Latest / Cookbook Love Podcast / Episode 419: Being a Cookbook Author & Publisher: Justin Ellen of @EverythingJustBaked

Transcript

Episode 419: Being a Cookbook Author & Publisher: Justin Ellen of @EverythingJustBaked · Cookbook Love Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: You are listening to the
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: cookbook Love Podcast with
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Maggie Greene, episode number
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: four nineteen.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the cookbook Love
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Podcast, a podcast that
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: celebrates cookbook readers,
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: buyers, collectors, writers, and
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: clubs.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: And now your host, cookbook
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  Speaker 2: author, culinary dietitian, and
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: cookbook writing coach, Maggie
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Greene.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Hi, everybody.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of the Cookbook Love Podcast.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: How's everybody doing today?
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Hope you are all doing well.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Getting ready to officially start the fall season.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: And it's a big cookbook season.
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  Speaker 1: And today we have an exciting episode with Justin Ellen.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Justin is a baker and the creator of Everything Just
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Baked, where his fun, chaotic and personality filled approach
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  Speaker 1: to baking has captured the attention of millions of people
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: across social media.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Known for his viral recipes, custom cakes and the signature
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  Speaker 1: belief that baking should be just as enjoyable as indulging
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  Speaker 1: in the results, Justin has built a business centered on making
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: people laugh, learn, and getting inspired in the kitchen.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Today on the show, we talk all about Justin's beautiful new
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  Speaker 1: book, Better Than Grandmas, where he shares comfort desserts
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: we grew up loving.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: We talk all about Justin's
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  Speaker 1: journey on social media, his
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  Speaker 1: decision to publish a book, his
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: journey independently publishing
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: his book.
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  Speaker 1: And then, of course, we dive
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  Speaker 1: into the book talking all about
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  Speaker 1: cakes, cookies, single serving
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  Speaker 1: desserts, and tips for having
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: the best baked products
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  Speaker 1: possible.
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  Speaker 1: So without further delay, let's
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  Speaker 1: dive into this interview with
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Justin Ellen.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Hi, Justin.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Cookbook Love Podcast.
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: Hello.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: Thank you for having me.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Yes, excited to have you here.
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  Speaker 1: Can't wait to dive in and talk all about your beautiful new
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  Speaker 1: book, Better Than Grandmas.
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  Speaker 1: But before we do, why don't you
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  Speaker 1: tell everybody a little bit
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: about who you are and what you
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: do?
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  Speaker 3: Mhm. So I'm Justin.
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  Speaker 3: I'm the creator of everything
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: just bake author Ben and
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: grandma's.
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  Speaker 3: Um, I started baking ever since I was little with my Nana.
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: Uh, and she was crazy.
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: She would make everything under the sun.
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  Speaker 3: Breads, pies, cookies, anything from scratch.
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: I don't know why, but now I'm crazy like her.
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: Baking from scratch.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: And as I got older, I just continued being in the kitchen,
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: making a mess, having fun.
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: I got into cake decorating a lot and that's something I was never
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: in my family.
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: Um, so I guess it really intrigued me.
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: And around I was sixteen or so,
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: I started posting my work on
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  Speaker 3: Instagram, my cakes, and I
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: accidentally created my
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: business.
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: Everything just baked and I just stayed consistent with it.
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: I eventually got on TV.
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: Netflix.
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: Is it cake?
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: Season one.
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: I was the youngest contestant, just turned eighteen.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: That's a wild story in itself.
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: Um, but fast forward through some time.
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: I grew a large social media following and now I really like
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: to teach bakers.
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: Um, honestly, anyone how to bake from scratch?
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  Speaker 3: Make baking more accessible,
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  Speaker 3: more enjoyable, and not
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  Speaker 3: stressful.
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  Speaker 3: You know, it's supposed to be a fun time.
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  Speaker 3: A time to create memories.
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: And I really try to embrace that.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So your grandma, was it really, truly just desserts that
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: she made with, you.
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  Speaker 3: Know, Nana makes everything
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  Speaker 3: dessert, savory foods, drinks,
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  Speaker 3: homemade iced tea, like
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  Speaker 3: everything.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, but the desserts, for some reason stuck with you rather
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: than the savory.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, I have a major sweet tooth.
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  Speaker 3: So bad.
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  Speaker 3: Like, uh, when I'm going out to a restaurant, I look at the
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: dessert menu first.
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  Speaker 3: I just love sweets.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And I would imagine that, um, Online, on social media.
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  Speaker 1: There is an attraction to things like this, and it could even be
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: like for people that maybe just like to look at the content.
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  Speaker 1: Who knows if they're really even making them.
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  Speaker 1: It almost feels like a space
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  Speaker 1: that, um, is approachable for
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  Speaker 1: you though, because none of the
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  Speaker 1: desserts are really, I mean,
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  Speaker 1: there's secrets to like making
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: them well, but we're not talking
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  Speaker 1: like a lot of complicated
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  Speaker 1: things.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Mhm.
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  Speaker 3: I always try to do stuff that feels nostalgic comfort, like
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: the classics and maybe a here and now do something a little
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: trendy, maybe a little cookie butter, you know?
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Um, but I just don't think it's always personally for me, it's
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: not always worth making these elaborate ten day desserts.
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: It's like all that work and like, you know, I'd rather eat a
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: chocolate chip cookie.
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. So when you first started,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: when you were sixteen, uh, your
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: thought was, I'm just going to
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: share some things here and see
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: what happens.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. So at sixteen, I didn't really share recipes.
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: It was just my cake.
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: I was doing cake decorating, cakes, wedding cakes.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, granted, they were ugly in the beginning.
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  Speaker 3: I'm just being honest.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: That's okay.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Everybody starts somewhere.
