So I got two books in the mail because hey, Christmas is coming. (For all you non-Christmas observers, that is the holiday I celebrate – call whatever holiday you choose to observe in order for your gift giving.) The book is written by Michele Chen Chock who is the blog creator person for I Heart Baking!. Looking at her blog, I see why they picked her. Michele writes not only about the cookie, but the event around it, and a picture of a step-by-step process so that you don’t go into “ur doing it wrong”.
These are both from the Hello Kitty series. Apparently, Hello Kitty is as much of a multitasker than Barbie and apparently they have degrees and certification in everything. Hooray because I get told constantly that one must specialize in order to blossom and we could make creative allegories about cherry trees bearing good fruit – but I’m way too tired for that now.
Anyway, the first one I’ll review is the Hello Kitty Baking Book because “girls” love to cook and bake cute things because it’s what we do and according to Sanrio, she’s a little girl. Yes. Really. Although, the disconnection of Hello Kitty’s ethnicity and the people who created her is epic. They made her the Japanese Tourism Ambassador even though she’s British. But okay, we’re fine with little inconsistencies like that as long as it’s cute. I could go on and on about it but we’re going to review cute books, so let’s do that and not digress.
Courtesy from the kitchn
First of all, the overall appearance. I think looking at it makes me want to eat the crap out of Hello Kitty. I mean, LOOK AT IT. Her head is in all sorts of deliciousness: macaroons, frosted cookies, cake pops, and muffins. (I am a bit picky about the muffins and cookies admittedly. If the frosting sucks and the cookies super crunchy, then it’s over for me.)
So being somewhat of an amateur chef myself and a foodie, I did take a look at the recipes and it seems instructional enough. Sometimes I hate it when chefs go “Oh yeah, add these ingredients”, but don’t give you indicator of measurement time, and procedure for each ingredient. At least the book does it well. I’ll probably be posting at a later date like the “Pintrest NAILED IT” memes.
On recipe in particular is Hello Kitty French Macaroons. I look at the pictures, but there are good suggestions of how to decorate. You don’t need to buy specialized Hello Kitty paraphernalia in order to make her bow and facial features. Of which, I find helpful that Michele suggested to have edible food markers and using two heart sprinkles to make the bow. What is also nice is that she suggests different flavorings like jam and chocolate filled macaroons to mix it up. Also, if you want to make her sister, Mimmy, then you can use two yellow hearts as bows on the other ear. (That’s for us hardcore Hello Kitty fans that know EVERYTHING about her.)
I so am gonna eat yo face.
In short, my first impressions of the book is that it’s enormously pink and cute. That draws you in especially if you love Hello Kitty and have an almost diabetic sweet tooth. However, the recipes I saw weren’t “kidded down” – rather they were actual recipes that weren’t omitting anything important. I’m actually surprised by the quality of this book. The regrettable trend at times with franchised material is that they half-ass the product (print or anything else) so you’re just buying a bunch of pictures pasted over a crappy instructional book. Not this book. I’m quite impressed as Hello Kitty can fall into that category with some of her products. However, I’m glad that they took the time for this one.
