a great book and great food. I love books - I don't have the time I once did to completely lose myself in them, but I love them nonetheless. Give me a great story where I can lose myself in the plot, admire the scenery and fall in love with the characters. Or give me a book filled with beautiful photographs, that I can savor and enjoy. Or give me a cookbook. Give me a cookbook that I can read from front to back and all over again. With pages that are marked from notes in pencil or flagged with bits of paper to mark my favorite recipes or recipes that I must try... or marked from spatterings of whatever dish it is I am making or wine I am pouring. I love beautiful, image-filled cookbooks, as well as the instructional, informational varieties a la Fanny Farmer, Julia Child and Joy of Cooking. In my mind, I've created my own kitchen library. Mine would have copious amounts of books, and of course a library ladder - No library is complete without a ladder!

One day I was scouring various websites for images for an article I was writing and I came across the image above. There isn't a thing I don't love. The lighting is fantastic, isn't it?! But look at the shelving with all the books. Isn't it positively magnifique? I am sure I would spend 95% of my day in that very room! From that image I was inspired to find others. I will one day have my own kitchen library. I will lend you my books... as soon as I find a beautiful old card catalogue!