The Big Christmas Bake is a beautifully illustrated, delicious countdown to making a Twelfth Night Cake. Written in rhyme, similar to the original Twelve Days of Christmas, it cleverly manages to include all the ingredients of the cake as well as the tradition of choosing the Twelfth Night king or queen.
The Story: Two children find a recipe and a large bowl and wait for the friends that the partridge has called to help them bake a cake. Over the twelve days a variety of birds and animals bring all the ingredients that are needed – including a special bean! Whoever finds it in their slice will be crowned twelfth night king or queen…
The process of baking moves through the twelve days as each ingredient arrives – they’re brought by tractor, by Royal Rabbit Delivery and even by hot air balloon! Fruit and flour, sugar and spices are mixed together until the eleventh day when the pipers arrive with their piping bags – we love the word play in this spread! On the twelfth day everybody gathers in front of an enormous Christmas tree to try the magnificently decorated three tiered cake and find out who has found the hidden bean.
The Big Christmas Bake has a bouncy rhyming text which is fun to read aloud. There is so much humour in the text and in Pippa Curnick’s wonderfully energetic, festive illustrations. We love the whimsical style of her animal characters – penguins in Christmas sweaters, ballet dancing hippos, yaks in bowties. We also love the five gold rings – very different to the original version of the song but perfect for a cake!
The book also includes the words to the original Twelve Days of Christmas song, a brief description of the Twelfth Night Cake tradition and a beautifully illustrated Christmas cupcake recipe.
We’ve read The Big Christmas Bake several times and are constantly finding new details in the illustrations. It’s the perfect book to put you in a festive baking mood 🙂
Age Range: 3+
Author: Fiona Barker / Illustrator: Pippa Curnick
Thank you to Netgalley for a review copy of this fun, festive story published by Happy Yak.
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