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Custom Confections: Delicious Desserts You Can Create and Enjoy

by Jen Besel

Capstone Young Readers      2014

978-1-62370-136-9

Age 9+     112 pages

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“Bake up surprises in cupcakes and cookies. Create custom desserts with ease. Or decorate all kinds of creative confections like a pro. Forty fun, simple recipes will have kids (and kids at heart) creating delicious desserts to devour! Step-by-step instructions and photos make red velvet cookies, black-and-white angel food cake, cheesecake stuffed strawberries, and more easy to achieve and tasty to eat. Sweetly simple, appetizingly fun!”

Review

Just in time for Father’s Day, Custom Confections gives the artistic baker in you—something every kid has somewhere, and eager to bake—40 recipes of beautiful desserts and snacks. I was without electricity most of the day, unable to bake anything, but if this dessert book is anything like Dessert Designer: Creations You Can Make and Eat, also by Capstone Young Readers, I can guarantee these desserts are as scrumptious as the pictures are delectable. Most are quick fixes, meaning kids still have time to create something special for dad. An easy cupcake recipe, The Sweetheart Cupcake, with a magical surprise, can express your love for dad in one bite.

Kids can find a different fun recipe for every week of summer. Custom Creations contains fun snacks for the entire family. Cake recipes are in the majority. For the bibliophile in your life bake the Pile of Books Cake. Five layers of cake, each made to look like a bestseller, with noticeable pages and luscious covers—Photoshop not needed.  If you like ice cream with your cake, and really, who doesn’t, the Striped Ice Cream Cake will satisfy your sweet tooth. A fun treat for those who enjoy popsicles is the Frosty Frozen Cakesicles individually prepared on a Popsicle sticks.

Every recipe has step-by-step instructions that are easy to understand and written without any extraneous information. To the side of the page is a list of ingredients and supplies needed for that particular recipe. No recipe requires unusual or strange tools kids have never seen. There may be a tool your child does not know how to use, which is where an adult comes in handy. It is also wise, depending on a child’s proficiency, for an adult to help turn ovens on to the correct temperature and help remove hot desserts from the oven. For those in the UK, the author included a conversion chart.

Photographs of each dessert clearly show the finished dessert, which is always helpful. For a delicate dessert, try making the Edible Flower Lollipops. Placed inside the clear homemade lollipops are pesticide-free, edible flowers from a florist. They look too good to eat. Cheesecake lovers will like Blueberry Cheesecake Tarts and the PB&J Cheesecake Brownies. On the last day of school, surprise that favorite teacher with a Mini Apple Cake, seeds included. My favorite, and the recipe I was planning to make, is the Molten Caramel Cake. Nothing is more luscious and creamy, or spruces up a dessert better, than a rich caramel. Mm, yum!

Middle grade and older kids, and adults, who like baking and using their creativity will like Custom Creations. Who can turn away a luscious, interesting dessert? Not me. Custom Creations is a nice addition to any cookbook collection. It also complements Dessert Designer:  Creations You Can Make and Eat also for middle grade kids by Capstone. The only thing missing is a nice index of the recipes. There are several tips and tricks, plus a few icing recipes that are simple to make located after the last recipe: a Hedgehog Cake made with buttercream frosting, rice treats, almonds, and a cake of any flavor. The hedgehog is a cute little creature looking too loveable to eat with his big milk chocolate candy eyes. Kids, lacking such sentimentality, will dig right in. Enjoy!

CUSTOM CONFECTIONS: DELICIOUS DESSERTS YOU CAN CREATE AND ENJOY! Recipes copyright © 2015 by Jen Besel. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Capstone Young Readers, North Mankato, MN.

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Buy Custom Creations at Amazon—B&N—Capstone—your local bookstore.

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Learn more about Custom Creations HERE

Meet the author, Jen Besel, at LinkedIn:   https://www.linkedin.com/pub/jennifer-besel/b/943/635

Find more books at the Capstone Young Readers website:   http://www.capstoneyoungreaders.com/

Capstone Young Readers is an imprint of Capstone

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Coming Soon from Jen Besel & Capstone Young Readers

Baking Bliss!: Baked Desserts to Make and Devour

Sweet Tooth!: No-Bake Desserts to Make and Devour

Sugarcoat It!: Desserts to Design, Decorate, and Devour

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