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  Speaker 3: Exactly.
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  Speaker 3: But word of mouth got around and I built a clientele.
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  Speaker 3: I made cakes for celebrities.
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  Speaker 3: I'm talking like custom cakes.
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: So, um, like, for instance, Mary J. Blige.
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  Speaker 3: I made like, a five tiered cake for her beautifully customized.
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: Um, and that was really what intrigued me because I really
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: loved the idea that I could like bake and combine it with like
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: art and like, even sculpting, like you, Kate could turn into
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: anything you want.
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  Speaker 3: And I just really had a lot of fun with that because now today,
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: uh, my business has changed quite a bit.
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  Speaker 3: Like I don't sell cakes anymore.
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  Speaker 3: Now I do a lot more teaching cookbook, blogging, um, more
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  Speaker 3: baking, I guess you could say.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Right, right.
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  Speaker 1: So what was it like shifting in from doing it for fun, into
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: making it into a business?
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, that's a good question.
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: Um, when I was young and I was like, it was during high school.
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: Um, it was, it was hard, but I wanted the money, you know?
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: I'm just gonna be honest.
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: That's why I did it.
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  Speaker 3: I saw orders coming in, I was sixteen.
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: I wanted a new pair of Jordans.
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: So I was like, oh.
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  Speaker 3: As I was getting some money getting orders, I was like, oh,
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  Speaker 3: I got something here.
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  Speaker 3: I want more money.
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  Speaker 3: So I just kept being consistent, kept trying to grow my clients.
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  Speaker 3: And it got to a point.
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  Speaker 3: It's bad, don't do this.
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  Speaker 3: But, uh, I would skip school like a Friday to fulfill orders
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: for the weekend.
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  Speaker 3: I just needed more time.
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  Speaker 3: Um, but it was, it was a fun process transitioning from like
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  Speaker 3: a hobby to, um, a business.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. I hear some of my, um,
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  Speaker 1: people that, that I work with,
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  Speaker 1: they talk about something that's
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: standing in their way and that
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  Speaker 1: is consistency.
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  Speaker 1: They don't feel like they're consistent.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: They can't be consistent.
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  Speaker 1: So do you have any advice for
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  Speaker 1: them when it comes to, um,
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  Speaker 1: keeping up with posting or
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: sending emails or things that
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: they maybe new need to do to be
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  Speaker 1: consistent?
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  Speaker 1: What's your secret for that?
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: Um, I would definitely say
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: consistency is like the hardest
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: part about business or doing
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  Speaker 3: anything is really like the mind
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  Speaker 3: part.
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  Speaker 3: Like you really have to get over
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  Speaker 3: any fears, any roadblocks you
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  Speaker 3: have mentally.
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  Speaker 3: Um, and it's something I still struggle with today.
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  Speaker 3: Like I'm gonna be honest, it's
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: so hard to be consistent even
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: when you're further along in
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: your career.
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: Um, I think the biggest thing
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  Speaker 3: that helps me is remembering
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  Speaker 3: where I want to be and just
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: constantly remember, like,
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  Speaker 3: there's no other way I could get
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  Speaker 3: there.
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  Speaker 3: Like I have to do the work.
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  Speaker 3: I have to send this email.
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  Speaker 3: And I know even if the email or
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: the social media post, even if
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  Speaker 3: it gets ten views, even if it
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  Speaker 3: flops, you know, it's gonna
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: happen.
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  Speaker 3: You just gotta know that one
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  Speaker 3: post that one email, that one
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: sale that didn't do well isn't
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: going to define your whole
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: career.
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: You know, you just gotta keep going, keep being consistent.
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  Speaker 3: Unfortunately, I wish there was like a faster way, a way to
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: just, you know, then everyone would be doing it, but it's a
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: part of the job and just try to enjoy the journey.
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: Um, and you're gonna look back
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: through like sometimes I look
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: back through my phone like the
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: camera and stuff, and I'm like,
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: wow, like, I've really gone so
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: far.
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: Um, and like my quality of work
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: and like how much my business
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: has grown.
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: Like I, I kid you not, my kids were ugly in the beginning.
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: Um, but practice makes perfect.
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: It's like anything you just gotta keep, keep going at it.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I agree, and I think that if you do keep in mind
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: where you want to go.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: Mhm.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: What you want to accomplish, the
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: only way you can get there is if
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: you're the one that that does
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: it.
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: And unfortunately.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. But I think we learn so much from doing that.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: Like we become you're a totally different person today.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: I'm not totally but you're
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: different today in terms of your
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: what you know, what you've
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: experienced, what you've learned
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: because you were willing to do
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: that.
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: I like honestly, almost like a totally different person, like
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: obviously in the core are the same, but like, I'm way more
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: confident doing this, this, this has allowed me to be more
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: confident in the beginning.
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: Like I was a kid who had no social media.
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: Like I didn't have a personal social media account.
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: I wasn't taking selfies.
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: I wasn't posting on Instagram.
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: I was so far from that.
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: Um, but fast forward doing it
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: throughout the years, you feel
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: more confident, you feel more,
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  Speaker 3: um, comfortable in front of the
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: camera.
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: I, um, I honestly feel more creative.
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: I feel more trusting in myself.
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: Um, and you also learn more about yourself in terms of what
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: you want in your career.
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: When I started my business, my intention was to open a bakery.
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: Everything just baked storefront, bakery.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: It was kind of around Covid.
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: Like I was so close to opening it.
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: I bought commercial ovens, I bought packaging, I mean, like
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: loads of packaging.
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: I spent a lot of money and I kind of took a pause.
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: I put it on a storage unit.
