Cookbook Review: 'Wormy Apple Croissants and Other Halloween Recipes' by Brekka Hervey Larrew

✰✰✰✰ What better way to get ready for Halloween festivities than with a tasty semi-homemade treat? Wormy Apple Croissants and Other Halloween Recipes offers kids and their parents a selection of ten sweet and savory snacks to make and eat. Recipes are rated easy (✰), medium (✰✰), and advanced (✰✰✰); thus, making it helpful in choosing a project for your child's cooking  level. However, it would have been even better if the recipes also appeared in the book according to cooking level from the easiest to the most difficult.

The recipes clearly list both the ingredients and the tools required so that you can have everything ready before you begin. The author includes glossaries for both words and tools. Plus, there is information on kitchen safety, a metric conversion guide, and an index.

Taste Test Notes: I decided to try my hand at baking the Wormy Apple Croissants. It's one of the more difficult recipes in the book, and I wanted to see how long it would take to prepare. Here is the result:

Wormy Apple Croissants: Makes 8. Serving size is 1 per person.

I waited to drizzle the caramel topping onto the croissants until just before serving. These treats are indeed ooey, gooey, and tasty. Kids will absolutely love them. It took me approximately 1 hour to finish making these including 30 minutes of prep time, 11 minutes of baking time, 10 minutes of cooling time, and 10 minutes to insert the gummy worms. It will definitely take a little longer if you are working with kids. Also, you might want to purchase 2 packages of crescent rolls instead of just 1 as I was left with enough extra filling to make a second batch. Nana's Baking Tip: Line the baking sheet with aluminum foil before starting. This is a messy project and the foil will make the cleanup easier.

The Bottom Line: This Halloween themed cookbook is full of fun recipes for beginning cooks. Choose from Spooky Ghost Pops, Blood and Guts Nachos, Witchy Wands, Green swamp Punch and more for to delight little monsters who may happen by. Author Brekka Hervey Larrew uses easy-to-read, step-by-step instructions for her recipes, and each recipe includes a full color photograph of the finished product and tasty tips. The recipes would have been even better if the author had included information on preparation time. Also, sometimes the author uses the phrase "serving size" to indicate how many items the recipe makes rather than how many to eat per person which can be confusing. All in all these scary (and tasty) holiday snacks are sure to be a hit with kids in grade school and middle school. Also, recommended for party settings. Note: Adult supervision is required to make these treats.

Details: Wormy Apple Croissants and Other Halloween Recipes by Brekka Hervey Larrew. Hardcover published by Snap Books in 2008. 32 p. ISBN: 978-1-4296-1338-5 This was just one title in the Fun Food for Cool Cooks series; you can check out the others here.