Baking Kids Love [Hardcover]

Sur La Table (Author), Cindy Mushet (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 8 and up | Grade Level: 3 and up

Ready, set, bake! Baking is fun, a great way to connect with kids, and the results are delicious. Whether you're slathering fluffy, white frosting over a decadent chocolate cake, or forming soft ropes of dough into creative shapes, time spent together in the kitchen creates memories that last a lifetime. Both young and old love a warm surprise when it comes out of the oven. Baking Kids Love brings the magic of baking alive through thirty delicious recipes, designed for 8 to 12-year-olds, that are totally a blast to make--and eat!

Baking instructor Cindy Mushet and her daughter Bella team up with cookware authority Sur La Table to carefully guide kids through the experience of creating awesome masterpieces in the kitchen. Step-by-step instructions for key steps (along with Bella's personal comments about the recipes), inventive variations, and colorful photography complete the book. Popovers magically rising into puffy, golden pillows, and gooey, warm cheese melting over the sides of a crispy pizza crust--these are just a few of the surprises waiting to be enjoyed in this book. So roll up your sleeves, get a little flour on your hands, and warm your stomach with a treat while sharing a smile. Baking Kids Love is baking that both kids and adults will love.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This book is colorful and has ring-bound thick pages for easy turning and cleaning off spills. It is packed with crowd-pleasing sugar-laden desserts and fun decorating ideas. Most recipes also have little notes with cooking tips or alternate ingredients." --The Wall Street Journal, December 26, 2009

"Cindy Mushet's "Baking Kids Love" is a definite stand-out. The author has done an incredible job putting together a collection of infallible recipes that will appeal to every kid in your life - big and small (and adults too). " --Project Foodie

"[Pastry chef (and award-winning cookbook author) Cindy Mushet and her 11-year-old daughter Bella Robinson] teamed to create Mushet's latest book, "Baking Kids Love". Bella loves to bake and her youthful voice is captured in every recipe, her words creatively displayed in squiggle-sided boxes. Her comments include insights from personal experience, helpful tips and even ideas for making clean-up amusing." --The Orange County Register

About the Author

Chefs and home cooks with a love for baking have flocked to this culinary mecca since it first opened in 1972. With a successful direct-mail catalog, e-commerce site, cooking class program, and more than 70 stores coast to coast, Sur La Table continues to share its passion for the traditions and tastes of the world with people who love to cook and entertain. Recognizing the importance of nurturing petite chefs, Sur La Table offers gear and cooking classes designed just for kids. Sur La Table entices aficionados and curious beginners alike with its amazing selection of cookware and tools. The original store and headquarters are in Seattle, Washington.

Cindy Mushet is the author of The Art and Soul of Baking, which won the IACP Cookbook Award for Baking, received a nomination from The James Beard Foundation, and was chosen by Gourmet magazine as a book club selection. She has been a professional pastry chef and baking instructor for over twenty years. Her recipes have appeared in numerous publications, including Bon Appetit, Fine Cooking, Country Home, the National Culinary Review, the New York Times, and The 150 Best American Recipes (2006). Her first book, Desserts: Mediterranean Flavors, California Style, was published in 2000. Inspired by her daughter Bella, Cindy has taught baking to many children, both in school classrooms and in summer baking camps. A fun and engaging teacher, Cindy has also taught thousands of adults nationwide. She makes her home in the Los Angeles area.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 8 and up
  
• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing; Spi edition (September 15, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0740783459
• ISBN-13: 978-0740783456
• Product Dimensions: 10.6 x 8.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (52 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #167,204 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #46 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Regional & International > European > Mediterranean

More About the Author

Cindy Mushet has been a pastry chef and culinary instructor for nearly 20 years, beginning her career at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, CA. She has since headed pastry kitchens in restaurants and bakeries from Napa to San Diego and has taught professional training courses at Le Cordon Bleu, the Culinary Institute of America, and the New School of Cooking, among others. She has also taught hundreds of recreational classes across the country.

For five years she wrote and published the highly regarded Baking With the American Harvest, a quarterly baking journal with subscribers nationwide and was a contributing writer to The Joy of Cooking, The Joy of Cooking Christmas Cookies, and The Baker's Dozen Cookbook. Cindy's recipes and articles have been featured in magazines and newspapers across the country, including Bon Appetit, Fine Cooking, Gourmet, Country Home, and The New York Times. In addition, her recipes were among the few to be chosen for The Best American Recipe books.