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: Even though I spent the money, I was like, mm, like, maybe I
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: should wait a little bit.
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: And I'm so glad I waited because I realized like social media in
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: itself could be like a full time job at it could turn into
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: whatever you want.
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: And I, when I was a kid
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: specifically, I thought, when
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: you want to be a baker, the only
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: option.
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: Bakery and there's nothing else you could do.
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: I think it's also important that
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: you're always staying open
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: minded.
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: Like your end goal could change.
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: Like, you know, and my end goal,
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: like I, I don't see a bakery
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: anytime.
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: So that that's a lot of work.
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: And I'm glad I took a hold of that.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And I think if, even if
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Covid was what slowed you down,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: it's just a completely different
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: business model.
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: You have a retail spot.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: Someone needs to be there, they open the door.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: You have to have product there for people to come in and buy.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's just a, it's a
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: completely different, completely
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: different.
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: But it's not the only option.
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: I thought it was the only option.
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: So I always try to encourage
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: people like try to talk to other
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: people, see what other people
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: are doing because the industry
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: is big, bigger than you would
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: think.
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: You could just be a food writer.
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: You know, there's options are really unknown.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: That's right, that's right.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: And I think it's fascinating.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: You talk about comfort food, you
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: hear people talk about comfort
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: food, but you went with comfort
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: desserts, like specifically into
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: desserts.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: Your, you know, your grandma led you there, your love of baking.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: And also, I'm sure the things
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: that people that loved that you
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: posted online, like if you had
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: started posting and people
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: didn't respond to it, you
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: probably kind of adjust what you
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: do based on what their response
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: might be.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: But the other fascinating thing about that, I'm convinced,
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: though, if you put something out there that you love, you will
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: connect with other people who love it too.
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: I one hundred percent believe that.
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: And people can like, feel like your passion.
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: Like I get so many comments like, oh my God, I can feel like
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: how passionate you are about baking and like your energy
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: people could sense that through a camera or even in person.
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: And it just, it makes it feel genuine and authentic.
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: So I, I agree with you.
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: It's important that you follow like what feels right for you.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. And I think I like what you said too, that the
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: confidence doesn't always come until after you do it.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: You we can't wait to be
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: confident, one hundred percent
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: confident before we do it
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: because we'll be waiting
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: forever.
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: Forever.
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: I at the beginning specifically, I always said like I was afraid
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: of filming myself.
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: Like in the beginning, I was only posting photos of my work.
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: You did not see my face anywhere.
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: Um. But I was like, okay,
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: Justin, I see all these other
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: people who are bigger than me,
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: uh, who almost where I want to
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: be and they're posting
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: themselves so clearly that means
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: something, right?
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: And I was like, am I gonna let a
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: silly camera stop me from my
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: goals, my dreams, from making
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: more money, from growing my
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: business?
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: Like when you put it in that way, it's like really a camera
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: like, okay, press record.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Right, right.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: I was talking to a cookbook
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: author a couple years ago on the
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: show, and she did all of her
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: social media.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: It was just her hands.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: So no one ever really saw her face.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: They saw her hands and they saw
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: the dishes, what they call it
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: hands and pans, something like
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: that.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: But she wanted to start showing her face.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: But it was even a big transition
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: for her, even though people had
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: kind of partially been seeing
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: her kitchen to actually move it
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: to, you know, the face part was
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: like, it took a lot for her to
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: do that.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: And I think that fear is what gets in our way.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Um, but I always remember with the camera.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: We may not like how we look on camera, right?
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Personally, people have trouble with that.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: But the way people are seeing us on camera is exactly like the
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: world sees us all the time.
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: And when we see ourselves, I
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: think the way we view ourselves
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: is different than the way other
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: people do.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: So it's almost like if you're not going to show yourself on
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: camera, you might as well just walk around with a bag on your
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: head all the time.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: Because people like your family,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: people are seeing at school,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: people are seeing us all the
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: time.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: Go to the grocery store, driving in your car, whatever.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: People are always seeing us.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: I think it's because of I think it's our view of ourself.
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: That's a great way to put it.
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: Uh, it's entirely true.
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: Uh, it's just I think social media gets hard because you're
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: making yourself more vulnerable.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: You are making that's one hundred percent.
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: What it is.
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: Now, anyone, it's very rare that you're going to be walking down
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: the street and someone's gonna be like, oh my God.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: Hey.
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah. You know, like, no one's.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: Exactly like, oh my God, why
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: don't you wear a bag on your
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: head?
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: You look awful.
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: But people wouldn't say that.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: But. But I think on social media, some people do feel like.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: But but are those people real?
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: Justin.
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, unfortunately, they're probably real people, but
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: they're like someone you shouldn't even acknowledge.
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: Like there's a profile screen.
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: They're probably like, something's wrong.
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: You don't want to trade lives with them.
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: You know, there's a reason why
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: they're leaving the state
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: comment.
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: No one who is naturally sane, who's happy would leave this
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: kind of thing.
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: And would you let.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: Them then interfere with your
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: dream to let the people that
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: are.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: That's just silly.
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: It is silly.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: It is silly.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: But you're right.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: A lot of it is the way we think about things.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: A lot of it is our mind and it's, it, um, it takes courage
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: and it, you are vulnerable.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Um, yeah.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: So I mean, there's stories of
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: every, every person that's done
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: social media, people that write
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: books, you know, the fear of
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: errors.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Fear of mistakes.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: You know, all these different fears.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: But it takes a ton of courage.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: I think we learn a whole lot.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: And I'm so glad that you have, um, you continued and you did
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: what you did because now you decided after the growth.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Tell us about the growth of your social media.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: What ended up happening?
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: Um, at the point you decided to go ahead and publish this book?
