We’re all huge Pusheen fans here at SCK and I was excited to see creator Claire Belton was working on a Pusheen cookbook with baker Susanne Ng. Susanne’s bakes on Instagram are always incredible and the book was certain to be super sweet and adorable so I picked up a copy to review.
Let’s Bake promises to be “the ultimate cookbook for Pusheen fans and cat lovers alike” and my first impressions were really good as it’s thick book with 40 recipes for sweet treats and savoury snacks, all shaped and decorated to look like our favourite lazy kitty.
The book is split into 5 sections with Cookies & Sweets, Desserts, Pastries, Cakes, and Breads & Breakfast. Every recipe has a full colour photo with super cute styling and there’s lots of Pusheen illustrations too.
There’s a wide range of recipes and flavours for all different skill levels, from easy to difficult, and lots of different ways to include Pusheen. Some have faces piped on while other are shaped like Pusheen’s face or a full 3D character. Sadly I don’t think any are vegan, and most would be difficult to adapt unless you’re experienced with vegan baking. You could still use the decorating templates and tips with similar vegan recipes or store-bought treats.
The instructions are detailed too with lots of steps and tips, and include both metric and imperial measurements. There’s also plenty of photos to help you with the different steps, though these are quite small.
Most helpful of all is the templates section at the end with full size Pusheens to copy and trace. That also includes templates to make Pusheen-shaped baking trays out of foil, which is a clever idea.
The recipes mostly use ingredients that are easy to find but it’s a different matter when it comes to tools and equipment. I really wanted to try a recipe for this review but almost everything requires a piping bag and/or electric mixer. You could mix by hand but it would take so much longer, and I know from experience that a bag with the corner snipped off is not an ideal replacement for icing small details. I did consider trying the pizza or pastry with readymade dough so maybe I’ll still do that soon.
However, if you have the equipment, the recipes look very accessible. I’m not a particularly experienced baker but I felt like I could manage quite a lot of these recipes. Many of the medium skill recipes – like the roll cake above – are easier than they look and broken down into manageable steps.
If you do a lot of baking, or love doing detailed crafts like polymer clay charms, decoden or candy kits, then there’s some really fun projects to get stuck into, including steamed buns, pizza, ice cream, panna cotta and some very impressive cakes!
Overall, I’d mainly recommend this book to Pusheen and kawaii fans who have a well-equipped kitchen and love to tackle new baking projects. But it’s also a lovely book to look through so would make a great gift for any Pusheen fan to add to their bookshelf, even if they never make anything. I also think many of the recipes look really interesting and I might try some later without worrying about making them look like Pusheen.
Let’s Bake! is out now worldwide and available from Amazon as both a print book and ebook (UK / USA), or you can order through your local bookstore. I’d recommend the print book for all the lovely details but the ebook would be handy for the kitchen if you have a tablet.
What do you think? Will you be picking up a copy?
This is not a sponsored review but Super Cute Kawaii does work with Pusheen & Pusheen Box on other sponsored content.
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