The Kitchen Science Cookbook

We love a craft book and were lucky to receive a copy of The Kitchen Science Cookbook: Edible Science from solar cookie oven to colour changing noodles by Dr Michelle Dickinson to review. I have to admit I hadn’t heard of Michelle Dickinson, but she is a British author and award-winning nano-scientist who is making science fun and accessible for children. Michelle is a regular on TV in New Zealand (apparently she she is their equivalent of Brian Cox!) but also tours schools and festivals with her fun science shows.

The Kitchen Science Cookbook

The Kitchen Science Cookbook combines science and cooking in a fabulous new book that will ensure hours of entertainment for the kids to share with parents, grandparents, friend, siblings – actually anyone who wants to have fun!

Each “recipe” is actually a science experiment that you can do at home with your family, using the everyday ingredients you’ll find in your kitchen. There is no need to be a science expert – if you can follow a recipe you can help your children do these amazing experiments.

Each of the 50 “recipes” contains a simple introduction explaining what the experiment is about, icons identifying important details such as if the “recipe” is edible, if it requires time to ‘set’ or if there are safety issues that the reader needs to be aware of. It’s a great way for children to learn all about the important scientific principles behind each recipe. There are ‘Explore Further’ sections which helps the reader to think about how the experiment works and suggests other tasks and challenges to see how changing the variables can change the outcome.

My children couldn’t wait to look through the book and mark the recipes they wanted to try first. There are some really fun ideas including colour changing unicorn noodles; building a solar oven from cardboard and foil; making bread in a bag, butter in a jam jar and cheese in a microwave; making edible earthworms (which we’ve actually made before) and creating instant ice cream. It’s a lovely book and my only criticism would be that the book is quite big and heavy for children to hold. It would be great if it was spiral bound so the book would stay open when you are trying to follow an experiment.

We decided to try the Candy Crystals recipe first. The instructions were easy to follow and my 6 year old loved the experiment. I have to admit our crystal is quite slow to grow so I think I’ll be showing a photo of the finished crystal over on Twitter soon!

The Kitchen Science Cookbook: Edible Science from solar cookie oven to colour changing noodles by Dr Michelle Dickinson is priced at £17.59 and available via Amazon and all good bookshops.