Easy Sweets

My neighbor Beth wasn’t trying to impress anyone. I’d stopped by to borrow a ladder—ours had mysteriously vanished into the garage abyss—and the smell hit … Read more

My sister called me two days before her annual Halloween party. “I need something disgusting,” she said. Not scary. Not creepy. Disgusting. She wanted cookies … Read more

This was supposed to be a batch of my grandmother’s famous stovetop cinnamon rolls, the kind that takes all morning and leaves your kitchen looking … Read more

My friend Jen asked me last week why I couldn’t just use coconut cream instead of heavy cream in my fudge recipe. I started to … Read more

I wasn’t expecting baking advice from my accountant, but there I was, stuck in his office during a snowstorm, listening to him describe exactly how … Read more

It was 11:47 PM on a random Wednesday in early December, and I had a terrible, specific, completely unreasonable craving for gingerbread cheesecake. Not just … Read more

Last December, I was elbow-deep in flour at my kitchen counter, trying to get a head start on holiday baking before the kids came home … Read more

I had refused to acknowledge candy corn as a legitimate dessert ingredient for years. Decades, honestly. Every October, I’d watch friends dump those little tri-colored … Read more

The church bake sale was in twelve hours and I’d completely forgotten. Everyone else would be bringing their grandmother’s legendary seven-layer cakes or those perfectly … Read more

“Why can’t you just dump everything in a pan and bake it?” my seven-year-old nephew asked, watching me measure flour for the third time. I … Read more