CUISINE
about it,” she said of the opportunity to work with Deen. “I had no culinary
training, but it was just from reading my blog that they wanted me to write
recipes for them.”
Her secret for maintaining her waistline while dishing out such amazing recipes?
Portion control - and giving away as much of her treats as she can. “I do have
to sample everything that I bake, but I don’t eat all of it,” she said. “You can eat
dessert - you should eat dessert - but you don’t have to eat tons of it.”
In managing a long-term blog, one of the greatest challenges is finding new ways
to write about perennial topics. Take holiday baking, for example. “For holiday
baking, I think cookies,” Stefani said. Last year she kicked off the baking season
with the Great Cookie Project, where she spent 26 days presenting a different
cookbook-inspired holiday cookie to add to the winter mix.
She’s also not afraid to get crazy. Recipes like her Chocolatee Bourbon
Bacon Jam and Cupcakewurst, where cupcake batter is piped into a sausage
casing and cooked on the grill - are not for the unadventurous. “I love doing
really crazy stuff. If I get a lot of people saying it’s gross and it’s disgusting
and ‘I would never eat that,’ I don’t care. They’re looking at my recipe and
they’re interested in it and th e other half of the people are going to think
that it’s awesome,” Stefani said.
As far as the future goes, she is happy staying in the culinary world for as long
as possible. “I’m not one of those people who has a five-year or ten-year plan.
I certainly think about my business all the time, and I come up with ways to
change the way my business is changing, and the way brands are interacting
with me, and how readers are interacting with me.”
She’s not afraid to take chances and to bake the road less traveled - and for
Stefani, that’s a recipe for success in baking and beyond. Her piece of advice for
novices is don’t be afraid.
“People are scared to move away from a cake mix because they think they
might screw something up. But the worst case is it might not look so pretty or
your cake falls a little bit. You can cover that up with frosting, and ever yone is
going to be thrilled with this homemade dessert. You can’t go as wrong as you
think you can.”
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To read Stefani’s blog and discover some of her recipes, visit www.cupcakeproject.com.
SAVVY I SOPHISTICATED I SASSY