The following is a guest post Rhiannon Carswell.
I was sent a review copy of the official Alice in Wonderland cookbook, and I couldn’t wait to get into it. First off, this is a sturdy cookbook. The spine held up well to being left open while I prepared various recipes, and the pages were a nice weight. The front and back covers are a good thickness, adding some weight to the book but not enough to be unwieldy.
Inside, there is a dietary considerations page in the back that breaks down all the recipes into various diet types, and there is a glossary of terms in case someone needed to know more about a technique. All of the recipes are categorized into various “zones,” so it is easy to prepare dinners or teas with specific themes. There are 54 recipes that include drinks, appetizers, side dishes, main dishes, and desserts.
Aesthetically, this book is gorgeous. Each recipe offers a small blurb about how it fits within the Wonderland world. The interior content is colorful and fun. There are some still images from the animated film that give the book extra charm. Many of the recipes included full color photos of the finished dish for reference. The recipes give the approximate yield and the specialty diets they meet, when applicable. For recipes that include bread, there is text indicating that changing out the bread for a gluten free type will make the recipe gluten free. Some of the recipes include substitution ideas for variety.
So, it’s gorgeous…but how do the recipes taste? For this review, I prepared the Perfectly Potted Cheese, Growth Potion, Golden Afternoon Greens, Perfect Pistachio Stuffed Chicken, and Cheshire Cat Panna Cotta. A note about recipe selection: While I tried to choose a recipe from each section, the Red Queen’s Kingdom section contained mostly dishes with eggs as an ingredient. I am allergic to eggs, so I was unable to sample those dishes. That said, the recipes in that section looked delightful. Whenever possible, I made the recipes as directed. There are some ingredients that I was unable to find at the store, so I made substitutions as needed.
Perfectly Potted Cheese
This was a fun little appetizer dish to make. I did use the optional ghee, but you could omit it if you don’t have it/can’t find it. I substituted cooking sherry for the madeira wine because I had the cooking sherry and I don’t drink the wine. I really wanted to like this, but I have discovered I don’t like allspice outside of dessert dishes. I will try making this again without the allspice to see if I like it any better.
Growth Potion
I enjoyed this drink a lot. I purchased some cherry apple pie filling in lieu of making the one listed in the book. My kitchen was hot from baking the chicken, so my whipped cream got a little melty, but it didn’t affect the flavor at all. Next time, I’ll let my kitchen cool down a bit before I put it together.
Golden Afternoon Greens
This is my favorite recipe from the book so far. It’s a fairly simple salad preparation, but this is the first time I have added toasted saffron to a vinaigrette. I couldn’t find champagne vinegar at the store I went to, so I used the Sicilian Lemon white balsamic vinegar instead. It was delicious. So much so that I made another batch of it to make more of a lunch salad with leftover roasted chicken and grape tomatoes. Make sure you add enough greens. It can be easy to overdress the salad.
Perfect Pistachio Stuffed Chicken
This is the recipe I was most disappointed with. I had to make some substitutions for the stuffing for ingredients that cost a little less. The recipe calls for allspice in the stuffing. I might have liked the stuffing better if I had left that out. All of the seasoning for the chicken was contained in the stuffing, so I made the executive decision to add some salt and pepper to the outside of the bird. The chicken itself was good, and I added some thickener to the pan juices to make a light gravy that was delicious over the chicken, but I will likely not make this again.
Cheshire Cat Panna Cotta
I have never prepared panna cotta before this, so I was a little nervous. The recipe was easy to follow, and I didn’t make any substitutions to it. This recipe is time consuming, so plan ahead for the set time between each layer. For the garnish, I forgot to grab white chocolate chips to make the smile, so I used the whipped cream I had. It got melty, but that was my fault. With proper planning, this is a really cute dessert that will leave people talking.
Overall Impressions
This is a fun cookbook. I will be trying out more recipes in the future, but there are a lot of egg recipes that I can’t make. If you are allergic to eggs, as I am, I think there are enough recipes that don’t include eggs that make the book worth it. For some recipes, substituting the egg might work. I spent approximately $90 on recipe ingredients for this meal. I happened to have saffron on hand, so I used it, but I definitely wouldn’t recommend someone purchasing expensive ingredients for this one book. Because there are some pricey ingredients called for, I highly recommend substituting out things you know you don’t like or just omitting the ingredient. I’m going to try making the potted cheese again without the allspice to see if I like it better. Fans of Alice in Wonderland will love this book regardless due to the gorgeous photos and film art.
