.
Dessert Designer: Creations You Can Make and Eat!
By Dana Meachen Rau
Capstone Young Readers
.
Back Cover: You can create amazing and delicious desserts. No baking required! Just pick up cupcakes, cookies, cakes, or candies from your local store. Then head to the kitchen with friends or family and get busy designing you dessert masterpiece. Follow our step-by step directions and use your design skills to make glitzy armadillos, gift-worthy cakes, super sweet sushi, and more edible art. Its delicious fun!
About the Book: Dessert Designs is not a cookbook. Dessert Designs is an art book that will have your child making edible creations for parties, sleepovers, holidays, and every day. No cooking or baking is required so there is no need to assist your child, unless you need a reason to join in the fun.
Dessert Designs begins with a wonderful section called Play with Your Food! This introduction and will explain how to use the book. Frosting is the only recipe needed. For most recipes store bought icing will work. If you are not a fan of this type of frosting, there is a simple recipe for general use frosting. Some recipes need frosting called Royal Icing. This special icing finishes with a smooth, glossy shell.
What I Thought: Dessert Designs is a fun book for middle grade and older kids who enjoy being creative. Anyone who likes constructing things from building blocks such as Legos, or enjoys painting and drawing will enjoy the creative edible projects in this fun and delicious book. Yesterday was National Cake Decorating Day, which would have been the perfect day to open Dessert Designs and get making something fantastic to look at and eat. Next year, I would love to post anything you make for this day, using this book.
The recipes remind me of three-dimensional puzzles. The only thing I would do differently would be to actually bake my own cakes, cookies, and cupcakes rather than use store bought. I think these recipes would make for a fun family outing right in your own dining room. Instead of frosting cookies, use those cookies to make Wise Old Owls, Fruit Slices, Flower Place Cards, or Monkey Arounds.
For animal lovers, like myself, there are Licorice Twist Butterflies, an Enchanting Peacock, Curled up Cozy Cats, and for the naughty, a special treat called In the Doghouse. I personally like the finished appearance of the Coaster Cake. It uses little teddy bear crackers for the riders, who sit in candy bar seats —fun-sized Mounds Bar—that roll on the track on necklace candy wheels. This is a really, dare I say, cool cake that will have everyone oohing and awing.
Dessert Designs contains fifty-one recipes for cakes, cookies, cupcakes, and candies. Every recipe has a color photograph so you can see what the finished item should look like. If you really want to get creative, I think it would be easy to add a unique touch. Dessert Designs is an unusual “children’s book” but it is a book kids will have an enormous amount of fun with and then can clean up simply by eating anything that remains. What a terrific idea Dessert Designs is for holidays, get togethers, or for tonight’s dinner. Enjoy!
.
Dessert Designer: Creations You Can Make and Eat! 
By Dana Meachen Rau website booklist
Capstone Young Readers website blog facebook twitter twitter2
Released February 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-62370-006-5
112 pages
Age 10 and up
.
© 2013 by Capstone Books, used with permission
Recipes copyright © 2013 by Dana Meachen Rau
Photographs copyright © 2013 by Capstone Studio/Karon Dubke
Capstone Young Readers is an imprint of Capstone Books.
.
.
Related articles
- Celebrate National Dessert Day With 4 Fall Recipes (news.health.com)
Kids Lit Review 
Pingback: #587 – Custom Confections: Delicious Desserts You Can Crete and Enjoy! by Jen Besel | Kid Lit Reviews
UMMMM! Yummmm! This looks like a great fun book!! But that stuff doesn’t look too dog friendly. I’d need to get the Mom Person to alter things somewhat to make them good for me!
LikeLike
Yeah, you need to watch out for chocolate. As nice as it looks and smells, for some reason dogs cannot eat it. Has really bad consequences, so stay away from chocolate. Spices are bad for you, too. Frosting will make you a fat boy. There is lots of sugar in all of it. No offense, because you are a great dog, but I sure would not want to be a dog. I love chocolate and spices. Icing, not so much. 🙂
LikeLike
I ate a whole chocolate cake once. Frosting and all. It was quite yummy! But the Mom Person was terribly distressed and made me throw it all up. That was not fun.
LikeLike
Great review! The pictures look amazing. Edible art that looks TOO good to eat! Cooking together with your kids is a wonderful way to create memories.
LikeLike
I used to cook with my nephew and it was great fun. He was a good little chef at 8 years old. I would love to do that again. Yep, great fun. 🙂
LikeLike
That is one of the more appetizing covers I’ve ever seen 🙂 I’ve always loved creative cake decorating and these look great!
LikeLike
I agree. I am not big on pink, but it does look delicious. I wonder if it is white or chocolate cake. 🙂
LikeLike
*NOTE TO SELF: Buy this book. Show with Mom and Aunt. Bake ingredients. DO THE PROJECTS!!!*
LikeLike
Showing your mother and your aunt will get the book bought? I bet just asking your aunt for it will get it in your hands pretty quick. I hope you enjoy your masterpieces. I’d ask you to send me one, but the mail is so slow it would be hard as tack. Have fun! 🙂
LikeLike
My Mom and Aunt like to bake. 🙂
LikeLike
Absolutely gorgeous….great for children who are reluctant eaters but creative designers!
LikeLike
Had not thought of that. Good point. Kids will eat what they make – most of the time, depending on what they added to their masterpiece. 🙂 It might take a patient parent to let kids make some of these delicious looking items. Yum. (I forgot to use that word, what are my reviews coming to?) 🙂 Thanks for stopping by and commenting.
LikeLike
This looks like a very fun book, esp. for kids and adults who like to play with their food. The peacock is adorable.
LikeLike
I didn’t get to chose the spreads (my own fault for not asking), and there are some absolutely adorable desserts, not that the above are not adorable. I loves the “In the Doghouse.” It has great colors and didn’t look too hard, yet was smart looking. Lots of cool things to do. I am so glad to see you again. 🙂 Do you have a site? Your name does not link to anything.
LikeLike
My website is: http://www.robinnewmanbooks.com and my blog is under “The Buzz.” Thanks so much for asking.
LikeLike
This book looks great! There really should not be an age limit on it, lol. I would love to see this in a bookshop window. Thanks for highlighting this one honey, I hadn’t heard of it. I could have so much fun with these designs! Yummy!
LikeLike
There is no age limit, unless you mean the age 10. But there is no reason a younger kid could not do these, with an adult around. I have never seen you here before. I’m glad this crazy dessert book brought you around. The possibilities of changing these designs to make them your own is endless. I hope you have fun with it. 🙂
LikeLike
Lol. I’ve stopped by before but my avatar was different (a cute picture of lots of cats!). I don’t read much Middle Grade, but I like to keep abreast of what’s on offer and your blog helps me do that – thank you! I’m an enthusiastic cook although my recipes don’t always turn out great, so I’ll look forward to trying some of these designs. 🙂
LikeLike
I like to cook and bake on occasion, but it is on occasion for a very good reason. 😆 I’m glad you stop by to check out MG and picture books, plus the occasional early readers. I know my reviews are much longer than is generally acceptable, but I like to point out what I think someone might want to know and I like to put some humor in there. I hope you stop by more often. I have kitties so I would, and probably did, love your former avatar. 🙂
LikeLike
I like a long review, as you say it means there’s no ‘elephant in the room’ that would bug someone when they pick up the book that way. Full disclosure is great, especially when you’re dealing with kid’s books. I miss my old Avatar, but I think my new one’s a bit more modern so I’ll stick with for a while longer. 🙂
LikeLike