Review: Sweet Revenge – Heather Kim
Sweet Revenge: Passive-Aggressive Desserts for Your Exes & Enemiesby Heather Kim
Publisher: Switch Press
Publication Date: January 1, 2018
Genres: Non-Fiction
Pages: 224
Source: Bookish First
I received this book for free from Bookish First in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
My rating:
50+ killer cakes, cookies, and candies for your exes and enemies. Dumped by your beefcake boyfriend? BFF steal your one-and-only? Lab partner a more-than-periodic no-show? Don't take these battles online. (Seriously, don't do that, okay?). Get out your heaviest rolling pins, sharpest cleavers, and most blistering torches, and kill your enemies and exes . . . with kindness. That's right - bake that loser ex a pan of Go Fudge Yourself. Gift your former friend a You're the Devil Cake. And give that annoying admirer a Donut Call Me Again. Let them taste your over-them happiness and see what comes next . . . Pastry chef and tattoo artist Heather Kim serves up sinfully delicious recipes and bittersweet advice.
“You can’t hate-tweet your ex when you’re knuckles-deep in molasses.”
Deliciously snarky! This isn’t a collection of basic recipes, but rather a mix of classics with twists (S’more Brownies, butter pound cake…. with sriracha icing) and some very unique dishes (carrot cake truffles with Cool Ranch Doritos sugar). Most of the dishes have multiple components – for instance, the “I cannoli be happy when you’re dead” (cannoli waffles) consist of recipes for the waffles, cannoli filling, candied pistachios, and chocolate coffee sauce – so it’s certainly possible to mix and match pieces of different recipes to come up with new creations.
The design of the book is wonderful. There are lovely full color photos of the finished product, fun graffiti notes, and breakouts for more in-depth information. My favorite was the descriptions of different sugars as dating profiles! The instructions are easy to understand, and explained well enough for a novice baker, but are funny enough that even a more experienced baker won’t mind reading them. There are silly asides that make the recipes entertaining to read (“Allow to rest for 15 minutes (POWER NAP!)”).
I made the ginger molasses cookies, one of the easier recipes, and they were quite good. Some of the recipes don’t sound particularly appetizing to me (Flamin’ Hot Cheetos ice cream sandwiches???) but I have plans to make the Cinco Leches cake for New Year’s, and I’ve also been eying up the five-spice donut muffins. Overall, I think this would be a cute gift to buy a friend who’s going through a breakup, especially if you bring over some baking ingredients and have a girls’ night in.
