Young Gums: Baby Food with Attitude Review
Quick glance review
Price - £14.99
Reviewer ratings
Value for money - ★★★☆☆
Variety of recipes - ★★★★½
Food for whole family - ★★★☆☆
Recipe affordability - ★★★½☆
Rating
iCandy says:
An eye catching, colourful book that incorporates spoon-fed and baby-led recipes designed to be enjoyed by the whole family.
What's on the back
Design-led educational cookbook aimed at a new generation of health-aware, food-conscious Millennial parents. [Beth Bentley's] feeding philosophy and advice is backed by a globally-respected infant clinical nutritionist and all recipes are free from refined sugars, refined grains, processed or chemically-enhanced ingredients. Her food is colourful, flavour-packed and quick to prepare - easy enough for even the most inexperienced (or sleep-deprived) home cook to create. Some recipes are so simple they don't even require the cook to put the baby down, and many are one-pot sharing meals all members of the family can share right from the very start of weaning.
First impressions of the Young Gums recipe book
"The book is easy to follow and the variety of recipes is fantastic. I particularly liked the simplicity of the recipes and the fact that each meal only required a few ingredients - however some of these ingredients were hard to come by and rather expensive for one-off meals. The book is well laid out and I particularly liked the way it divided the dishes into different categories for different times of the day. The book also starts out with some great advice for anyone unsure on how to start weaning and gives you the confidence to let your baby explore different foods and flavours."
- Ben
"[I] like how bright and colourful the cover is - it's a hardback so feels high quality. Seemed nice and chunky and full of good recipes to get stuck into. Eye-catching pages and the title made me want to know more and why it would stand out from the rest. Whilst quickly flicking through I liked the introduction to weaning and how things were explained - it was very informative. Weaning can be very daunting and this seemed to take a good laid back approach. It also felt very personal and had been put together by a mum with first hand weaning experience. The title also caught my eye, especially the 'with attitude' part."
- Lucy
"My first impressions of Young Gums were that this book would be slightly different to some of the others. It would have different ideas and not a strict regimented feel that some of the other books we have read have. I liked the initial thought of 'one family, one meal' and was quite looking forward to seeing the ideas in this book."
- Carson
Did the Young Gums cookbook help you to create easy, healthy and tasty weaning recipes?
Simple
"The recipes were very simple to follow and the fact that no measuring or weighing was required made cooking easy." - Ben
"It helped me with my meal planning and I liked how it is split between breakfast/lunch etc. The recipes at first glance seemed nice and straight forward to follow and not too complex. It has a good variety of recipes that you can prepare for the whole family. It helped me to think about some new recipes for my toddler to try and also for my 6 month old. I felt like it was missing some basic guidance on quantities. Early on in the book it states that scales won't be needed, which is brilliant, but then the use of '1 teacup' really threw me. I've never measured in teacups. How big is a standard teacup? They come in all different sizes. I found this didn't help at all and found that I had to make a rough estimate and hope for the best."
- Lucy
"Our twin girls had just turned 6 months when starting with these books and whilst the book contained very interesting recipes, they were [not] really suitable for our girls and their first tastes. In the coming weeks I think this book will become useful and the recipes do feel easy to follow."
- Carson
Would you recommend the Young Gums: Baby Food with Attitude recipe book ?
Yes
There are some lovely ideas in here with advice and guidance, but as new parents and being at the very start of our weaning journey I couldn’t help [but think] this book was designed more for babies past the first two weeks of weaning. I’d recommend the recipes as some of them sound super tasty but probably more for babies 7 months old and above. Basic information about how to start weaning and what that should look like would improve it.
- Carson
Yes
I would recommend this book to another parent if they were looking for meals that were easy to cook and provided their children with superb variety. The dishes were quick and easy to prepare – some taking minutes – and everyone in the family loved them. The layout of the book is great for children and the recipes are easy to follow and the meals are fantastic – I especially love that there is no weighing or measuring of ingredients. So far our favourite dishes have to be the magic fish fingers, the one ingredient ice cream and the raspberry macaron porridge!
- Ben
No
I personally wouldn't recommend this book. A few of the recipes that I tried needed tweaking with quantities of ingredients and also the cooking times seemed to be way out and needed a lot longer than it stated. It has some lovely recipes in it, but, for a mum with a busy home, having to re-think some recipes isn't ideal for me. I like to be able to follow things as it states and not have to tweak to suit. I did like how the recipes seemed different to a lot of weaning books that are available. It also has some very good recipes and the ingredients are easy to find in your local supermarket.
- Lucy
Reviewer recommendations
iCandy Recommends
Our parent review panel was impressed by the variety of recipes within this book and the way in which they were categorised into breakfast, lunch and dinner which made meal planning a breeze. Whilst one of our reviewers loved the lack of precise ingredient quantities and the concept around this, another felt that more accurate measurements were needed. Overall, all reviewers felt this was a great book to gather recipe ideas for all ages.
How does it compare?
View our comparison page to see how the Young Gums: Baby Food with Attitude recipe book compared to other books.
Where to buy?
Young Gums: Baby Food with Attitude recipe book is available from all good high street and online bookshops including Waterstones via the 'Shop now' button.