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: What was happening before that?
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: Mhm. And before I do that, I just want to mention too, like
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: I'm, I still feel vulnerable.
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: Like, even with this cookbook,
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: like putting that out, I was
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: still scared to put out this
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: cookbook.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: Like for at least me, the feeling doesn't really go away.
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: It's just you kind of get used
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: to it, you know, you just start
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: understanding the feeling and
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: it's like, okay, like, I know I
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: can get through it, but it's
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: still there.
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: So no matter what project, no
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: matter what endeavor I do, it's
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: always there.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: I've told this story a hundred
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: times on the show, and people
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: that listen to a lot of shows
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: are probably sick of me hearing
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: it, but it's I think it's worth
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: repeating.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth Gilbert wrote the book Big Magic.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: It's about creativity.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: And she says fear is always a
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: part of what we do when we're
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: creative.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: And so she just had to decide
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: fear could come on the car ride
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: with her, but it had to sit in
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: the passenger seat and it could
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: not work the radio or have the
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: aux cord or control the air
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: conditioner.
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that.
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: It was her job to do.
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: Because fear is always there.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: It doesn't really ever go away.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: No matter how far you are into
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: your career, how far you are
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: into whatever you do, how big of
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: an expert you think you might
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: be.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: I think no matter, there's people always feel like there's
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: a little bit of it right there alongside of them.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: So it is learning to live with it.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: I think it's having the emotional capacity to know that
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: we can hold space for both of those things, and it doesn't
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: have to stop us from doing what we really want to do.
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: Mhm. And most times, like what
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: you're thinking in your head is
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: not realistic.
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: Like you're thinking of the worst of the worst of the worst.
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: You are thinking the worst.
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: Uh, so if you're able to try to, that.
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: I switched that like, what's the
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: greatest thing that could
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: happen?
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: Like think of the most like think big, dream big.
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: And because if you can.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: Think of the worst thing, you also have the potential to think
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: of the best thing.
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: But our brains are just wired to try to, you know, they're trying
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: to keep us safe.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: They're trying to protect us from the lion chasing us in the
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: in the woods.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: But that isn't really true anymore.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: It's just the way that our human brain is wired.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: Mhm.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: So you have taken the leap into a cookbook, but let's talk about
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: the journey, like right up toward the end of that.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: Um, what was going on in your social media world and why the
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: leap to a book?
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: Mhm. Uh, I tried to get off track too before, but, um, I
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: stayed consistent posting.
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: Like I said, I got a couple TV shows.
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: I made a couple cakes for celebrities.
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: My socials were growing pretty large.
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: Um, and I started getting, and I
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: started actually posting more
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: recipe content.
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: In the beginning it was mainly like cake decorating.
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: How to make a cake decorating
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: wise behind the scenes things of
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: that nature.
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: Um, but I just realized, like, not everyone had the same
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: experience as me growing up.
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: Like not everyone's used to from scratch dessert.
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: Not everyone knows how to bake from scratch.
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: Not everyone, some people are intimidated by it.
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: Um, so I was like, you know what?
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: I want to start sharing these recipes.
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: Start showing people like baking is fun.
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: Like especially from scratch.
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: I always say like, fox makes jail.
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: Like you don't need that.
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: We can make it from scratch.
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: So I started sharing recipes.
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: Um, and people are really engaging with it and I was
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: getting a ton of comments.
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: Cookbook.
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: Where's the cookbook?
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: Justin?
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: I need a cookbook.
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: I was like a cookbook for me again.
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: Like it was in my head.
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: I was like, I am not ready for a cookbook.
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: You're asking the wrong Justin.
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: Um, but one day, um, and my sisters were always like, you
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: should make a cookbook.
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: Like it's time.
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: Like they're asking for the cookbook.
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: Make the cookbook.
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: I was like, I'm not ready.
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: I'm not ready.
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: But one day I was just like, like, why am I not ready?
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: Like, that's just silly.
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: Like they're asking for it.
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: Like, let's do it.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And you said, okay, let's do it.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: But.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: So a lot of a lot of demand and
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: requests from your people who
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: are following you on social
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: media.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: And, um, this brings me to a point.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: I think books, then tangible print books that people can have
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: in their kitchen are different than social media.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: Um, do you feel like they complement each other in your
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: case, or are they going to compete with each other?
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: That's a good question.
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: And I was actually something I was like debating with too,
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: because like a book, I was like, ah, with like Google now and I
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: had a blog.
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: I still have a blog.
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: Um, I was like, well, like, is
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: that gonna compete with each
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: other?
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: Like, are people even gonna be interested in a book if there's
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: free recipes online?
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: Like nowadays, you could kind of
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: Google anything and get a free
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: recipe.
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: Um, but I feel like, especially
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: today with like, so much like
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: AI, ai slop and like social
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: media and stuff, people like a
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: tangible thing.
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: It's kind of nice.
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: Like having something physical.
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: Um, and I feel like that's even
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: come back even with like, music
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: and stuff, thinking like vinyl's
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: all that.
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: Um, so I think it is something special.
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: And also, like, quite frankly,
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: you don't have to worry about
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: ads.
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: You don't have to worry about Wi-Fi.
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: You don't have to worry about like research.
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: It's kind of nice having just grab this book.
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: Let's find a recipe.
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: And I also feel like it's, at least for me, especially growing
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: up, like it was special, like with my Nana, like she would
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: have all these cookbooks and like going to find a cookbook,
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: pulling it out and like finding a recipe to make together.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: So I feel like there's like a whole different experience when
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: you have a physical print.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Plus, Justin, now we have your, your work and your recipes
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: that we know we can trust.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: If I Google for, uh, mug cake, which we're going to talk about
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: in a minute, how many recipes for Mudcakes do you think might
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: show up in my search?