Cindy lives in Los Angeles, where she is a patisserie chef-instructor in Le Cordon Bleu program at the California School of Culinary Arts, and she consults regularly with restaurants and bakeries on menu development and staff training. Cindy is a regular guest on KCRW's Good Food radio show. She has been a spokeswoman for the American Butter Institute and a guest chef at food conferences across the country.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nicely done, 3 1/2 stars, September 27, 2009

By 

Mom of Sons (Buffalo, NY) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Baking Kids Love (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

I wish Amazon didn't consider 3 stars a negative review because this is not a negative review. I consider 3 stars average, and I give this nice book a slightly better than average grade of 3 1/2 stars.

Why not five stars? A few reasons. For instance, the pictures are great, but there isn't a photo of every recipe, a big mistake in a book for kids. And in many cases the picture of the dish is on the next page - not where the recipe starts. Also a mistake in a book for kids.

Which brings me to my big question: is this a book for kids or isn't it? I don't think the publishers could decide, either. It isn't written "down" to kids' level, and although the first "rule" listed is to not make everything complicated and just enjoy the process, the rest of the "rules" go on for two pages. Very adult-oriented.

But the colors are kid-appealing, and there's that "kids" in the title. And the author's darling daughter is in most photos, as are other kids.

So it's a book for kids with an adult cooking with them, I think.

About the recipes: nice, good, but nothing groundbreaking, unless you think adding crushed cornflakes to chocolate chip cookies makes them a whole new dessert.

Recommendation: A nice enough book, and very attractive. But only a 3 1/2 star rating, because nothing really distinguishes this book from the thousands of other cookbooks out there.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Let the Baking Begin!, November 18, 2009

By 

Jessica Hazlewood (Northern California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Baking Kids Love (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

I am a sucker for a cookbook to use with kids. Some of my favorite moments with my children are when we are all wrapped in aprons, covered in flour, and licking a spoon. This latest book from Sur la Table, Baking Kids Love, offers up just the right recipes to get you and your kids in the kitchen. It is very (very) similar to Williams Sonoma Kids Baking, and if you own that then you probably don't need this...unless you're like me and like to have choices. It has the same features as that title which I think are absolutely necessary for baking with children: 1) spiral bound so the pages lie nice and flat so everyone can see the instructions, 2) ingredients and tools are listed separately at the beginning of each recipe so you can make sure you have everything you need before you get started, 3) nicely paced and numbered directions (so everyone knows what's happening) and, 4) a nice mix of easy and slightly more complex recipes so that this cookbook can last even after they graduate from needing your assistance in the kitchen.

Kids love being in the kitchen, but cooking is so much harder--it involves sharp knives, hot pans, steaming water, and a host of other things that your pre-schoolers' through elementary aged children are probably not as able to navigate. Baking offers a wonderful way to spend time with your children, sneakily teach them math and cultural awareness, and helping them toward becoming more self-sufficient. Cindy Mushet's intro to this book frames this nicely, and she carries that idea about baking with children through her book. If you're ready to get in the kitchen with your children, or know a child or parent who is, then you can't miss with this book. Let the baking begin!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars KIDS WILL LOVE IT AND SO WILL YOU !, September 19, 2009

By 

Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Baking Kids Love (Hardcover)

This book is a prime idea if there ever was one! Well remembered are the days when my Mom brought me into the kitchen intent upon my learning the basics of food preparation. Regrettably, little of it took - perhaps because I was assigned to peeling, paring, chopping detail.

With this bright, fun cookbook young ones take an active part in the total preparation of 30 kid-friendly, tempting recipes. They'll prepare cookies, pies, tarts, fruit desserts, quick bread, cakes, and yeast breads. Now, these aren't just ordinary cookies or cakes. But some cookies are so colorful and shapely you almost hesitate to bite into them. Budding artists may decorate them with sprinkles, sugar pearls, large crystal sugar, dragees plus candies if they wish. Cakes and cupcakes are presented with equal flair - decked out in swirls of frosting, even with cherries on top!

Especially helpful is an opening "Notes To Adults" - my favorite reminder here is "It's food, not world peace. Memories are made and lessons are learned even when disaster strikes." Kids will enjoy and connect with the comments from Cindy Mushet's 11-year-old daughter, Bella, such as "My favorite part about making cookies is eating them warm." or "I like decorating cakes because I can swipe a taste of frosting when no one is looking."

Both practical and palate-pleasing Baking Kids Love is spiral bound for easy reading when cooking, recipes are step-by-step numbered, and the book is printed on sturdy paper that sponged off easily when I mislaid a few drops!

Enjoy!

- Gail Cooke