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Review & Recipe Share: Paddington’s Cookery Book

June 1, 2020

Order Paddington’s Cookery Book online here

We’ve been getting our paws sticky at BooksForTopics HQ this week testing out the newly re-issued Paddingon’s Cookery Book (available here), which was kindly gifted to us by Harper Collins. With two small (and two big) Paddington fans here and plenty of time on our hands, this has provided the perfect family entertainment during lockdown.

The cookbook is lovely – Paddington themed throughout and colour illustrated, with recipes accompanied by story snippets from our favourite Peruvian bear himself, giving his take on what the recipes mean to him. Paddington’s Cookery Book features an introduction from Michael Bond himself, discussing the history of cookbooks and the uniqueness of everyone’s favourite bear, followed by Paddington’s response in the foreword.

We really enjoyed reading Paddington’s favourite memories that accompany each of the recipes – such as the time Mrs Bird mixed up a batch of blueberry muffins but advised Paddington that good chefs get the most pleasure from seeing others enjoying their labour, or drinking frozen limonada back in Peru, or using marmalade sandwiches with Jonathan and Judy to make bread and butter pudding (keep on reading this blog post to find the recipe – it’s delicious!). The snippets from Paddington make this a joy of a cookbook to share with young children (who readily identify with Paddington), as do the easy step-by-step instructions and delightful illustrations showing Paddington following the same recipes himself.

Marmalade features heavily (after having worked through the sweet marmalade dishes, we are looking forward to trying the sticky marmalade sausages next), and also found among the recipes are bear-shaped cookies and pizza faces, paw print cupcakes and favourites linked to other characters like Chicken Paprika (from Mr Gruber’s upbringing in Hungary) and Mrs Bird’s Beef Stew with Dumplings.

We’ve tried our hand at three of the recipes this week. Our youngest Paddington fan chose Blackberry and Apple Crumble. Paddington reminiscences about picking blackberries from a hedgerow during a picnic trip with Jonathan and Judy and turning the berries into a crumble with the help of Mrs Bird. This was a great recipe for little hands to get stuck into and a clear winner according to the emptied bowls afterwards.

Second came cupcakes, topped with a range of sprinkles thanks to Mrs Bird’s list of suggestions (from the illustration it’s clear that Paddington spilled almost as many sprinkles over the sides as we did) and a few cocoa powder paw-prints. Here we also read about Paddington’s Christmas Birthday Party and his special guests.

Our third recipe chosen (much to the delight of the biggest Paddington fan in the house), was the Bread and Butter Pudding with Marmalade. This was an absolute favourite to make – it’s simply joyful to realise that such a tasty pudding is made with a base of marmalade sandwiches! This one’s a must for any Paddington fan, and the publishers at Harper Collins have kindly offered to share the recipe with our readers: