I have had a little bit of a girl crush on Tanya Burr for a little while now, she’s so successful, likeable and so darn pretty!  I love her You Tube makeup tutorials, I have had a little splurge on her makeup (her eyeshadow palletes are just beautiful), and now the girl has only gone and released a flipping gorgeous cookbook!

Tayna Bakes is a total homage to the queen of the online makeup tutorial.  It’s beautifully illustrated with cute snapshots of Tanya and of course some rather glorious shots of cake and cookies!  I suppose the writing has been on the wall that Tanya would release a cook book for a while now.  Her You Tube channel and blog are littered with baking posts, so yes it’s a little predictable.  The other slight concern with purchasing this book is that Tanya has a very particular market.  Namely and generally the same as Zoella – the teenage blogging / celebrity / Instafamous wannabe.  That’s probably a little harsh, but I do find these girls a tiny bit irritating in the ‘trying to be younger on camera than I really am’ front kind of way.  Hey this girly, let’s talk about boys and bathbombs works for these twenty-something women, they’ve made an awful lot of money!

I do think Tanya is really talented, she is certainly an exceptionally talented make up artist, and her You Tube channel is insanely watchable.  This book is a bit of a treat!  The recipes are pretty easy to follow and not burn!  There are some really nice and quite original recipes to be found as well – peaches and cream muffins, rhubarb and custard muffins to name two.  The unusual and unique is interspersed with some old favourites.  I’ve made a couple of things now, my personal favourite are these insanely naughty individual sticky toffee puddings – a perfect Sunday splurge, but also basically a heart attack on a plate.  I made mine using my gorgeous Le Creuset heart shaped ramekins.  My least successful bake, and probably the easiest were the Smarties flapjacks – they almost burnt and were rock hard within about an hour of coming out of the oven – a massive disappointment.

Lets be honest, dieters and clean eaters steer clear, this is a highly calorific, indulgent cookery book.  It’s aimed at Tanya’s usual audience of fairly young teenagers, but much can be found for us slightly more mature bakers!  If your a semi-pro, there is little to stretch you here, but if you are a happy Sunday or family baker, or maybe looking for some inspiration for a MacMillan Coffee Morning, then this is a pretty lovely book.

If you shop around you can pick Tanya Bakes up for a bargain.  I pre-ordered mine and snapped up a signed edition to boot!  Happy baking!