Late last week, I decided to do a little experiment. I asked AI to create a recipe for me. The original prompt that I wrote into the chat was: “Create a recipe for a cake that I can make this weekend that uses fruit that is in-season this time of year. I want the cake to be elegant with rich flavors and perhaps a flavor combination that is unexpected but still tastes excellent.”
Within moments, the chat filled up with a recipe for a Brown Butter Peach Cake. After some refining of what I was looking for in the recipe (type of cake, title of recipe, editing some ingredients), I was eventually satisfied with what the generator had assembled for me.
The original recipe can be found by clicking here. The formatting is my own.
I’m Ryan. A few years ago I had a small corner of the internet called Ryan’s Kitchen Journal. It was my personal blog where I wrote about my experience cooking through a variety of cookbooks. After regularly publishing on it for over three years—and my 64th Ina Garten recipe—I decided to step back from writing.
Over the last month or so I’ve had the urge to get back into writing and baking. Unfortunately for me, my old domain had expired and was purchased by someone else. So, it was time for a rebrand!
Thus, Ryan Bakes It was born!
What is Ryan Bakes It?
With the rebrand came a slight focus in content. Instead of cooking through a single author’s repertoire of recipes or a single cookbook, I’ve decided to make this more like an online journal on my experiences learning to bake gourmet desserts in my own home kitchen.
Using recipes from the Bake From Scratch cookbooks, my intent is to challenge my current skillset and improve my techniques and my confidence when it comes to baking.
With this go ‘round, the idea is not to create every single recipe that Bake From Scratch has published. Doing so would be an enormous undertaking. Not to mention a waste of time and ingredients. Instead, I plan to only make the recipes that interest me or that will challenge me due to the technique involved.
So, what do you say? Will you join me on this crazy adventure?
Well, it’s been a while since I’ve made an Ina recipe. Actually, it’s been a while since I’ve made any recipe and then wrote a blog post about it. But last weekend for the first time in a while, I actually had a reason to bake! So I took advantage of it and decided that perhaps it might be good to write a blog post, too.
Over the weekend I attended an Oktoberfest party and I was asked to bake something. Sticking with the German theme, I quickly decided on making a German chocolate cake. But then I realized that for a party, cupcakes might be easier to both make and eat. The dessert becomes finger food, perfect for an outdoor gathering during the last few warms days of the year. Luckily for me, Ina Garten had a German chocolate cupcake recipe. It was like the stars aligned.
Fall has officially arrived! Pumpkin spice lattes, large crisp apples, cooler days and nights, and soon the leaves will be changing colors. Fair season is in full swing in New England. This year, I was able make the trip to The Big E in Massachusetts. It’s New England’s largest fair and runs over two weeks every year. I was really happy to get back there this year, after missing it last year due to my work schedule.
As the weather changes, and I’ve settled into my new work schedule, I’m going to make an effort to return to baking and blogging.
A couple weeks ago, I decided to reactivate my baking bug. I made something that I’ve made a few times before and blogged about before. It was Ina Garten’s Banana Chocolate Crumb Cake. You can read more about it here.
Of course my most recent iteration of it didn’t look quite as good as the original. The picture is below. Ignore the sunken spot in the middle. I have yet to buy a proper cake tester for the condo, so I had to use a butter knife.
It’s fall in New England. That only means one thing: I’m pretty much obligated to bake at least one thing with apples. Since I am not, by any means, a pie person, I decided to go a different route. Apple cake. Luckily for me, Ina Garten has a recipe that combines wonderful flavors and had the entire kitchen spelling like fall.
You know, sometimes you just NEED to have a brownie.
This weekend was time-change weekend for most of us in the United States. The fall back one always hits me a little harder than the spring one. I think it has to do with the sun setting before I walk out of work at 5:00 for the next four months. As a way to cope with this, I decided to do one of the healthiest, and therapy-approved methods: bake something sweet!
Believe it or not, we are less than one week away from Halloween! Whether you love the holiday, or hate it, more often than not, kids will be ringing your doorbell looking for candy.
If you have kids of your own, you may even find yourself having to host (or wanting to host, depending on how you feel about it) a Halloween party for their friends. If you’re having trouble deciding on what you should make, here are three awesome ideas. Each one of these will surely bring Halloween cheer to your guests.
Note: For the recipes shown in the photos below, simply click on the photo.
Peanut Butter Spider Cookies
These cute treats are a spin on the classic peanut butter cookie. Easily make them holiday appropriate by adding a miniature Reese’s peanut butter cup on top and some chocolate drizzle for the legs. This recipe from Love in My Oven uses only a handful of ingredients and can be whipped up in no time!
Need to avoid peanuts? Use sugar cookies instead and you a mini Snickers bar instead of the peanut butter cup. It won’t give you the exact effect, but still similar enough to be fun!
A Halloween-ified Kid-Friendly Charcuterie Board
Charcuterie Boards are all the rage right now! Whether it’s meats and cheeses, a butter board, or a dessert board. Why not try this Halloween option for your party? Its super easy to make and you can customize what you put on the board to your guests’ taste. Take inspiration from Two Peas and Their Pod to make life even easier.
Monster Rice Krispy Treats
No kids party is complete without Rice Krispie Treats! Instead of serving the standard one, take this kid-favorite treat into the holiday spirit by turning them into Monsters! With only a few ingredients and about 45 minutes worth of work, you’ll have a unique treat that kids will love! You can even go a step further and make witches as well! That would be super fun. Check out Chelsea’s Messy Apron for more quick and easy Halloween treat ideas!
Well, there you have it! A few quick and easy Halloween treats for your Halloween party. While I did find these with kids in mind, I’m sure many adults will gobble them up just as quickly. It’s okay, we won’t tell anyone if you wanna make these for yourself too!
It’s October and that means its now socially acceptable to bake pumpkin things without getting an eye-roll from pumpkin haters. I had an extra day off earlier this week so I decided to see if the baking bug was still within my soul. (Hint: it was.) What did I bake? None other than Ina Garten’s Pumpkin Roulade with Ginger Mascarpone Filling.
Fall has officially arrived! Pumpkin spice, large crisp apples, cooler days and nights, and soon the leaves will change colors. Fair season is in full swing in New England with the Big E now in its final week. Sadly, I won’t be able to make it this year due to my new work schedule and lack of time off. But there’s always next year!
