I recently went and purchased some recipe books (I
actually don’t have a single recipe book in my house)… I ended up picking this one up, which I thought looked very interesting and appealed to the beginner baker in me.
As you can see from the cover, this recipe book is aimed at the younger female audience. One of the things that I liked about this recipe book is the
size. It is small and light, making it extremely portable. I can imagine
young bakers bringing this out and about, sharing recipes with each other.
This recipe book has a cute and pretty design. From the cover we see a range of stickers such as butterflies, hearts, flowers and a bow. Each page has a brightly coloured border with polka dots which appeals greatly to the younger audience. The font used throughout is fairly curved, adding an element of fun throughout.
Before the bakers are given the recipes, there are a few very informative pages (which I'm sure even I will benefit from).
The introduction itself says "Discover how much fun you can have in the kitchen with this wonderful cookbook..." I find that the mentioning of "fun" is clever in persuading children to start cooking from a young age. They won't see it as a chore, but something to enjoy and improve on.
There are then some 'Golden Rules' which cover the important parts such as hygiene and safety. This will make sure children know the important basics when it comes to cooking and will hopefully stick with them.
'Techniques' and 'Useful Utensils' are both equally important. The young bakers are given a simple description of how to use the techniques mentioned throughout the recipe book.
After these informative pages, the bakers are then presented with both sweet and savoury recipes. I chose to look at the 'Strawberry Tartlet'.
As we can see from the image above, each recipe comes with a very clear and close up image of the finished product. Not only does this give the young baker a sense of what they should be creating, but also helps them learn the names of it, if they see it anywhere else.
There is a bar across the top of each recipe stating the difficulty, preparation time, how many servings and cooking time. A star rating system is used to measure the difficulty of each recipe which is easier for young bakers to understand. A clock is used for the cooking time which I find educational- it will help the bakers improve their clock reading skills.
Ingredients, Method and To Garnish are all clearly split up. There are different types of measurements shown eg. grams / cups / ounces to fit personal preference. For the methods throughout, it states that an adult should be present. Although this is mentioned in the 'Golden Rules' it is a helpful reminder for the young bakers. Finally, there is always a 'Top Tip' for each recipe, giving the bakers a bit of extra advice and other options for flavouring.
Although this recipe book is clearly aimed at a younger audience, I personally think that it is something I would actually use- I find it informative and educational. Also, I genuinely find the font and colour choices very appealing.
