Now I have been planning on reviewing these two amazing books from Crocodile Books USA. I had planned to write this review on Monday, but this week has gotten away from me, so here I am writing it on Wednesday. I am planning however on bringing back Fairy Tales in Different Cultures back in the new year, so stay tuned!! Our first book for today is The Crystal Mountain retold and illustrated by Ruth Sanderson.
This story tells of a weaver who weaves an image from her dreams and it gets stolen. She sends her sons out to find it and get it back for her. Only the youngest son is brave enough to get it back from the thieving fairies and he has several challenges he must overcome along the way. This story has it all, family, love, magic, fairies and more. It is a mix of Chinese and Norwegian legends and is a fun story. The pictures however are what make this book. They are simply gorgeous.
We are getting ready for Hazel's fairy tea party and sent out homemade invitations in the form of fairy wands. Aren't they fun!! Now as we plan this we found have been falling in love with the amazing projects in Fairy Tale Baking by Ramla Khan.
Now I will admit that this book intimidated me at first. I have never used fondant and really don't want to since I don't really like the taste of it. I did share the book with a coworker who makes amazing cakes and things. She was very impressed with the ideas in this book. This book has four projects for fifteen fairy tales: Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Jack and the Beanstalk, Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Princess and the Pea, Rapunzel, The Snow Queen, Peter Pan, Thumbelina, Alice in Wonderland, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin. Here are some of the photos of some of the projects in the book.
Aren't they amazing? My photography does not do them justice. There are so many creative ideas and include ideas that could work for other things like the pirate ship and the mirrors. Now we decided to try the gingerbread recipe that was for the gingerbread house to go with Hansel and Gretel. We did not make a house though and made some cookies.
Hazel couldn't find too many of our Christmas cookie cutters so she made flamingo, Mickey Mouse and USA cookies. We did find the dough was too dry when we followed the recipe. We added some water after the first pan went in and rolled the dough thicker. This worked much better. In fact Hazel did most of the cutting herself. I was in charge of the rolling. And I loved the instructions of rolling the dough between parchment paper. It made the rolling and clean up so much easier. We also made the royal icing but did not take time to decorate all that nicely.
They are however delicious!! The recipe was easy to follow so I can honestly say I really love this book. The photographs are beautiful and inspiring. I want to try one of the cake recipes next and the buttercream recipe. I don't know that I will go so far as to decorate as beautifully as the photos in the book, but at least I will try the recipes and be inspired. I hope you will check out this gorgeous book!!
