Children's book review : Mission Cookpossible !

Pierre loves helping me cook and he also loves me reading him stories, so when we were introduced to Mission Cookpossible !, a children's story book that incorporates numerous recipes, I knew that we were on to a winner.

The book tells the story of Lady Gertrude who is having a party at Belchings Castle and decides to kidnap a master chef to help get everything ready for afternoon tea and dinner.

The great thing about the story is that it's personalised so, in our book, the master chef who has been kidnapped is ... Pierre ! You also get to select which recipes will feature in your book, so you can make sure that they are things that your family will like to eat.

The first recipe that Pierre came across and wanted to make was Dobbin's Fabulous Flapjacks. The recipes are written out simply and use mainly ingredients that you are likely to have ready and waiting in the kitchen.

Having read that Dobbin likes to throw a hoof-ful of chopped hazelnuts over the top of his flapjacks to make them crunchy and that they are useful on knightly quests for distracting dragons from eating princesses, Pierre was extremely enthusiastic.

As he was the master chef in the story, he declared that he could do the weighing out all by himself this time. He managed too, without even dropping oats all over the floor, which I was expecting !

The result was some very lovely gooey and chewy flapjacks that I'm sure Dobbin and the knight would have been very pleased with.

The next time I asked Pierre if he wanted to do some baking, he ran off and picked up his Mission Cookpossible! book again, flicking through the pages to choose which recipe he wanted to recreate. He opted for Griselda's Rainbow Jam Tarts, which was a great way of using up various half empty jars of jam and lemon curd that were cluttering up the fridge.

Pierre had a great time and thought it was hilarious when I pointed out that he had as much flour on his face as in the bowl !

It's not all baking sweet treats though - there are some savoury recipes too, such as Tomato Soup à la façon de Clorabella Swish, Dr Socks's Pizza Performance and Apollo's One Pan Lemon Roast Chicken. It's very special for a child to be able to put dinner on the table for the whole family so Pierre can't wait to try out one of the supper recipes next.

Here at The Madhouse, we always love stories that can be taken off the pages into real life through follow-on activities or research, so Mission Cookpossible! gets a big thumbs up from us. Personalised stories are always hugely popular as gifts, so if you have a keen mini-chef in your midst, it would definitely be a much-loved and well-used book to offer for a special occasion.

star rating : 5/5

RRP : £19.99

for more information : http://mrgluestories.com/product/mission-cookpossible-personalised-cookbook/

Disclosure : We received the product in order to write an honest review.