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: Thousands.
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: Like hundreds.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: How do I decide which one is the
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: one that's the best that's going
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: to work.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: Mhm.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: Um, so I think people get to know you.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: People are learning about you
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: now on this show or hearing more
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: about you.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: I think that people trust cookbook authors that are
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: writing books, curated sets of recipes that they've tested.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: And it's kind of got your twist to it.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: It's got a personality to it.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: And you've introduced us to your
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: grandmother and you have a lot
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: of tips.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: There's a couple of pages in here.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: I was reading through the book
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: earlier today about, um, you
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: really want people to be
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: successful.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: So you have this whole section
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: like, okay, we're going to make
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: these recipes, but here's like
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: the top, you know, X number of
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: things you need to really pay
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: attention to.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: And everybody's, if I were to
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: write this book, my list of
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: those things might be a little
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: bit different than yours, but
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: that's what bringing your
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: personality into it is all
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: about.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: Plus you have the codes to your tutorial.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: So if people want to link to the internet and see some video,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: they can see that also.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: So a lot of really neat things about it.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: What does your grandma think about showing up in the book?
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: She was really honored.
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: I know that like everyone, like the title by the grandma was
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: like, oh my God, your grandma's gonna hate you.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: She probably hit you on the side of the head.
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: Uh, I come and you're learning more about it in the book, and
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: that's why I authored a book is nice because you get to connect
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: with the author.
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: Kind of like what you're saying.
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: I can read more about them and
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: really understand who I, who
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: I've been supporting, you know,
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: um, but I come from a very, like
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: joking, fun, a little sassy,
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: competitive family.
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: So honestly, my grandma didn't even think twice about potato.
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: She's like, oh, well, guess we'll see.
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: Um, and, uh, but really, she was
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: just really honored because
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: like, from making dessert, from
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: baking, from cookbooks for old
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: cookbooks and us like on a cover
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: of one, it's like a full circle
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: moment.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit about your publishing journey.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: So you've made the decision now to do this.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: Um, let's talk a little bit about how you actually had the
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: book created, what your journey was to actually the print book
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: itself being here.
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: Mhm. This was a hard journey,
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: um, a journey to I did this in
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: like about like eight months ish
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: total.
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: Um, I, so okay, so I decided I'm writing a book.
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: And then I decide the next step
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: obviously is you need an ID and
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: stuff, but you need a publisher
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: or you need to independently
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: publish.
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: I was really big back and forth, back and forth, and I worked
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: closely with my sisters.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: They're also creative.
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: Um, and they were like independent from the start.
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: They're like, you don't need anyone.
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: Like you can do it yourself
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: easily, like between all three
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: of us.
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: Um, but in my head, I was like, well, can I really do it myself?
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: I've never done this before.
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: Um, there's like a prestige
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: factor of working with a
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: publisher, you know, like, are
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: people going to take me serious
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: because I'm independently
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: publishing?
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: Um, I went back and forth a lot and a lot.
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: And then, um, I don't know how
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: deep you want to get into it,
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: but.
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: No, tell me.
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: I think it's great.
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: I think that I think.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: Hearing about a true independent
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: publishing journey is
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: fascinating because I think the
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: product ended up turning out
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: beautiful.
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: Um, just transparently, uh, advances.
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: Like I was signed to, um, an
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: agency, a old agency at the
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: time.
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: Um, and they were like, we could probably get like one hundred
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: thousand, one hundred and fifty thousand dollars advance, uh,
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: for your first book, which is considered good too.
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: And I had a following and everything, but the thing to
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: remember about advance is it's not like free money.
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: It's basically a loan and you have to sell paper bags for it.
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: You still have to, your agent gets a cut and that could be
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: like fifteen to twenty percent, whatever you guys have.
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: Uh, a photographer can be quite expensive, especially a cookbook
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: because you need a photo for every recipe or like nowadays
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: kind of deal.
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: Um, and that can be easily eighty recipes and then
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: lifestyle photos, the cover, um, you need to pay for an editor
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: you need, there's a lot of things you have to pay for.
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: Even when you're working with a traditional publisher, it just
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: comes from your advance.
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: So you're not upfront money.
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: It's just, you know, so when you
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: kind of like do the mathematics,
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: or at least when I did, I was
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: like, okay, so I basically I'll
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: be left with like fifty thousand
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: dollars.
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: Um, and that's like, we didn't even cover taxes.
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: So like, you know, it gets real tiny real fast.
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: And I was like, then you have
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: royalty fee and the royalty
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: again, it can range, but let's
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: just say it's ten percent, like
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: ten percent.
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: And then the book, let's say it's thirty five dollars.
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: So you make three dollars a
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: book, let's say roughly three
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: fifty.
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: Uh, it didn't feel right to me.
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: I'm only making three dollars from this book.
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: And from this advance, I only got fifty zero zero zero.
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: And I forgot to mention the biggest part.
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: It takes like three years to make this book.
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: So fifty zero zero zero by three years we're, you know, we're
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: talking like fifty thousand dollars a year.
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: And I didn't like those numbers.
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: I just didn't like it.
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: I was like, it's not making sense.
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: Um, I was like, yeah, no, scratch that.
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: Let's do independent.
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: Um, and I hired my own team, so I'm lucky.
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: I have my oldest sister.
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: She's a graphic designer professionally.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: So she designed the book.
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: She designed the whole book.
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: Nice, nice.
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: So I paid her.
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: I got lucky there.
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: Obviously.
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: I have a nice connect there.
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: Um, I, I wrote me and my sister were like, ideating.
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: Um, we wanted to figure out what recipes we want.
