Cooking for Two for National Dessert Day

Happy National Dessert Day 2019!

I grew up with desserts but sometimes making a huge batch feels overwhelming to my household of three. So when I was offered Dessert Cooking for Two: 115 Perfectly Portioned Sweets for Every Occasion by Robin Donovan from the publisher for free, I jumped on the change. Maybe I could find a way to scale up to cover three people? Let's find out.

The cookbook has eight chapters in two parts.

Part One has two chapters looking at the basics before you tackle the recipes. While maybe not necessary reading it could be useful for newbie dessert makers.

Part Two has six chapters divided by dessert category that range from simple baked goods to frozen treats, to more complex pastries and pies. "Cupcakes and Cakes" has the most recipes. I love that each recipe immediately tells you want equipment you'll need at the top however it is also clear that not every kitchen will have all these tools so that cuts out some of the options. I also really love that there is a tip at the bottom of each recipe for how to make it slightly differently or to add other ingredients to it but I wish the tip was off to the side to make it more noticable.

I wish this cookbook had more photos or even drawings of the finished desserts or the steps to make it. There are a couple of photos at the front of the book and each of the eight chapters has a photo but it is a lot less than I am used to with cookbooks. The upside is that this keeps the price lower but a photo can be reassuring that I'm doing it right, too.

Now let's get to the chocolate recipes! One of the indexes is organized by "Fruity, Chocolatey, or Creamy" categories so finding chocolate treats is easy to do. A second index is "Just Egg White, Just Egg Yolk, Small Amount of Flour" organized so you may need to flip back and forth or you could just look through the cookbook. Yes, there is a general index as well.

"Cookies, Brownies, and Bars" has eleven (11) chocolate recipes or half of the 22 recipes in the chapter.

"Cupcakes and Cakes" has only six (6) chocolate recipes and surprisingly a lot of these have a only a small amount of cocoa powder.

"Pies, Tarts, and Crumbles" has three (3) chocolate recipes and that seems like a lot to me given the category.

"Pastries and Confections" has ten (10) chocolate recipes of 16 in this chapter.

"Pudding, Custards, and Crémes" has only two (2) chocolate recipes which was disappointing considering there are 18 recipes in this chapter.

Finally, "Frozen Treats" has six (6) chocolate recipes, more than I thought it would out of 17 recipes.

I was sent this cookbook for free in the hopes that I would review it on Amazon; this feature article is an unexpected bonus.

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