The Tasty Baker has seven shapes in it: a train, a birthday cake, a puppy, a smiley face, a heart, a stack of blocks, and a kitty. When my older son was younger, he was obsessed with trains. I can imagine if we had the Tasty Baker back then, we would have made plates upon plates of trains for his consumption or for birthday parties. He also loves cats and dogs, and thinks the smiley face is cute. Meanwhile, my younger son loves the heart - and of course enjoys the birthday cake because it is fun to pretend you have a birthday even when you don't! The blocks might be a great thing for a younger child or for baby shower snacks.

There are also some other versions with different shapes, such as the Pop Art Disney Princess 5-in-1 Tasty Baker and Pop Art Mickey and Gang 5-in-1 Tasty Baker.

The shapes have wide-appeal and could be used for any children, and even for adults (such as for the aforementioned baby shower) - but since the Tasty Baker folks wanted my slant on their product's use for those with autistic spectrum disorders, here are a few thoughts along those lines:

For someone obsessed with one of these objects, having a muffin, cake, brownie, bread or waffle made in that shape would be a real treat. Many kids on the spectrum do have a particular fixation. Likewise, they are often picky eaters. If the child is uncertain about bananas but loves puppies, a banana-bread puppy might be just the way to introduce the food. Similarly, a zucchini-bread train for someone like my son (who loved trains as a toddler and has adored the color green since birth) would be a fabulous way to sneak in some veggies.

For those working on a more therapeutic level, the "name the shape and then you get the cake!" game would probably work well. (And it need not be a sugary cake - it could be carrot cake, bran muffin, or some other more healthful concoction that still feels like a treat for the child.)

One concern I immediately told the Tasty Baker folks about is that many kids on the spectrum are also on gluten-free diets. Although we haven't done it 100% for our son, we did go through a period of time when we limited gluten/casein. To my delight, the Tasty Baker folks wrote back that they have been testing gluten-free recipes with the baker. Recently one of the folks let me know that they tried the Tasty Baker using gluten free, dairy free and egg free recipes. She told me it performed great and that really any liquid batter will work with the machine. This is indeed good news.

My particular media sample didn't come with recipes and only had vague guidelines about how to cook the batter. Thankfully with trial and error I was able to figure it out - and much to my relief, the non-stick coating is such that during my various "errors" clean up was really easy! As for recipes, the regular version that one purchases in the store has an insert with more specific guidelines; also, Tasty Baker will provide to their customers a free digital recipe book which includes recipes for both the 5-in-1 Tasty Baker and the Pop Art Toaster.

As for practicality, there is good news and bad news.

The good news is that one round of treats takes around 4-6 minutes (the exceptions are with biscuits around a rapid-fire 2 minutes and brownies around 8), which is pretty quick - and certainly faster than baking a whole cake, a bunch of muffins, or an entire loaf of bread. But the bad news is that since only seven little treats cook at a time, it takes quite awhile to make the entire bowl of batter. It takes patience to dole out an entire heaping plate of all seven shapes, and tons more if the child only wants a single shape.

But there is more good news in that the child is usually pretty happy with the first round, so by the time they are nearly done with those, the second round is nearly finished (sort of like when cooking only a couple pancakes or waffles at a time.) Still, I admit being a bit impatient.

One possibly excellent way to use the "quick initial round" to one's advantage would be to save some batter from a sheet cake (or other "bake it all at once" project) and create the little fun shapes with that reserved batter. That way, the Birthday Boy (or otherwise super-eager child) can enjoy little nibbles ahead of time while the larger cake cooks. (There can also be stimulus generalization practice, such as explaining that the little green train is the exact same thing as the large green loaf.)

Another idea is to have more than one Tasty Baker. I can see how combining the "original" with the Mickey and Princesses versions could create quite a fun assortment of shapes, and this would use up the batter quickly!

I'm thankful that the Pop Art Tasty Baker people introduced me to this product. My kids have had fun with it, and I have some ideas for how to use it in creative ways. (Just now I saw on the box that it can cook eggs! Perhaps I'll give that a shot...)

Although my son is old enough (and verbal enough) to not require the reinforcement and "therapy" from this product in a way that might be useful for someone younger or "more affected" on the autism spectrum, I can see how the Tasty Baker could be beneficial. As "regular kids" both my boys have enjoyed the baker, and I expect it would meet with universal approval from other baked-product-loving children.

Thank you Tasty Baker!

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Disclaimer: Pop Art Tasty Baker gave me a media sample of the Pop Art 5-in-1 Tasty Baker for the purposes of review. I received no other compensation, nor will I receive further compensation for the contents of this post. In the event that you readers click on the Amazon links above and then purchase something on the Amazon website, I'll get a few cents.