I’ve been a board certified adult for a few years (if not a few decades) now and can tell you a handful of things for certain. Adulthood comes with certain small joys that you simply don’t appreciate as a not adult. One of those small joys is having whatevertheheck you want for dinner. My favorite…
Hello friends! Happy Sunday to you! Can you believe this is the first Sunday in June!? In my heart and body I’m somewhere between Thanksgiving dinner rolls and a sunburn. I’m working hard hard hard on the next Joy the Baker holiday magazine which means ALL of my baking lately is pumpkin or peppermint or…
Hello, friends! I hope this finds you happy, well, healthy, energized. I’m taking a week of from my Let It Be Sunday offerings. I’m spending the weekend celebrating my birthday with Will, his family, my parents, and our friends. It’s my favorite weekend of the year and the unofficial start to summer and I plan…
Welcome to cobbler season! It’s that time of year when we put the best of summer’s fruit into a buttered baking dish, top it with any sort of buttered crumble and bake it until everything browns and bubbles. There are about a millions ways to cobbler and this is my favorite of the unfussy versions. …
Hello dear friends! Happy Sunday! I’m feeling very much under the weather this week. Gosh as soon as I whipped that mask off I caught a nasty cold. It’s downright silly how debilitating a common cold can be and I’ve been trying to force myself to work through it which… well it hasn’t served me….
The jasmine, gardenias, and magnolias are in bloom here in New Orleans. It’s a rainy but generous spring. The jasmine reminds me of the nights in California. Gardenias remind me of my grandmother, as she’d clip them from her garden and float them in a bowl on the living room table. Honestly, I think it…
Hello friends, happy Sunday! This week I’ve felt very grateful. Grateful that my parents are able to celebrate my birthday with me in Houston in a few weeks. Grateful for work opportunities that keep me super busy (I’m working on another Joy the Baker Holiday Magazine!). Grateful for a backyard to pitz around in this…
Hello friends! Popping in on a Saturday hoping you have a stick of butter left out on your kitchen counter – we’ve got cookies to bake! I’ve been baking my way through a batch of Dad’s Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie dough he left in the freezer for me last month. Cookies beget cookies. The…
Hello friends and Happy Mother’s Day. Please accept this, my favorite family photo. My parents, as cool as can be, memorializing this sweet San Francisco family vacation while I scream my fool head off for reasons known only to four year olds. My dad is holding me back, I’m pushing my mom and neither of…
Julia Child correctly identified that “a party without cake is just a meeting.” She’s spot on. I think these days she would also agree that most meetings could actually just be an email. Now, if logic follows, should we say that anything without cake might as well be an email? I fully agree. If a…
Happy Sunday, friends! Another week gone by – how did you spend it? I told you that I would ice dye and I’m a woman of my word. I made this wild pair of pants last weekend and I’ll say, if you’re at all curious, it’s such a fun process! We’re going to host a…
Hello, friends! Let’s make a perfect gluten-free, fresh strawberry, ricotta dessert. It’s an easy dessert bar, a light and fluffy cheesecake, and a celebration of fresh strawberries all in one sweet bite! In Louisiana, we’ve been showing off our spring strawberries for months now. We’ve got some nerve, but by the time summer rolls through…
Hello, happy Sunday! I hope you don’t mind that today’s Sunday intro is a personal announcement. I’ve been working the fine folks of my favorite kitchenware store Williams Sonoma for over a year now. The result of all of our work together is six (6!!) baking and brunch mixes! I wanted to make mixes that…
Last week I asked a serious question on Instagram. “How are you?”…. like, really. My friend Anastasia answered that she had just crumbled her mom’s homemade baklava over here breakfast granola so she was FINE, INDEED. This got me thinking…. baklava is honey, citrus, walnuts, spice, heart, and phyllo dough. I feel like most of…
I’ve written several little guides to New Orleans over the past few years. The cutest things to do in spring in the city. My favorite things to enjoy during fall after the crush of summer heat has passed. But here we are in the year of our Lord 2021 having just barely limped through a global…
Hello friends! Happy Sunday! My parents, my lovely parents were visiting me in New Orleans all week and it was just the best! Well, it was actually the rainiest week possible in the city but we didn’t mind the few times we got soaked. Dad made a batch of cookies a day, Mom and I…
Emergency Saturday dispatch, friends! We have an update! My parent’s are visiting New Orleans this week which means I’ve convinced my dad to make my favorite cookies (twice now and once more before he goes) – his Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies. I’ve made hundreds of dozens of cookies in my day but none better…
Your next spring baking project has arrived! We’re making spring-themed conchas, also known as pan dulce, also known as Mexican sweet breads. Conchas translates from Spanish as seashells – usually appropriate because the sugar top traditionally resembles a seashell. This season we might want to call these conchas fresas (strawberries) or flores (flowers) because we’re…
Hello friends! I woke up last Monday determined to get after it. The week prior felt lost to gloomy weather and equally gloomy body aches so I just let myself be. This week though? Sunshine and not a moment to lose. I visited with a few friends (one of them being my real estate agent…
I just spent two workdays in the kitchen testing and perfecting next week’s recipe. It’s a recipe for conchas. You know, Mexican sweet breads that are somehow even more delicious a day after baking. Perfect dipped in milky coffee. I found myself surrounded by four dozen conchas too many, trying to get just the right…
