Abby Dodge's cookbook Mini Treats and Hand-Held Sweets: 100 Delicious Desserts to Pick Up and Eat is a collection of small desserts that can be eaten without using silverware. Perfect party desserts with more sophisticated palettes in mind.
An amazing collection of recipes with lots of flavors and textures, this book has desserts for every season. There is a lot of emphasis on fresh flavors with recipes that use fruits, berries and good dairy products for creamy flavor. Unlike a lot of collections, this one doesn't have photos of every single recipe because there are a lot of recipes! The photographs that are shown are gorgeously displayed, or they are photographs that help you learn how to do something specific for the recipe.
Some of the recipes use prepared ingredients like ice cream or everybody's favorite, Nutella. There are tarts, cheesecakes, cookies, ice pops and it's probably easier just listing the chapter titles than to try and list all the types of desserts.
Chapter 1 is Cookies- My chocolate loving daughter loves the Chunky, Chewy Brownie Drops. My personal favorite is the Lemon Meringue Pie Poppers which combine lemon curd, meringue cookies and a crunchy topping of ginger snaps. Combining 3 of my favorite things into one delicious, bright tasting sandwich cookie.
Chapter 2 is Mini Pies and Slab Pies- We are fans of a popular speculative fiction television show about 2 brothers who fight demons. One of them loves pie, so my daughter decided this was her favorite chapter, and that we should make pie for Wednesday nights as a new tradition. She wants to bake her way through this entire chapter. The Nutella Chocolate Hand Tarts are like toaster pastries for adults. So very good. This chapter has a lot of fruit, and includes turnovers and instructions for an easy puff pastry dough.
Chapter 3 is Whoopie Pies, Cake Bites and Mini Cakes- I haven't tried much from this chapter, but do recommend the Carrot Cake Cones with Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Frosting. Or even just the frosting, it's too good.
Chapter 4 is Bite Sized Treats - tiny 1 and 2 bite desserts like cheesecakes, tarts, mini scones and sliced roll cakes for pretty little pinwheels. My favorite in this chapter are the strawberries filled with a cheesecake filling. Like a mini-cheesecake with a strawberry crust!
Chapter 5 is Frozen Treats and includes frozen fruits, sorbets and pops, including a few just for the adults like the Tequila Sunrise colored Blood Orange and Creamy Tangerine pops which can also be made without tequila for younger people and people who don't drink. Easiest recipe that's a big hit with my family? Frozen Nutella Yogurt Bites which are dipped in chocolate.
Chapter 6 is Candies- this is a chapter I haven't gotten into at all. The recipes look fantastic, and I plan to make the homemade White Chocolate Peppermint Bark using my favorite white chocolate for the holidays.
There is a measurements equivalents table in the back for people using metric, the book is written using U.S. measurements. It also has a good index so you can find recipes based on ingredients fairly quickly.
I do recommend reading through each recipe before gathering supplies. Some of the recipes call for ingredients or suggest variations which are not covered in the basic ingredient list.
It's a great dessert cookbook.
Published by The Taunton Press
I received a complimentary copy of this book to review, I received no other compensation, and my review is my honest opinion of the book. You can read more about my review policy here.
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