Hello, beautiful readers!
It’s been a minute, hasn’t it??
Ryan’s Kitchen Journal is now Ryan Bakes It! A year and a half away has given me time to think, and over that time, my interest in baking and blogging has sort of re-emerged.
Over the next few weeks, you’ll continue to see some other changes made on the site — there may even be a huge layout change — I’m not quite sure yet.
But anyway, I hope you’ll be along for the ride!
More to come!
Stay tuned!
About four years ago, as the world was still dealing with the effects of the COVID pandemic, I started a blog. I’ll be honest now. I wanted it to become “big.” I wanted it to be popular, similar to the food blogs I read and visit online often.
It didn’t take me long to realize that running and maintaining a food blog of that caliber is a full time job. And unless I was willing and able to put in the work, that it would be a long shot for me to achieve that goal. I guess I assumed that it would happen overnight. How delusional I was!
Continue reading “Fourth Anniversary Thoughts”
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!
Continue reading “The Richest Brownies You’ll Ever Eat – Barefoot Contessa 63”
Sometimes life gets a little busy. And sometimes you find yourself saying, “Where did the time go?” I can’t believe it’s been nearly two weeks since my last post. Frankly, I haven’t had much to post. With the holiday last weekend and poor planning on my part, I haven’t had a chance to spend some time in the kitchen working on recipes. However, with multiple days off this week (thanks to some vacation time) and a pretty much empty weekend, I should have plenty of opportunity to whip something up.
I’m currently thinking of making Ina Garten’s recipe for brioche loaves this weekend. Who says bread baking is only for the winter?! But, I’m also itching to get my hands back into the Magnolia Bakery Handbook. Perhaps a tasty muffin or scone recipe is on tap, too.
For regular readers of this blog, you may remember that over the weekend I made an angel food cake. This meant I was left with over a dozen (yes, over a dozen!!) egg yolks. In baking, egg whites have a little more uses than just the yolks do, so I was a little sad about this. However, then I remembered I could make lemon curd. What’s even better is I found a recipe that made one the best lemon curds I’ve ever had and it even gets folded into a lovely pound cake.
Continue reading “Zoe Bakes’ Lemon Curd Pound Cake”
March is a busy month in my family. My father’s birthday was a couple weeks ago and this past week, it was my mother’s turn to advance past go once again. Wouldn’t it be great if we could collect $200 just for having a birthday? Anyway, as per usual, I offered to bake her cake. And this year, she requested something that I’ve never made before.
Angel food cake.
Continue reading “A Cake That’s As Light As a Cloud”
Picture it: 2021.
I had been blogging for about six months. I was enjoying it, but I was feeling constrained by my self-imposed limitations. At the time, I was working my way (slowly–ever so slowly) through Ina Garten’s recipes. Then, I had an idea that rekindled by interest in blogging and baking. This idea led to the main focus of the blog for the following 18 months.
Continue reading “Improving My Magnolia Bakery Chocolate Cake”
Looking back at some of my older blog posts from the last two years, I noticed that I usually wrote about the long, cold winters I would experience in New England. This year, has been the exception. Our winter has been incredibly mild. In fact, we only received one snowstorm so far that amounted to measurable snow. And, honestly, it wasn’t all that bad and less than a week later the evidence of it happening have almost disappeared completely.
Talk about my kind of winter!
Continue reading “A Look Towards Berry Season”
In September of 2022, I made a Hummingbird Cake out of the Magnolia Bakery Handbook. For the blog post about making that recipe, I titled it “Move Over Carrot Cake, I’m Coming For You!” At the time, I thought that the Hummingbird Cake was the superior of the two cakes. This assumption was made before I tasted the Carrot Cake out of the Handbook. Let me tell you: I think I was wrong about the Hummingbird Cake being superior. Until I tasted this cake, I was only “meh” about carrot cake. This recipe is a must-have and I even included it below!
Continue reading “The Carrot Cake Recipe That Everyone Needs”
It’s winter in New England, and even though we haven’t gotten any significant snowfall, we have had a few chillier days here and there. What’s the best way to end a cold day? A warm and hearty pasta dish. If you’re looking for something super simple and flavorful, then you MUST give this Ina Garten pasta recipe a try. Trust me, you won’t be sorry. I’m patiently waiting for an excuse to make this guaranteed crowd-pleaser once again.
Continue reading “Ina Makes a Dinner Comeback – Barefoot Contessa 58”
