Review: Eat Me! by Xanthe Milton

Eat Me! by Xanthe Milton

Buy It Now: from Amazon
from Barnes & Noble

Genre: Cookbook/Baking
Description: French Toast Cupcakes, Pistachio Lime Cupcakes, White Russian Cupcakes, Lavender Heart Cookies—the wonderful world of Cookie Girl combines fairytale themes with the glamour of cocktail hour

Cupcakes are incredibly fashionable—and Cookie Girl’s unique and delectable creations combine the sexy sophistication of cocktail hour with pure sensual indulgence. Divided by season, this collection features Lemon and Elderflower Cupcakes and Passion Fruit Sandwiches to celebrate spring, Tiramisu Cupcakes and Blueberry Cloud to cool off in summer, Pumpkin Cupcakes and Bloody Hand Cookies for fall festivities, and for winter, Christmas Spice Cupcakes and Snowdrift Shortbread. Lastly, the perfect party treats include Jack Daniel’s Cupcakes, Pina Colada Cupcakes, and Bollywood Cupcakes. With 80 recipes and lush design and photography, readers will be licking buttercream off their fingers for a long time to come.

This review is based on a copy I bought myself.

Lady-T’s Review:

There are few things currently more painfully trendy than a fussy little gourmet cupcake. You know them, you’ve seen them, people are obsessed with them and bakeries everywhere are rubbing their hands in glee because they can charge a fortune for them compared to the same amount of regular sheet cake. It’s pretty much a win/win for the bakeries, but a little less so for the crafty geek short on pocket change but hankering for treats.

Obvious answer, of course: Make your own. There are shelves and shelves of recipe books dedicated to the humble cupcake and seemingly everyone has an opinion on how to do it properly. My favourite of these offerings however (and trust me, I have read a few), is Eat Me! The Stupendous, Self-Raising World Of Cupcakes & Bakes According to Cookie Girl by Xanthe Milton.

It has got, self-evidently, a stupidly long title but try not to be put off by the shocking pink cover or rambling preface to each seasonally-inspired chapter. The packaging may be overly fluffy but the contents are solid.

The main focus is fairly obviously on cupcakes, but there’s actually a pretty good selection of cookies, tray-bakes and various other bits and pieces included along side. The instructions are certainly clear enough for beginners but they also leave plenty of space for experimentation if you’re feeling adventurous, which is an option I always value quite highly when it comes to unleashing my inner culinary nerd.

The candy-coloured photography is lavish and the ideas are definitely hunger-inducing. More importantly though, the contents actually work. I’ll admit, I have not tried every recipe in the book, that would be a substantial undertaking as it’s a pretty chunky collection, but so far the things I have attempted have all been successful. The toffee pecan cupcakes in particular have earned an affectionate domestic re-naming as “Death Cakes” and one particularly enthusiastic family member succeeded in gorging himself on nearly two dozen oat & caramel cookies before anyone managed to stop him. Around these parts, that’s as high as praise gets.

The only caveat I will mention is that it’s a British-targeted book so, while all the measurements are listed in both grams and ounces, the baking temperatures are all in Celsius so you might need a converter if your oven is measured in Fahrenheit. Additionally there may be some ingredients that will prove to be a little harder to source outside of the UK. Chocolate-filled British Smarties, Caramac bars and elderflower cordial could all prove challenging to locate, but the majority of the recipes are generic enough for this to be the exception rather than the rule. In most cases suitable alternatives could probably be scrounged up with a little ingenuity. (Chocolate M&Ms for example, make a passable substitute for Smarties and butterscotch chips will usually work in place of Caramac. You’re on your own trying to find an alternative for elderflower cordial though.)

Eat Me! Is quickly becoming one of my kitchen staples and I’ve had some surprisingly impressive results from a book that at first glance I would have dismissed for looking quite agonisingly insubstantial. Ultimately if muffin pans and stand-mixers make your inner geek frightfully excited then there are few better ways to dirty up those Star Wars oven mitts than with a batch or two of these tasty, tasty little treats.