February 28, 2017

Dessert Designer: Creations You Can Make and Eat

Capstone Young Readers: Grades 3-9. Create desserts that are treats for the eyes! Decorate like a pro with these fun ideas and tips to make amazing creations, such as a lollipop disco ball, nail polish bottle cake pops, alien cookies, and armadillo cupcakes. You may decide your creations are too awesome to eat!

Dessert Designer by Dana Meachen Rau is a fun, simplified baking book that is easy on the kids. It is a young readers nonfiction book geared for children grades 3 – 9. Rau is also the author of Food Revolution Series, grades 6-9 (Going Organic; Going Vegetarian; and Going Vegan) and the What’s Cooking Series of rebus books, grades K – 1 (Applesauce; Bread; Cake; Cookies; Ice Cream; and Pizza). Dessert Designer is also available in 4 smaller titles, broken down by chapter.

Bright pictures with easy-to-execute designs, the recipes call for little actual baking and focus on the decorating. Each chapter works on a different subject: Cupcakes; Cookies; Candies; and Cakes. This book focuses on ready-made purchased commercial items or plain cupcakes and cookies that are decorated. Examples of recipes include themed cupcakes, Oreo-style cookie projects, and quick candy projects that require no stove-top cooking – just putting different candies together.

While it is written for kids age 9 to 13, some of the projects should be left for the older kids, or even the adults, as they would be difficult to execute as shown in the book. My children are in that age group and have a working knowledge of basic baking techniques and would be able to pull it off (we do a lot of baking at home). But I think some children who have never picked up a pastry bag or spatula before might get frustrated.

Little to worry about though, this book runs the gamut of all levels of skill so any kid can pick and choose a dessert project just for them. The ingredients lists for all 51 recipes are short and mainly contain pantry items. With its colorful pictures and graphics, this was an enjoyable read for the kids at our home.

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