Review: "The Dos and Donuts of Love" by Adiba Jaigirdar

The Dos and Donuts of Love by Adiba Jaigirdar
Published June 2023 via Feiwel & Friends
★★★

Puns and Bake-Off-inspired YA! I'm here for that.

I've read more than my fair share of YA rip-offs (not a criticism) of the Great British Bake-Off, and they've been hit or miss. The thing I love most about Bake-Off is how relaxed it is—the bakers are all highly competitive, yes, but mostly they're competitive with themselves. The stakes come from wanting them all to succeed rather than pitting one against another. (It probably helps that there's no cash prize—people get a different kind of aggressive when there's money involved.) For that reason, I tend to find it disappointing when bake-off rip-offs lean heavy on the manufactured drama. I'm here for the cake descriptions and to be sad when any contestant goes home, not for food fights and hair-pulling.


For the most part The Dos and Donuts of Love strikes a nice balance. I love that Shireen's ex is never portrayed as evil—Shireen wants to cast her that way, yes, but it's more complicated than that. There's some ~~kitchen drama~~, but a lot less than there could be, and while it definitely looks like the producers are trying to add turmoil, they never really succeed. It's maybe worth noting that while this is marketed as YA, it could go down to MG without too much trouble—as it is, it feels on the younger side of YA.


In other places I'm not really convinced. There's...not a lot of creativity in the food? It's a very short competition, with about as many multiple eliminations as single eliminations, but even then most of the dishes are skimmed over at best, leaving the pacing feeling uneven. It kills me that, tasked with making something chocolate, Shireen and her partner settle on chocolate cake and then...consider their planning done. What kind of chocolate cake? Vegan? Flourless? Double chocolate? Filled with hazelnut mousse? Chocolate orange? What kind of frosting? There are literally thousands of options, and the fact that non-foodie me knows this but Shireen doesn't seem to consider it is...concerning. With few exceptions, her baking choices are all pretty basic, and I wish I'd gotten a better idea of where any of the contestants might go with a bit more creativity. What Bangladeshi inspiration could Shireen—as she says she wants to—bring to her baking? Tell me what a Bangladeshi-inspired donut would taste like! I want to try it!

But then, the judges don't seem to mind. Two contestants make macarons twice over the course of the show, and two others make donuts twice, and even though the entire thing is...five or six episodes long? (I could probably work this out, but I'm just going to guess), nobody comments on the repeats. They're planning everything from scratch, apparently, without any knowledge of what to plan for (to my understanding, not how baking shows usually work—usually you at least have a sense that you'll have to make, e.g., a cake and a bread and a pastry, so that you can plan to infuse your bread with basil or whatever and the crew can buy any specialty ingredients needed for your recipe), but I can't help thinking that the 'top' junior bakers in Ireland should be able to think a bit more creatively, even on the fly.

So overall...cute enough, and I'm thrilled to see more Bake-Off rip-offs (no joke. Someone write more! I might run out!), but not quite hitting that sweet spot. Fill in the donut plot holes, and then we can talk...