Popin' Cookin' Happy Kitchen

Popin' Cookin', by Japanese company Kracie, is a toy set that lets you make mini, edible versions of foods like sushi, cupcakes, burgers, ramen and donuts (they don't taste like the real thing). You can find videos on YouTube showing many of their products and how they're used. I recently tried their Donut Set.

Contents: 1 light brown and 1 dark brown donut mixture, 1 pink and 1 white icing mixture, 1 chocolate sauce mixture, 1 rainbow sprinkles and 1 crumbs packet.

 This is the light brown donut mixture with water.

It looks like this after mixing. On the left you can see the moulds to press the donuts with.

The dark brown one looks like this.

Chocolate sauce

It comes with a little piping bag to apply.

White and pink icing

 Rainbow sprinkles and crumbs (I thought they were peanuts, they're not)

This is what they look like after pressing. You can combine the 2 colours. They're a bit hard to press, because the dough is quite springy. So even if you press it into the shape of the mould, it'll spring back.

In the video, they use pointed chopsticks to individually place the toppings on the donuts. You might be tempted to just press them into the toppings. THIS DOES NOT WORK.

I was actually doing this for a photography competition. This was my professional set-up. Mannequin from Ikea ($9). Hat - cut and folded piece of paper. Apron - crumpled and cut piece of paper. Decoration on apron - cut from donut box. Tray - gold coloured paper stuck on a piece of cardboard from the box. Pants - black paper. Cooking utensil - white marks drawn using correction fluid on black paper, stuck to a piece of bamboo skewer.

Close-up of the 3 donuts. The one I decorated is the one on the right.

This is the final shot. I got into the top 10! Everyone submitted 3 photos, though, so I don't know if this was the winning one. My other 2 photos were just old photos, taken with my iPhone 4, and brightened up.

In total, we made 11 donuts. You may be wondering how they taste. I didn't like them that much. They felt like gummy sweets, and the taste was odd. Maybe if you don't think of them as donuts, they'll seem better.