Deceptive Desserts: A Lady’s Guide to Baking Bad

When you get a new cookbook, you instantly become excited, your love of cooking or baking renewed. Tired of the same ol’ same ol’? New recipes reinvigorate us as cooks, bakers, and eaters. As a lover of all things vintage — I honestly think I was born in the wrong era — the delicious cover of Deceptive Desserts: A Lady’s Guide to Baking Bad had my name all over it. The design of the book is gorgeous. Author Christine McConnell dresses in 1950s-era outfits for all of the photos. The fonts and layout of the cookbook scream that vintage era. I was captivated!

I sat down, as we all do, bookmarks in hand, to tag the recipes I wanted to try first. I flipped through the pages, admiring the layout, but all of the recipes are professional-level. There wasn’t one that I felt I could tackle — and I consider myself a decent dessert baker. Had I made any of these recipes, no doubt it would go into the Nailed It! category.

A+ on book presentation, though. The step-by-step instructions with corresponding photos are very well done. But this one is not for the at-home baker. This will be a cookbook your guests want to flip through and admire, but they’ll ultimately say, “Are you really going to make one of these?”