Baker Makers

Who would think that watching a lot of television baking contests and checking out some foodie websites could turn you into a superb pâtissier? Well, a cocky pre-adolescent boy named Naveen might.

As a participant in an out-of-school baking class, Naveen and a group of other multi-ethnic boys and girls are working with instructor Ms. Maple on their creative cakes. A basic recipe for making a cake is posted, and the young bakers are invited to take it from there.

First, the students decided on flavor, then shape, and
finally frosting and decorations.

Other students are making chocolate logs and rainbow cakes, but Naveen has something more elaborate in mind. He isn’t too worried about following instructions either as his cake is going to be “more than basic”, a 12-layer space-unicorn cake that can breathe fire.

Naveen struggles as his mixer overflows, the pans are oozing batter as they go into the oven, and the cake comes out burned on the outside and raw in the middle. Naveen’s “perfect cake was a perfect disaster” and tastes as awful as it looks. Fellow student Stevie suggests that frosting can fix anything, but that proves not to be true in Naveen’s case. His creation is now nothing but a gooey mess.

Naveen’s classmates tried to comfort him.
“Mine burned. I forgot to set a timer!”
“My icing came out gray instead of purple.”
“I accidentally used salt instead of sugar.”
“We’ll try again tomorrow” [said Ms. Maple].

On the next baking day, Naveen carefully studies Ms. Maple’s basic recipe which includes the measurements he had ignored the first time, and the cake turns out perfectly. He still has a problem trying to fashion it into his vision of a unicorn.

Would this be another cake disaster?
Unless…

Naveen is inspired by some ice cream cones on the supply shelf and changes the plan to make smaller “uni-cone cakes”, which are cake pops decorated as unicorns with ice cream cones as a base.

His delighted fellow bakers cheer his success, and the book wraps up with a neat little moral for bakers of all ages.

Sometimes baking may not work out perfectly.
But being a great baker maker means rolling with your mistakes.
And sometimes you end up with something unexpected, but just as delicious.

The group of other busy baker makers are shown as the background to Naveen’s attempts to realize his grand vision. Readers will appreciate his effort and imagination but will also probably recognize the mistakes he is making along the way to completing his project. The story centres on the need to follow directions (while still having fun and allowing for some artistic license) and problem-solving.

The lively full-colour photo-shopped illustrations in bright tones have been done by Calgarian Kim Smith who is also the author of the book. The pictures bring every aspect of Ms. Maple’s baking lab to life. Young readers will want to try their hands at a creative, if shambolic, enterprise like this one. The endpapers show a large array of the utensils they might need for their own creative cakes, while one early page is full of rabbits, strawberry towers and solar systems, all cakes that a really ambitious baker like Naveen might attempt. Recipes for the basic cake and for Naveen’s uni-cones are included on the last two pages; they will probably require some adult help.

Baker Makers is a fun addition to the picture book shelves in libraries and schools.