Missy Elliott is back on top form with The Cookbook, despite a slightly worrying intro to Joy which finds her seemingly doing an impersonation of Star Wars character Watto (the junk shop owner who Anakin Skywalker belonged to in Phantom Menace, if you're not geeky enough to know who he is) whilst mumbling about food and the special guests on her album. Even Dick van Dyke is better at accents than her, but thankfully she soon gets back to what she does best.

The Cookbook is her sixth album, and it finds her producing with the help of the all-star cast of Timbaland, the Neptunes, Warryn Campbell and Craig Brockman.

Anyone who's heard the lead single Lose Control - featuring Ciara and Fatman Scoop and sampling Cybotron's 1982 proto-techno classic Clear - will know what she's capable of, even now that we take her rule-smashing hip-hop for granted. Partytime is one of only a few Timbaland tracks on the album and is guaranteed to be the life and soul of any summer party.

My Struggles - featuring Grand Puba and Mary J. Blige - finds Missy reflecting on her troubled childhood of domestic violence as well as giving Blige the chance to show off her rapping chops. However, The Cookbook isn't all full of top-notch recipes and Remember When would have Gordon Ramsey practically exploding with rage.

Missy Elliott is much better than ultra-bland R&B, but that's exactly what it is and it sounds like a song Eternal would have baulked at singing. Meltdown is also a bit too slick, but is at least redeemed by the sexually explicit lyrics she uses to tell the tale: "I broke up with my ex, I couldn't take his sarcasm, every time we boned I had to fake an orgasm."

Much better is Neptunes-produced On & On, which features Pharrel Williams and is surely a potential hit single in the making, with crazy beats flying all over the place and Missy in full flow. We Run This samples the Sugarhill Gang's Apache and sounds like the kind of party anthem Prince would have been proud to record at his peak. It's produced by Rich Harrison, who was responsible for Beyonce's Crazy In Love, as was the equally-funky Can't Stop.

Despite a couple of schmaltzy duffers, you simply can't deny that Missy Elliott's sheer genius shines through yet again in The Cookbook, helped by some of the best superstar beatsmasters in the business, with Warryn Campbell's Teary Eyed also seemingly tailor-made for success. She may not be the Daddy, but she'd certainly be happy to be called the Mommy...