Inkling Cooks: Dessert For Two by Christina Lane

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Title: Dessert For Two
Author: Christina Lane
Genre: Cookbook
Publisher: Countryman Press
Date: February 3, 2015
Length: 230 pages

My dad gave me this book for my birthday

Who doesn't love towering three-layer cakes with mounds of fluffy buttercream? Who can resist four dozen cookies fresh from the oven? Wouldn't you love to stick your spoon into a large bowl of banana pudding? What about the leftovers? Dessert recipes typically serve eight to ten people. Finding the willpower to resist extra slices of cake can be difficult; the battle between leftover cookies and a healthy breakfast is over before it started. Until now. Dessert for Two takes well-loved desserts and scales them down to make only two servings. Cakes are baked in small pans and ramekins. Pies are baked in small pie pans or muffin cups. Cookie recipes are scaled down to make 1 dozen or fewer. Your favorite bars: brownies, blondes, and marshmallow cereal treats are baked in a bread loaf pan - which happily serves two when cut down the middle. Newly married couples (and empty-nesters) will be particularly enthralled with this miniature dessert guide. To everyone who lives alone: have your own personal-sized cake and eat it, too. 

Description from Goodreads

My son is a ridiculously picky eater and putting together school lunches for him is very stressful. In order to keep my son from getting bored, I'll alternate his sweet and savory snacks during the week. Typically this means I make two desserts over the weekend, package up what I need for lunches, and then give the rest to coworkers on Monday. (This prevents my husband from snacking when he gets home and ruining his dinner and making me angry.) I first ran across Lane's blog when I found her 1 Dozen Cut-Out Sugar Cookies recipe on Pinterest (they're also in the book). This isn't my favorite sugar cookie recipe ever, but I love that it makes a small batch of tasty cookies, the dough doesn't go in and out of the fridge 50 times, I don't have loads of leftover icing, and it's easy. And that's the great thing about this cookbook, I can easily try out different desserts without using loads of ingredients and making huge messes. If the kids don't like it, I'm not stuck with 24 cupcakes or an entire cake they don't want.

What I liked

The recipes are delicious: I haven't made every recipe in the book, but we've liked everything we've tried. My dad is pretty keen on a few as well and we are currently sharing the cookbook. There's a great variety of sweets and it's nice to try something new and be fairly confident that you'l like the results.

Fast & Easy: I love that I can put together a yummy treat in no time. Someone has a bad day, I can make them cupcakes. Want a little something sweet, have a brownie. Kid 2 really wanted to bake the other day, so we pulled out Dessert for Two and in 10 minutes had a dessert in the oven! I feel that my mom game is at June Cleaver levels!

Pumpkin Cupcakes & Bourbon Buttercream	Warm Brownie Sundae minus the toppings
Kid 1 makes sugar cookies	Ingredients for Pumpkin Cupcakes
Only 3 Forgotten Cookies were left for pictures	Pumpkin Cupcakes minus Bourbon Buttercream

Minimal cleanup: Best. Thing. Ever. You don't use a lot of dishes so you're not left with a mess. I am so much more willing to use this book because I can put everything together and wash the dishes in 20 minutes, maybe even less. In fact, I think this is a great cookbook for someone who doesn't have a dishwasher. We've made the "Warm Brownie Sundae" several times now and all I use is a medium bowl, small baking dish, small spatula, 3 measuring spoons, and a knife. That's it.

I don't use up all my baking supplies: I don't use up a bag of chocolate chips or 5 cups of flour every time I want to make something. At first it's really weird to only use 6 Tbs of flour, but these small batches really extend my ingredients. If we don't like something I'm not as upset because I didn't use loads of ingredients. We loved the Pumpkin Cupcakes but didn't like the Bourbon Buttercream, simply because we don't like buttercream icing. No biggie because I didn't use 2 sticks of butter or 4 cups of powdered sugar. I feel better about experimenting because I'm not wasting loads of food.

List of equipment, The Baking Gospel, and dealing with baking "leftovers": The equipment list and "Baking Gospel" are nice touches for beginning bakers. I really like that she provides a list of bakeware and none of it is ridiculous. Some of the smaller items, like the tiny spring from pan or the 6 inch cast iron skillet, can be found for a song at garage sales. (I just "borrowed" those from my dad.) Since I see myself using this cookbook quite a bit, I will go ahead and buy some of the items I wouldn't normally have. The "Leftovers" page is a list of recipes that use up just an egg yolk, egg white, or a bit of sweetened condensed milk. In fact I made Lane's "Forgotten Cookies" because of a phone call from my dad.

Dad: I'm making a cheesecake -
Me: Yeah!
Dad: Not for you. But I have left over egg whites, do you want them?
Me: I could use one.
Dad: How about five?
Me: I really only need one, dad.
Dad: but I'm gonna have five.
Me: Really, just one. 

I frequently get this type of call from him. He photocopied the recipes that use just egg whites so he doesn't waste them in the future. I just wish the list included what to do with the leftover can of pumpkin puree.

Rating: 4.5

We absolutely love Dessert for Two. We've made fast, easy, and yummy desserts without all of the hassle. My kids had fun helping, I looked like a rock star, and everyone enjoyed the results. I liked this so much that I will probably get my dad his own copy and, since he frequently cooks like he's serving dinner to a football team, I'm going to get him Lane's second cookbook, Comfort and Joy. This way he can try all kinds of new recipes without all of the mess or a jam packed fridge and freezer.

Small batch cooking is my new obsession. Are there any other cookbooks or sites you recommend? What about school lunch resources? I dread planning out lunches for the week because Kid 1 might decide to suddenly hate and old favorite.

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