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: We had.
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: I bought a giant whiteboard.
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: It's in my bedroom.
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: And that is what I used to jot down my thoughts.
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: That's just how I work.
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: I'm like a messy worker.
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: I don't take advice on how to
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: stay organized for me, but, uh,
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: I was just writing different
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: recipes, different sections, how
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: I want the book to be, and like
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: the theme of the book, which we
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: ended up choosing grandma
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: comfort, nostalgic.
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: And that's how we got better than grandma.
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: It's also something I say a lot in my videos.
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: Um, and from there I did the recipe.
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: Sorry.
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: From there I did the recipe
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: testing and then um, the
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: writing.
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: I hired an editor, uh, which is very important because there is
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: a certain way recipes need to be written and edited.
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: And I don't know if a regular person knows that.
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: I didn't know that.
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: Um, that was a very helpful journey.
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: Um, and then, uh, who else that hire a photographer?
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Obviously photographer did, you didn't do your own photography.
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: I did not, um, I didn't feel
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: like I was capable of doing my
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: own photography.
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: I'm glad I didn't.
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: Photography is a lot of work.
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: Like it is everything.
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: And, um, it was important to me
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: again, that this book didn't
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: reflect, um, that I did it like
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: independently.
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: It wasn't because like, you
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: know, there's going to be a lot
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: of eyes on this, especially
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: because I have a following and
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: stuff.
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: I didn't want my book to be like, oh, like, you know, it
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: looks a little cheap in a sense.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: You.
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: Know?
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: I think the packaging of it, it looks great.
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you.
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I hired a photographer, uh, indexer, proofreader.
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of different things I didn't realize.
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: Um, and then, um, another important decision.
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: Um, and if I'm rambling, just tell me.
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: No.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: That's okay.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: I know how to get it printed and
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: actually get the the book
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: produced.
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah. You have to decide.
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: Do you want to print on demand or do you print your own book?
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: Most people, I feel like when
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: they self-publish, they do print
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: on demand.
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: However, I did the numbers.
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: I did not like the math either
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: there, especially for a
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: cookbook.
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: Um, because it's all like colored pages.
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: There's a ton of photos that can add up a lot.
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: It can like I've seen some websites.
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: It was crazy.
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: They were charging me thirty dollars for on demand.
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: I'm like, how am I gonna sell this book?
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: You know, like, where's the
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: money that I'm going to be
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: making?
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: And at the end of the day, like, like we're running a business.
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: Um, and like, we have to make
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: sure we're making money, you
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: know, this isn't like a hobby
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: anymore.
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: Like I have to make sure the numbers make sense.
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: Um, so print on demand just did not work for me.
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: So I decided to print um,
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: overseas actually, and what I
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: did.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: So you did a print run with an offset printer then.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes.
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: Overseas, uh, specifically in China.
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: And what I did, how I came to that conclusion is I bought a
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: ton of cookbooks.
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: Like especially like today,
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: cookbooks, what was popular and
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: stuff.
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: And I felt the covers.
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: I felt the paper, I felt the thickness I read inside.
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: Sometimes it's in the front of
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: the page, sometimes it's in
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: back.
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: But they'll put like printed in
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: China, print in Canada, printed
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: in Europe.
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: Like all different locations, most of them are in China.
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: Um, and I read too, like who did they hire?
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: They hired a publicist.
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: I was like, okay, I need a publicist.
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: They hired, um, they have an ISBN.
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: I have no idea what ISBN is, but I'm gonna need one.
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: Um, they had copyright.
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: I was like, copyright, I guess I need that too.
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: So I was literally purchasing these books from the top
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: publishing companies, Clarkson, Potter, all of them and using it
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: as a checklist of what I'm going to need from my book.
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: So it looks legit.
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: Um, and yeah, I printed overseas.
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: I highly, highly, highly
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: recommend you order samples, uh,
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: before you do your actual print
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: run.
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: Um, and it's just much cheaper, more economical to print
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: overseas than in America.
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: and the quality is actually much better too.
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: Um, and yeah, and then.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: So what about so you have, are you storing books somewhere?
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: And what about for distribution of distribution of books?
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: Like if I order one from Amazon, let's say.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: Um, so in my situation might be
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: different than other people
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: because like I said, I have a
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: large following.
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: I have millions of followers and stuff.
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: So I knew there was going to be demand there.
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: I didn't know how much demand.
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: So that's important to like, no
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: one's going to know the exact
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: answer, right?
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: Um, if I'm being honest, I was
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: going to order like five
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: thousand books.
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: My family was yelling at me.
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: They were like, why on earth are
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: you going to order five thousand
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: books?
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: Are you dumb?
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: I was like, well, I'm scared.
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: What if no one likes me?
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: Um, so I didn't, I ended up doing like thirty K for my well,
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: actually, I ended up doing fifteen K for my first run and I
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: quickly like went through that.
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: So I ordered another fifteen K like a week after.
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: Um, so in total I did about
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: thirty K for the first run,
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: right.
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: Um, and in terms of distribution storage.
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: Obviously I can't store thirty thousand books in my house.
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: So, um, I looked at fulfillment centers and these are all over.
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: Um, and what's great about fulfillment center is you don't
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: have to really do anything.
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: You ship the books to them and they will handle shipping as
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: orders come in.
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: Um, like, honestly, like everything, you don't have to
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: worry about anything.
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: It's like hands off.
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: Um, obviously just gotta manage
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: making sure everyone's getting
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: their orders.
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: But, um, even with Amazon, you could you have two options with
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: Amazon, you could FBA, which is fulfilled by Amazon.
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: So you could actually ship the books to Amazon or you could,
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: um, fulfill by merchant, which is basically your fulfillment
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: center will ship out your Amazon orders for you.
