The Hungry Scientist Handbook: Electric Birthday Cakes, Edible Origami, and Other DIY Projects for Techies, Tinkerers, and Foodies

by Lily Binns and Patrick Buckley

Book Overview

Inventive, (mostly) edible DIY gadgets and projects guaranteed to captivate The Hungry Scientist Handbook brings DIY technology into the kitchen and onto the plate. It compiles the most mouthwatering... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0061238686
• ISBN13: 9780061238680
• Release Date: September 2008
• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 7.3" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Fun and cute, more of a coffee table book than a project book

I got this book on loan from my dad who thought I would really enjoy it. As a chemist and someone who enjoys food, I did enjoy the quirkiness of this book. This book is an interesting read and more of a coffee table type book than a reference book. The twenty projects featured in it vary widely: from folding wonton wrappers into cranes, to a solar powered temperature sensing coaster, to edible underwear. This is a project book focused on the adult crowd: many projects feature alcohol or already mentioned edible underwear, all projects would require adult help or supervision. While all of the projects are interesting, most of them do not focus on novel science. Mostly they are just using well known science with food somehow. For example a number of projects feature liquid nitrogen or dry ice to make liquids bubble; this is something we do all the time at our yearly Halloween party. Each of the projects do feature small asides that provide some interesting info about the food or the science behind it. My biggest complaint about this book is that you won't be able to do the majority of these projects without running out to purchase a number of specialty items. Many of them require soldering tools, electronics, or other strange items. For example the LED birthday cake requires edible silver varak leaf (they do list a source for this in the back of the book). So while an amusing read, most of these experiments would take a lot of work to pull off at home and to be honest, most of them probably aren't worth the effort. Overall I liked the book and thought it was amusing. It would make a great coffee table book. As far as a book for practical projects you can do at home, this book leaves something to be desired. Many of the projects require specialty items or equipment to do. It is also aimed at an adult crowd with projects like creating edible underwear, fruit wines, and bubbly martinis. All of the projects require adult help to do, so not a book for kids. An entertaining book, but there are better ones out there if you actually want to do some projects.

Food Fun For All

Great fun for all who want to mix a little science into their cooking repetoire. Also an excellent way to introduce some hands on fun with science to the family. I Highly Recommend!

Foodies will love it!

Coming from a science background, I really enjoyed this book. It has a nice set of fun "experiments" and DIY projects that kept me and dinner guests thoroughly entertained. This book is meant for people that truly like to play with their food.

A fun book and a great gift

I'm a very difficult person to buy presents for, and normally end up with things I don't really want. I was given this book and have really enjoyed reading it and the projects in it. There's enough here to keep me entertained for many weekends, and I highly recommend it as a present for others!

Gut Innovation beats the WHISK out of Gut Renovation

What great fun!! It's the baking soda volcano and the soda bottle tornado -- TIMES 100!!!! This book is rife with clever ideas that will leave you hankering for more time in the kitchen! Between sending my husband out for supplies and bringing my creations over to my neighbors, I don't think I've had this much fun in the kitchen since the renovation of 2002 - when I was literally sledge hammering my way through the bane-of-my-existence formica that had been drilling holes in my psyche for over a decade. THAT is the kind of fun this book restores to your kitchen-weary soul!