Hot on the heels of this blissful daydream came a sudden and constricting sense of fear. Despite my desire to the contrary, I am afraid that ultimately I will be unable to craft my cakes as well as Ms Porschen does. Her staggering attention to detail and the glorious perfection of her cakes are enough to confront me with the stone-cold wall of defeat and inadequacy.

It is often debated, and for good reason, whether books such as Cake Chic are intended to function as recipe books, or to grace well-dressed coffee tables. And while there is no doubt that Cake Chic would make a fantastic addition to any foodie’s collection of glossy hardbacks, can I imagine it propped up in my kitchen, coated with flour and smattered with egg, instructing me in the art of decorative cake-making? Not really.

Porschen runs her own cake company, which she started up having begun her career working for high-brow hotels and caterers. She now creates dazzling displays of cakemanship for a range of celebrity clientele, most famously Elton John and Stella McCartney. Cake Chic is her third book, and possibly her most delightful, offering wannabes the chance to impress with a fabulous selection, including Ice Crystal Cakes – complete with silver sugar pearls – or Best in Show biscuits and Couture Hat Boxes, which are at once extraordinarily intricate and somewhat ironic.

Cake Chic is every bit as well made as one of Porschen’s cakes. The rich, mouth-watering photos do marvellous justice to her creations and the recipes are simple to follow, provided one can make it through to the end (several recipes are an alarming three pages long). There is a section at the back with all you need to know about food colours, frostings and cake trays. The list of ‘basic equipment’ may read like a schoolboy’s receipt from the stationers, including as it does a ruler and scissors, but pomp and circumstance are necessary in this case; Porschen’s delicacies are laced with, nay, rely upon a rather significant dose of pretension.

The latest in a string of cookbooks more ‘book’ than ‘cook’, Cake Chic stands out on the basis of Porschen’s creativity and skill alone.