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: Or, but if you're doing a small quantity, um, let's say you're
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: not too sure, maybe you don't have as much larger following.
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: I would recommend, like you
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: could store a fair amount of
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: books if you have space in your
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: house and then you could like
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: start there.
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: If you're saying, oh, this is
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: getting too much, then, you
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: know, look into fulfillment
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: center.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think, but people that even if they store them at their
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: house, they someone has to fulfill the orders.
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, I was planning to do it myself.
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: I, I got, I was wild.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's to me, like
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: probably the worst part of the
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: whole thing is sending the
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: orders out.
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: Yes, it would be, it would be tough.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: I would have to have a little system though.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Like if you set up an area in
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: your house and you had it all
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: set, so it's, you know, you can
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: make the label, you can do the
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: printing, the, and the, the
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: packaging.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: Um, I could see how it could be done, but I mean, it's.
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: Not hard work.
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: It's just annoying work, you know?
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: And then you gotta take them
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: where unless you have pick up at
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: your house, like somewhere,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: wherever, whoever's going to
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: ship them.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: I think personally, I think you made the right decision.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: Have a fulfillment center do it.
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, totally.
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: Especially if you're like doing large scales.
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: Um, and obviously just factor it in, in your cost.
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: Um, so it works out.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: Um, right.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: So prior to publication, since the book is out now, were you
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: doing then just pre orders for the fifteen K.
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So in a perfect world
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: where I would have done is done
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: pre-orders sooner.
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: So my goal was this book needs to be out in September.
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: Like I was like, and I started like December.
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: Uh, I was like, it has to be done by September.
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: Uh, I know I'm crazy, but that's just how it was.
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: Um, and it's funny too, because when I was hiring my team like
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: an editor and stuff, she was like, I'm like, are you crazy?
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I said yes.
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, I joined the team.
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: Um, and what I would recommend is do pre-orders as early as you
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: can, like try to make a cover or something and promote that,
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: because then it would give you a better estimate on how many
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: books to actually order.
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: And you don't have to guess it
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: would make you feel more
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: comfortable, confident and
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: everything.
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: Um, I did not do that.
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: I took a gamble and then I posted the pre-order and then I
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: luckily the gamble went off.
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: I had to order more copies.
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: Um, keep in mind too, if you're printing overseas, it takes like
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: three months to get to you.
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: So it's a process.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah. yeah.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: I mean, they do, they do have to
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: be shipped over here, but but it
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: does end up being less
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: expensive.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: It's not uncommon for the four
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: color, uh, books like this to be
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: printed overseas.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: Um, so that's great.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: It turned out great because,
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: because when I first saw it, I
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: was like, I wonder who published
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: this?
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: Because because I think you can just tell how a book is when I
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: say packaged, it just, it has a really nice look to it.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: And, you know, kudos to you and
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: your sister for setting up this
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: independent publishing company
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: and organizing this publishing
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: effort, because it is a team
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: effort.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: Mhm.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: Um, for sure.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: And, and you named your
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: publishing company Rolling PIN
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: Press.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: It's nice.
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: I did, and I'm glad you brought that up too.
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: I did forget about that portion.
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: I also realize all books on the spine.
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: Um, they have a little logo,
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: whether it's like the Penguin,
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: whatever it is, whatever
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: company.
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: So I was like, oh, I'm gonna need a little publishing company
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: because, you know, it's not always the most.
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: The idea is, and especially
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: we're trying to is like on a
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: large scale and getting press
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: and stuff, you have to make it
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: seem like this isn't a
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: self-published book.
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: You want to make it seem like it's as legit as possible.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: Um, so I was like, okay, I gotta make a publishing company.
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: And I was just ideating and
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: rolling PIN press just came
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: about because also I saw that
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: too.
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: Like I believe back then they
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: used a rolling pin, um, a lot
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: and like stamp like mailing and
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: stuff.
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: So I was like, oh, that's kind of fun.
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: And it's kind of related to baking.
• 34:41
  Speaker 5: So yeah.
• 34:41
  Speaker 5: No, yeah.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: So does this mean that you are
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: now a publisher publishing other
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: people's books or this is a
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: publishing company just for your
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: books?
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: Uh, we shall see.
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: Right now, just for me, uh, I, I thought about it because I
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: personally don't love about the publishing world is like the
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: three dollars, like the ten percent cut for an author.
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: I feel like I did all the work.
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: I feel like I should be
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: maintaining more of the profit
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: personally.
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: Um, so, you know, maybe in the future, maybe we'll see.
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: Uh, but as of now, just my books.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: And I think what happens though the book is one thing, but the
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: book will open doors to opportunities for you that
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: possibly wouldn't have opened unless you had a book.
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: Mhm. It's true.
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: And it helps, like, legitimize you and stuff.
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: So it is a lot of pros.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: And you have now a book that
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: maybe other people with their
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: grandmas are pulling off the
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: shelf and baking from in their
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: kitchens, like you did with your
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: grandma that they couldn't
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: necessarily do just from social
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: media.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: It's got because it's got a
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: little bit of a different feel
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: to it.
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: Correct.
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: And that's like my goal like that.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: Well, be interesting to see how.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: Uh, your followers on social media translate into sales.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: Like what the ratio is between that because I think with
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: traditional publishing, that's always been a question is
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: exactly how to quantify that.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: If people are literally, literally just like really
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: scrolling and being entertained, or are they the type of audience
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: or follower that would want to invest in a book?
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: And that's the that's the hard question.
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: No one can really.
• 36:12
  Speaker 5: We don't know yet.
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's hard to say.
