Sprinkle Bakes

The other week I had a very special delivery show up on my front porch:  the new Sprinkle Bakes book!  You guys, if you have not been following Heather’s blog you are seriously missing out.  She makes the most insanely gorgeous baked goods with some of the most gorgeous food photography I have ever seen.  Her entire blog is dedicated to making dessert fun and beautiful, and she definitely brings that concept 100% to her book as well.

 

Growing up my grandfather make cakes – like really good, beautiful wedding and celebration cakes – just for the fun of it.  It was a beautiful hobby of his, and something that just made him extra special.  You don’t see a lot of farmers/retired Navy officers that can bake AND decorate a mean cake, but that was him!  I can see the love for beautiful desserts that I’ve inherited from him as I’ve grown in my own love for food and baking.

One thing that I love about Heather’s book is the fact that she really encourages the readers to find their own inspiration, and to use her recipes and techniques as the foundation for their own creative fun.  I think there are so many times that we just want to make someone else’s recipe exactly the same way they did and be done with it, but it’s so much more fun to be creative in the ways that inspire us on a personal level.  It’s so nice to see an author who encourages and fosters that in their book!

 

While I’ve already made a handful of the cookie recipes from Sprinkle Bakes, my favorite thus far is the macaron recipe.  I’ve never actually made REAL macarons before, and never really had one until my Foodbuzz Festival trip last November, so I was a little intimidated to really try my own.  But all it took was beginning to beat the egg whites to really rev up my excitement.  These beauties are pretty basic – I just made the recipe as-is – but absolutely delicious.  I went with yellow food coloring in mine to mimic the sunshine streaming through the windows, and filled them with chocolate ganache because that’s what I had on hand.  Now that I know the basic recipe I’m planning on making them often, probably in bite-size sandwiches, for Nate and I to enjoy and for friends and family.

I know there are a lot of cookbooks out there, and there are a lot of blogs that you can pull recipes from, but I absolutely love this book and will be storing it on the shelf that I keep my most-used cookbooks on.  It’s beautiful, inspiring and just plain yummy!