I was watching reruns of Kid’s Baking Championship, and I think it might have inspired me to pick up a kids baking book off the library shelf. bake it also happens to be a DK book, and I’ve usually had good luck with DK instructional stuff.
Being a kids book, and thus more basic assumptions of skill and knowledge, it makes sense that there are a lot of images of techniques for decorating, as well as preparing doughs, batters, fillings, etc. What I don’t quite get though is the rating system. Recipes can be rated between one cupcake (easy) to four cupcakes (hard/technical). How is a basic layer cake with frosting and some colored smears as decoration harder (4 cupcakes) than a lemon meringue pie (3 cupcakes)? Pie dough is harder than cake batter; lemon curd is a little tricky, and meringue is definitely touchier than a basic butter cream frosting. Likewise, how are strawberry and cream macarons the same level of difficulty as a sable (French-y shortbread) cookie? A standard rye bread is the same difficulty (3 cupcakes) as pretzels? Brownies do not equal pavlova in terms of degree of difficulty (but both are two cupcakes), and why are bagels on the same level given that they require extra steps and time for things like the brief boil?
That said, this is a good baking book, and it is genuinely kid-friendly. This is a great one for the more ambitious kid, or even a beginner adult, to let them know they probably can do these kinds of supposedly fancy or challenging recipes. I still don’t get the ratings system though. Why are cinnamon rolls and fruit sticky rolls, which are basically exactly the same thing just different fillings, different levels of difficulty? Is it the raisins? Seriously, there has got to be something I am not getting about what is supposed to be harder versus easier.
I also kind of wonder why we don’t teach the kids how to both knead by hand and use the stand mixer. Both work equally well. You should know how the hand-feel is throughout that process to know when you want to stop the mixer when you’re big enough to handle one of those. And I would think someone who is expected to be able to follow the steps to make a Cornish pastie (including knife work) would be ready for a Kitchen Aid assist. While not all kitchens have those things, a lot do, and especially if we’re training the next kid reality tv baking show contestant, shouldn’t they know how to operate that level of equipment? If you’ve gotten your kid this book, odds are, you’re the kind of parent who has that kind of kitchen. Especially considering the ”how to do Instagram photo shoots with your results” bit at the end, the target audience for this particular book is the Kitchen-Aid and Vita-Mix having kind of adult wanting their kids to appreciate the culinary and the self promotion at the same time; not criticizing here by the way; my own social media feeds definitely feature baking and other kitchen endeavors.