Back in June I was issued a challenge by the TLC Cake Crew: make a video featuring your favorite summer dessert for a shot at interviewing Buddy Valastro. It was a competition after my own heart – a chance to act stupid, make dessert and talk to my favorite Jersey native (eat it, Snooki.) I [...]

 Bake and Destroy interview: Buddy Valastro of Cake Boss: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I met Sprinkles Cupcakes founder Candace Nelson nearly one year ago on the set of Cupcake Wars. (Read the tell-all here!) We were shooting a pilot for Food Network that eventually turned into the hit cupcake competition people are constantly suggesting I try out for. While you won’t find any try out videos from me, [...]

In 2009 I found myself in a moral dilemma – the fancy apron company that had been sponsoring me (via giveaways and lots of free fancy aprons) up and fired the designer responsible for what I still consider their cutest aprons. That designer also happened to be a friend of mine and I had to [...]

Nate Meads is some kind of a pastry wizard. Before he and his partners Elaine Heaney (also his lovely wife) and Jared Nance opened Fritz Pastry I was a die-hard American bakery fan. Brioche? Gateau Breton? Stick it in your ear, Frenchy. I’ll have a big slice of chocolate cake with plenty of buttercream. My [...]

A few years ago, trolling around Etsy with my first bit of Bake and Destroy shirt sale money burning in hole in my PayPal account, I discovered a shop called A. Bell Emporium and was instantly smitten. Plastic ballerinas, kitchy mushrooms and wee little deer all ideal for topping the weirdo cupcakes I’d been baking [...]

Way back before there was a Teno – or a Bake and Destroy – Tony and I were watching Sugar Rush, a short-lived Food Network show that I’m guessing would do much better these days than it did then. They covered an adorable place called Angel Food Bakery that did quirky wedding cakes, cute cupcakes [...]

You must understand – I HAD to interview Carrie of Caged Tomato for Bake and Destroy. HAD TO. Her artwork is a cup of drive-in nostalgia, a dash of Saturday morning cartoons and a healthy pinch of tongue-in-cheek and therefore, my favorite ever. That, and – she basically saved my life once. See, when I [...]

I set out last fall to write a profile of Chef Dimitri Fayard for Chicago Magazine. I say “set out” because what resulted was a sprawling biography, based on several interviews with Dimitri and his wife Keli, various people at the French Pastry School and even an editor at Pastry Art & Design magazine. I [...]

It’s a dream come true. Now I just need to be a guest speaker in some one’s class and I will have fulfilled the majority of my nerdy fantasies. A fellow journalism student Chrissy Mahlmeister interviewed me for a class she took over J-term. It was about blogging, I don’t know exactly what the class [...]

I am no longer a supporter or fan of The Bleeding Heart Bakery. That’s all I have to say about that.