Peabody Johanson - Holy Sweet!: 60 Indulgent Recipes for Bigger, Better Desserts

HOLY
SWEET!

Indulgent Recipes for Bigger, Better Desserts

PEABODY JOHANSON

Founder of Sweet ReciPEAs

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Dedicated to my mom, the woman who taught me to love baking. To my husband, Jason, who supports me in all I do. To my longtime blog readers, who pushed me to put out a book. To my friends and family, who put up with me for months on end saying, Sure its good, but is it cookbook-worthy good?

EVIL TREATS FROM A NICE PERSON

Thats my blogs tagline.

It came about because many of my readers call me evil, but in a good way. Evil genius way. Nice person might be up for debate. The biggest compliment I get from readers who have met me in person is that Im just like I am on the blog.

Innovative. Creative. Unique. Decadent. Delicious. Accessible. Those are the words my readers use to describe my recipes, when asked. Im not the girl you come to for a plain pound cake recipe. I havent done anything normal when it comes to baking for as long as I can remember. Heck, I stuck a Twix bar in my cake the second time I used my Easy-Bake Oven as a kid.

My mother tells me I didnt get it from herthe culinary creativity, that is. And she is right. My mom substitutes dried cranberries for raisins and thinks shes being wild and crazy. She often asks me how I come up with this stuff, and I reply that I dont know. Because I dont. Its just how my mind works.

When my publishers first talked to me about doing a book, they were a little concerned that with fifteen years of blogging under my belt, I wouldnt have any new ideas for a cookbook. In one day I had more than 400 recipe ideas. The hard part was narrowing it all down to just 60 recipes. But rest assured, they are the best 60 recipes.

The other hard part was putting them into categories. I didnt want a cake section, a cookies section and so on. All cookbooks have those. I wanted something just a little bit different.

Because nostalgia plays a huge role in what I bake, Ive decided to divide the book up according to that. Almost every event in my life can be tied back to some form of food. Every great memory has some meal or treat that links me to it. Whether its all the foods we eat on Thanksgiving, or that every Christmas Eve we have pizza. Or that every Groundhog Day I eat a sprinkle donut and Chinese food. I dont remember my junior prom, but I remember that they had bowls of Goldfish crackers out everywhere. I cant tell you what my friends grandmother looks like, but I can describe in great detail the amazing chocolate cake she served and refused to give me the recipe for.

The recipes in this book were made to brighten your mood. Bake your day, if you will. They were made with ingredients that you can almost always find at the grocery store. No real fancy equipment. The recipes were tested not only by me but by your average home cooks, many with tiny kitchens just like mine.

I have many hopes for this cookbook.

I hope you read this cookbook like a real book, from cover to cover. Thats how I read cookbooks. I hope you earmark pages. I hope you find it worthy of a spot on your overburdened cookbook shelves because I know what an honor that is. I hope it inspires you to bake and create and to make food for others and share the love. I hope this cookbook fuels your creativity. And of course, I hope you love this cookbook. So much so that you give it as gifts to the fellow bakers in your life.

Most of all, I hope it makes you happy. Thats the only reason I wrote it. Well, that and so my mom could tell people Im a cookbook author. Because even after fifteen years of blogging my mom still calls my blog the food internet thingy.

So go through and mark which recipe you want to make first. Then go make it!

Happy baking!

Peabody

The most important tip I can give you when making my recipes is to realize you can make them. While you may look at some and think they seem daunting because the recipes are long, let me assure you that you can make them.

Growing up, I used to watch Martin Yan on PBS. While I had no big desire to cook Chinese food at home, it was his enthusiasm that drew me in. Every show he would end by saying, If Yan can cook, so can you, and I believed him. Well, if Peabody can bake, so can you!

Im not one of those bloggers with a giant kitchen, though I would surely like one. In fact, the kitchen I have now is the smallest I have ever hadand that includes my studio apartment when I was first out of college. All 81 square feet (7.5 square meters) of the kitchen I have now overflows with mixers (I have more than one), measuring cups, bowls, rolling pins, Bundt pans and just about everything else a baker would need. Everything I baked for this book was made in that tiny kitchen. Every recipe in this book can be made by the average home baker.

SERVING SIZES

You will see that almost every recipe in here uses the word about. That is because over my fifteen years of blogging I have learned that no one cuts the same. What one person thinks is 1 inch (2.5 cm) another person does not. What I think is two-thirds full is not what other people think is two-thirds full. And with that, serving sizes vary. Greatly.

So about. Thats what Im going with.

TIMING

Just like serving sizes, all prep and cooking times are an approximate. Cooking and baking times can vary greatly based on what type of stovetop and oven you have, either gas or electric. They all cook slightly different. Same for prep times. For example, if you are using a stand mixer with the whisk attachment to whip cream, that will go faster than using a mixing bowl and electric beaters.

The quality and age of the ingredients you are using can affect the timing, too. Even the temperature and humidity in your kitchen can change things. So about. Im sticking with it.

MIXERS

The recipes will say to use a stand mixer. I realize that not everyone owns a stand mixer, so just know that any time it says stand mixer you can use a large bowl and an electric handheld mixer all the same.

If you are an avid baker, though, and do not own one, I suggest you ask for one for your birthday or save up. They really are helpful.

THERMOMETERS

I am a huge proponent of owning a noncontact digital laser infrared thermometer. You can usually pick one up for around $20. There are certainly more expensive ones, but for baking and candy making you really dont need a top-of-the-line one.

Once I switched to the infrared thermometer, candy making became so much easier. So much. Where I used to fail miserably, I was finally finding success. I also use it to make Swiss meringue buttercream, which is used quite a bit in this book, as its my favorite frosting.