I have a confession to make: I am not the cook in my family. My husband can whip up delicious meals in seconds. I can follow a recipe and have a handful of favourites that I call on regularly (very regularly). So, I had hoped that my husband would road test this book with our daughter and I could simply report back on the results.
But he refused. Apparently if I was going to write the review then I had to be co-chef. Mmm, a possible recipe for disaster.
Cookies & Cakes is all about party food and sweet treats. Recipes range from Toffee Apple Cupcakes to Bumble Bee Jars (a decadent concoction of vanilla cake, honey and meringue). We chose Sprinkle Lamingtons as our test recipe.
The ingredients were basic items that we already had in our pantry — no fancy shopping required. The steps were clear and easy to follow (for this adult as well as my seven-year-old!). I was able to stand back and let my daughter do the vast majority of the work all by herself, only stepping in to get the cake in and out of the oven and then cut it up into cubes. We created a quite extraordinary amount of mess coating our lamginton cubes in chocolate and then rolling them in sprinkles, but the clean up was tasty!
Verdict: this is a great book to get kids baking. My daughter now has her sights set on the Cherry Coconut Slice. As an added bonus, the paper is thick and coated in a gloss laminate that made it easy to wipe off the odd splat of batter and drip of chocolate. And there are more books in the series, too, including Summer Treats and Sweet Surprises.
Title: Cookies & Cakes!
Author: Cherise Pagano
Photographer: Greg Elms
Publisher: Five Mile Press, $12.95 RRP
Publication Date: June 2015
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9781760063429
For ages: 7+
Type: Cookbook
