Review: Cupcakes, Cookies, and Pie, Oh My!

Today I’m bringing you a review of Cupcakes, Cookies, and Pie, Oh My! by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson. You’ve probably seen their work in previous books such as Hello Cupcake and What's New Cupcake?

This book is all about decorating with little focus on actual recipes, so it doesn’t matter if you buy a cake mix or opt to bake from scratch. The last chapter does provide recipes, but most are taking premade mixes (cake mix, cookie dough, etc) and doctoring a tad bit to make semi-homemade.



Decorating is definitely a baking skill I need to improve upon. I can’t even begin to think about coming up with such creative ideas, such as pot pie cupcakes, stacking cupcakes for a birthday cake, or high heel shoe cupcakes.



I decided to do a variation of Karen’s and Alan's idea. They had sugar cookies cut out and decorated to look like donuts, but that wasn’t enough. No, they took it one step further and cut out a notch to hang on your coffee mug. How cool is that? At first I was going to replicate the recipe exactly with the donuts and spice dough (except homemade). Then I thought well Valentine’s Day is coming up – maybe I’ll do chocolate hearts instead. THEN it hit me – why not red velvet cookies (that post will be later ;) )




I give this book 4 out of 5 stars because I’m not sure if I’ll ever find use for everything, like pot pie cupcakes or bandage cookies (that actually grossed me out). I recommend this book to those who go for more of a visual appeal, like farm cupcakes for a birthday party or monsters for a Halloween bash. Of course if you have no intention of being whimsy and just want to bake a delicious cupcake, this isn’t for you (although I do suggest finding it at a store and just browsing the pictures).