Like many of you, I once believed baking just wasn’t for me. Growing up in the early ’80s, my mother was that baker – a lemon pound cake expert with a sixth sense for when the crust had caramelized just right. After a few… let’s say chaotic attempts from me, she gently redirected me to the savory side of the kitchen. And for years, I wore that identity like a badge:
“Oh, I’m not a baker—I can cook though!” 😉
But let me tell you something:
That. Was. A lie.
Flash forward to a preschool pickup on a warm autumn day in 2014. I was the last parent to pick up that day, juggling keys, my purse, and a ready apology bar when I saw it - that sign-up sheet, taped to the window outside the classroom door.
If you know, you know. The classroom sign-up sheet is low-tech classroom crowdfunding, silently tracking parental participation in blue or black ink. The early birds get paper towels and juice boxes. The rest of us? We get what’s left.
And what was left for me?
Alphabet sugar cookies and frosting. For the whole class.
My daughter’s sweet face lit up the moment she saw me. And in that moment, every excuse I’d ever used—I don’t bake, store-bought is fine, I’m too busy—evaporated.
That night was the night I became a baker. Because it during that frenzied night of baking and crying, somehow 52 moderately passable sugar cookies emerged. And somewhere between the flour cloud and the frosting carnage, something unexpected happened:
I fell in love with baking.
In the years since that fateful night, that curiosity has become a calling.
At first, I buried myself in the pages of books like The Professional Pastry Chef by Bo Friberg, Ratio
by Michael Ruhlman, and Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish.
Those books - and the countless bakes they inspired - helped me unlock the knowledge that now lives in blog posts like:
*The Science of Sugar
*The Role of Eggs in Your Baked Goods
*Yeast Basics for Beginning Bread Bakers
*Five Flours I Keep Handy in My Kitchen
*The Basics of Butter
At Begin with Butter, we honor the wisdom of the home kitchens that raised us - where pound cakes cooled on cloth-covered counters, and nothing was ever measured except by memory and instinct. That kind of mastery deserves respect. And here, it gets it.
But we also believe that knowledge is power.That learning why something works doesn’t diminish the soul of a bake—it deepens it.
That’s why the Begin with Butter approach is a blend. A bridge. We pair time-honored techniques passed down from our elders with professional baking methods that demystify the science behind your favorite bakes.
We don’t believe in bulldozing tradition with precision.We believe in enhancing tradition with understanding.
Here, you’ll never be told to throw out the ways your grandmother taught you. Instead, we’ll explore how those intuitive methods connect to the principles behind pastry—so you can feel more confident in the kitchen, no matter how you learned to bake.
Whether you're a visual learner who needs to see the swirl, an auditory learner who craves step-by-step breakdowns, or someone who just wants to roll up your sleeves and go—I've got you.
You can find your perfect baking path through:
🎥 The Begin with Butter YouTube Channel
📸 The Begin with Butter Instagram Page
🏫 The BwB Home Baking Academy
📚 Free Deep-Dive Blog Posts
I'm deeply proud that Begin with Butter's been featured in:
* Parade Magazine
* Food52
* Cuisine Noir
* Simply Recipes
* Virginia Living
* Virginia This Morning
I’m also the proud author of an amazing cookbook, The Twelve Days of Pound Cake, and I teach in-depth baking skills at the BwB Home Baking Academy, where baking confidence rises in real time.
BB, you don’t need anyone’s permission to call yourself a baker. Not mine. Not the internet’s. Not even your own inner critic.
You need only this: a desire to try again. To honor what you already know, and to stay open to what’s still unfolding.
That’s what we do here. We learn, we laugh, we sometimes burn the bottom, and we always keep going.
Whether you're aiming for gooey chocolate chip cookies, your family’s sacred sweet potato pound cake, or your first from-scratch loaf of bread—I'm here to support you.
And when you accomplish your baking wins?
You won’t just have baked something beautiful. You’ll have become something bolder.
XOXO,
✨ P.S. Ready to bake with a little more joy and a lot more confidence? Join the Newsletter and come grab a seat at the table.
