[I’]m not one for secrets.  Especially where chocolate is involved.

I always have a few tricks up my sleeve and I can never keep them secrets for long.  Brown sugar baked bacon is one secret.  Sweet, salty, crisp, and perfect.  Adding that bacon to biscuits,  completely over the top good!  Brown butter in everything, most especially chocolate chip cookies…. another secret I just couldn’t keep to myself.

Continue reading How To Make The Best Chocolate Buttercream Frosting at Joy the Baker.

Let’s talk about brown sugar!  It’s easily one of my favorite baking staples.  It’s deep, sweet, and utterly lovely.

Commercially produced brown sugar (the kind most of us probably buy) is a mixture of granulated sugar (from canes or beets) and molasses.

Wait… do you know how brown sugar is made?  Unrefined sugar is stripped down to bare bones sugar crystals.  Two things are created in this process:  granulated sugar and molasses.  

Continue reading Brown Sugar: Pack It! at Joy the Baker.

There’s always a certain amount of chaos in my kitchen.

The oven is screamin’ hot.  There are egg yolks in the egg whites.  Flour : Everywhere.  I have an 8-inch round pan, a 9×13-inch pan, a burnt saute pan from Ikea, and a wooden spoon….and now I need a special spring-form pan just for a cheesecake!?  Yea…

Also… there’s flour everywhere.  A cat, too.  The cat, however, is medium normal.

Continue reading Why Use Parchment Paper? at Joy the Baker.

Glitter is not food. Well… Unless it’s in sprinkle form. Sprinkles are totally food.

Gold glitter belongs on shoes. Golds sprinkles, on cupcakes.

Today I’d like to explore the value of glitter.

It’s shoes! Let’s make our own fancy, totally cheap, totally cute summer shoes.

Theres gold, and sparkle. There’s heart shapes… And we didn’t even have to spend too much money at Steve Madden to make it happen.

Continue reading How to Make: Summer City Shoes at Joy the Baker.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what is essential.

It’s hard to think of essential… because very few things are actually, very completely, essential.

Let me give you a little peek into what I find essential these days.  Some of these essentials are a edible, some are a luxury, some are sparkly… it’s just a little bit of real life.

Essentials start in the kitchen with big bins of King Arthur All-Purpose Flour, sea salt in my Dad’s old Tupperware salt shaker, and these perfectly simple metal measuring spoons.

Continue reading Life Essentials at Joy the Baker.

Seven years.

Seven years doesn’t sound like a lot of time.  Seven years.  Seven years ago I was just moving from Seattle back to Los Angeles.  I was dating a man that I liked… and eventually I thought better of it and stopped liking him.  Seven years ago I was struggling to put myself through college.  I was working at coffee shop where I was the most popular barista because I was super nice, remembered everyone’s drink order, and occasionally wore low cut tops.  

Continue reading Make a Time Capsule! at Joy the Baker.

I can cook.  I mean… I can really cook.  I can walk around in a pair of heels without looking like a weirdo…. and I know how to apply lip liner if the occasion requires.

I am not, however, a domestic goddess.  Not at all.  Nope.

I’m not one of those ladies who has Christmas ornaments in the basement.  I don’t have a shelving system dedicated to wrapping paper and corresponding ribbons.  

Continue reading Let’s Make Orange Pomanders! at Joy the Baker.

I am surrounded by stacks of books.  Well… stacks of books, semi sweet chocolate chips, and bobbypins.

I really wanted to share my books with you… mostly because reading aloud is lost on my cat.  New and old, these are the pages that currently surround me.

With the season getting more grey and brisk, I find myself sitting with these books even more.  Working out is sooooo summer.  It’s time for sweaters, slippers, and cozy book worming.

Continue reading In the Stacks: my favorite things at Joy the Baker.

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Here’s a few things I’ve learned from life… they definitely have nothing to do with cookies:

Don’t laugh when someone asks you out on a date.  They’ll think you’re laughing at them.  They won’t understand that you’re just flattered and awkward and your head is about to explode.  Don’t chew gum in a public restroom.  It sorta feels like you’re eating bathroom air.  Capital Gross.

Lastly, don’t drink wine past 3:30am.  

Continue reading Brown Sugar Cookies at Joy the Baker.

If you’re turning twenty one (21!!) today… May 7, 2011, I’d like to humbly offer you some advice, as your elder of 9 whopping years.

I know you’re not asking for advice.  I know I’m not an expert at life…  I just have a few gems I want you to take with you.

One:  Raw honey and baking soda make a really lovely face scrub.  True.  Try it!

Two:  Eat something green everyday.

Continue reading On Turning TwentyOne at Joy the Baker.