Brubaker - Cheesecake love: inventive, irresistible, and super-easy cheesecake desserts for everyday

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To Jeremy, my best friend: I love you more than words can say.

To Cameron, Cassie, and Caedon: You are my inspiration and joy!

My love for baking began at a young age. My first baking memory is from when I was four years old. I can remember my mom teaching me how to make a homemade piecrust from a recipe in one of my grandmothers old cookbooks. We rolled the crust out and filled it with cherries, and then I sat in front of the oven, watching it bake. That little pie gave me the baking bug that I have not been able to shake over the years. Back when I was younger, my mom would make almost everything from scratch with the help of my gram. I learned most of what I know about cooking and baking just from being in the kitchen, watching them and helping out.

Throughout my middle school and high school years, I spent many nights in the kitchen making treats to share with my youth group friends. Plus, by taking on the role of the baker/chief dinner maker in the family, I was able to get out of chores on our family farm! I would much rather work with a whisk than have to clean out horse stalls. One year, I was even brave enough to enter one of my cakes in the local county fair. I was so excited to get third place for my first-time entry.

While I was in college, I took a few cooking and baking classes that further deepened my love of being in the kitchen. After my husband and I got married, I worked outside the home for a year until we started having children. One of our desires was that I would be able to stay home and raise our kids while they were little. I continued to experiment in the kitchen with different dinners and desserts, and our kids helped me. Talk about learning patience quickly. Baking with small children makes you realize very quickly that flour will be everywhere and eggshells in your food are inevitable. But it also makes you cherish the moments teaching your children how to bake together.

One year I took a cake-decorating class at Michaels and started a small home-based cake-decorating business making birthday and wedding cakes for friends and family. After a few years of doing cakes, I realized that cake decorating was becoming a very tedious and stressful thing in my life. I am extremely particular when I bake, and it was taking me way too long to get the cakes decorated. Also, transporting wedding cakes in the back of your vehicle will test anyones patience and sanity!

In 2008, I came across this thing called blogging and thought it could be a fun way to share photos of family life, crafts, and recipes with our family members who lived in other states. That first year, I only shared a handful of different things we did. It hadnt really caught on with me yet. The following year, our youngest son started school. After years of being a stay-at-home mom, I had no idea what to do with myself now that all three of our kids were in school. Since I definitely did not want to clean house or do laundry all day long, I began to search for a hobby that I could do during the day. I remembered that little blog I had started and thought it could be fun to start it back up again. After a few years of randomness, I realized that the posts that got the most comments and feedback were the fun and unique desserts I shared. I started to share a few more recipes each week, and then e-mails from people who were actually making my recipes started showing up in my inbox. Who knew my love of baking and being in the kitchen could generate so much interest?

My husband had the opportunity to go into ministry full-time in 2012, and I realized blogging could potentially become a full-time job for me to help support our family. I was excited about the possibility of working at home, doing something I absolutely adored. Since then I have had the opportunity to travel to different places, work with brands, and meet people around the world who I would never have met if not for this fun job.

Over the years I have developed my own style when it comes to bakingIm all about playful, approachable, inventive desserts that make you say Wow! Actually, my goal is to create recipes that make people say Wow! twicefirst when they hear the name of the recipe (for instance, my Hot Chocolate Cheesecake Dip) and again when they realize how easy it is to make (only 15 minutes of prep before you can be dipping all the cookies and fruit in chocolate goodness). My kitchen style has definitely become a semi-homemade with flair approach. I always encourage others to give themselves a break and get some help from the store when they need it. Those box mixes were made for a reason, so do not feel bad about using them. Im all for a delicious homemade cake every once in a while, but nine times out of ten, I make cake from a mix. It is easy to add a few extra things to a box mix to turn your creation into a dessert that everyone will go gaga for. To me, baking is about sharing the joy of delicious food with those we love, not about slaving in the kitchen for hours making everything from scratch.

Years of playing with my food in the kitchen has given me the confidence to make amazing semi-homemade desserts that make everyone take notice. Its your turn now.

Now that our children are in school all day, one of the things my husband and I enjoy doing is going on lunch or dinner dates regularly. Finding unique places with delicious food and decadent desserts is a hobby we have enjoyed doing together since we met. Over the years, we would always get a dessert or two to share at the end of our meal. And when I say share, I really mean he would eat a bite or two of his dessert, and I would finish off my piece and then eat the rest of his. The dessert we chose most often was a big slice of creamy cheesecake.

I can remember thinking that cheesecake was one of those desserts that was just too hard to manage in your own kitchen. I mean, who wants to deal with all the steps that go into making a fancy dessert, right?

Oh, how wrong I was! One day after eating out and enjoying a slice of $8 cheesecake, we started talking about how the cost of one slice at a restaurant probably cost the same as baking an entire cheesecake in our own kitchen. My husband started experimenting with different cheesecake recipes at first. Eventually the lure of creamy cheesecake got me to start experimenting with different crusts and crazy cheesecake combos, too. I was instantly hooked. It also did not take me much time to realize that cheesecake is really not that hard to make, if you follow some easy steps.