If loving a cookbook is wrong, then I don't wanna be right.

The minute I saw it, I knew that I had to have it. It was, quite honestly, love at first sight. Right there in the cookbook section of my Borders store. Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey: Desserts for the Serious Sweet Tooth by Jill O'Connor is exactly the cookbook I would want to write if I had the attention span to actually sit and write a book, and if I were a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu Cooking School.

To start with, the layout and design of the book is soooo freakin' adorable that I cannot stop paging through it. That it uses my favorite color scheme of light pink, light blue, light lime green, and chocolate (how appropriate) brown merely adds to the loveliness of the book. It's full of pictures of glorious deliciousness. Deliciousness like Dark Chocolate Soup with Cinnamon-Toasted Pound Cake Croutons, Gingersnap Dulce de Leche Ice Cream Sandwiches, Not-So-Angelic Angle Pie, and Grown-up S'mores (they have a few ingredients from the Fun Flask, LOL). YUM! There is also a recipe for "White Trash Panini" which completely cracks me up. The cute anecdotes that accompany makes each recipe extra sweet.

The recipes are probably at the intermediate to slightly advanced baking level but the directions are very clear. O'Connor also provides useful baking tips and information on topics like handling phyllo dough (your life will never be the same), how to crack coconuts (so if you are ever trapped on an island, you will be quite popular), and when to use baking soda or baking powder (okay, this one DOES keep me up at night).

And by absolutely no means is this a low calorie cookbook. I felt the waistband on my yoga pants tighten as I read the pages. But if you allow yourself the occasional treat, you may as well make it decadent!

As I try the recipes in the book, I will post recipe reviews. I would encourage you to check this book out! Even if you are not a baker, it would make a fabulous coffee table book!