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: Um, I, I feel like my audience
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: is pretty engaged and like, I
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: got a lot of pre-orders, uh, and
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: pre-orders alone.
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: I got twelve thousand.
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: Um, so large quantity there.
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: Um, and I think it's also just,
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: it's important to, to just like,
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: also like the numbers matter
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: too, but also it could be like a
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: personal fulfillment to like,
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: granted, like, am I not your
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: first book might not turn out
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: the best.
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: That doesn't even have to be your last book.
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: You know, there's so many more opportunities.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: I think it turned out great.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: And I think we should, um, I think it's not uncommon for
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: people that write cookbooks to have more than one book in them.
• 36:49
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: Generally we tend to be creative people cooking a lot.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: Uh, they have a lot of ideas.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: It's sometimes even harder for to narrow down what your first
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: book is going to be about more than like, I don't have, I think
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: I have another book in me.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: People are like, oh, yeah, I
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: usually could like think of
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: totally.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: I could hold another book I would want to write.
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I need, I need some time.
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: I was a process.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: Yes. That's right.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: So I think it's like it's like
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: asking someone after they've had
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: a baby.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: Are you ready for number two?
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: And they're like, don't.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: That's not the.
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: That's exactly.
• 37:18
  Speaker 6: So let's, let's talk.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: About the book then.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: Thank you for sharing all that about the publishing journey.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: I think it's really neat to
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: hear, um, better than grandma's
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: comfort desserts we grew up
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: loving.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about the book.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: Um, I love the way you named your chapters.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: How did you decide?
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: Like we have cakes that raise the scoop and serve Sunday
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: mornings to impress grandma.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: No sharing required.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: And then there's a whole chapter on finishing touches.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: Mhm.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: Um, kind of had some creative
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: license then to be able to name
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: the chapters what you wanted,
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: but why did you pick these
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: particular chapters?
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: And what were you trying to
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: convey with your table of
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: contents specifically?
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: Mhm. So the goal of the overall
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: book, again, there's like a
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: theme.
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: It was kind of like inspired by
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: two, like the cookbooks I grew
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: up that my grandma had, like the
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: Betty Crocker that, um, taste of
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: home.
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: I think it's called, um.
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: Mhm.
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: Just all those different, like nostalgic cookbooks.
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: Um, and we really just find the cookbooks embody like family
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: home, childhood make, make you when you, like, make these bacon
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: when you get in the kitchen, make these desserts, follow the
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: recipes like you almost like feel like a child again.
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: And that was like the goal.
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: Um, so we wanted everything to reflect that and reflect somehow
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: back to the family and grandma.
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: So that's why like my favorite chapter is to impress grandma.
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: I just think it's a fun name.
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: Um, and it's just like that.
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: So instead of just saying, like,
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: I don't know, like, I don't know
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: what that chapter could have
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: been called, like fancier
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: desserts.
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: Like, you know, we just wanted to have a little bit more fun
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: with it a little bit creativity.
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: Um, and that's also another
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: reason why I wanted to go
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: independent.
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: Um, because we had creative
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: ideas and like, for instance,
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: the title alone by grandma, I
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: was like, I don't know if a
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: publisher's gonna love that
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: idea.
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: I was like, I don't know if I
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: really want to be like, like
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: told no. So I was like, you know
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: what?
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: I'm just gonna take the full creative control.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: And you do get you do get
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: control over pretty much
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: everything when you
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: independently published.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: So the to impress grandma chapter, those weren't
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: specifically things that you made with her.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: Then this chapter was designed
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: of things you could make for
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: her.
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: Correct, correct.
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: Or, uh, I think the one thing
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: that I made with her was the
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: cheesecake, but I, I made the
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: cheesecake a little bit more
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: bougie.
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: I like to add marscapone, uh, to it.
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: Um, but the idea is, you know, sometimes you gotta like one up
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: in your family, you know, sometimes you gotta show out.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: And so that's the, some of the concept behind those.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: So you have a whole class in
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: session section to start the
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: book off.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: Um, how to bake smarter, not
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: harder tools pantry baking for
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: different diets.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: Um, tell us a little bit about that.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: Was that something that you saw
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: from your audience when you were
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: working, you know, doing your
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: social media?
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: Mhm. So class in session.
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: Um, it's something I say in all
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: my videos, I see sit down class
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: in session.
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: Uh, that was also we were debating between that as a title
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: or the grandma's.
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: Um, because again, I wasn't sure if the grandma thinks too
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: controversial, but I'm glad I went that way.
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: Um excuse me.
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: Um, and the class in session.
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: I really just wanted to make baking again.
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: I wanted this book to be, like, perfect for beginners.
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: They have everything they could possibly need and feel confident
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: and comfortable in the kitchen.
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: So I really wanted to break down
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: everything as simple as
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: possible.
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: Um, and that's also why we did
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: the QR codes, which, uh, if you
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: scan it will lead you to video
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: tutorials.
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: And this way is because a, I know my followers, they really
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: like watching me, um, and like baking with me.
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: Um, and B people learn differently.
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: Some people like to follow a written recipe.
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: I'm that way.
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: I think people like to like watch a video and follow along.
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: Personally for me, I feel like
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: that's harder because like
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: you're watching the same thing a
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: thousand times.
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: I just want to read it.
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: Um, but I wanted to give the
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: option for both because again,
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: like everyone's a little
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: different and I wanted the book
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: to be as approachable as
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: possible.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And you also have some
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: tips for making baked products
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: gluten free, vegan, and dairy
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: free.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: Did you get a lot of requests for that from the people who
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: followed you on social media?
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: I did, and I was like, I. What I really wanted was to have a,
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: like a specific way for every recipe to like, have a note on
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: how to like how to transform it for a dietary need.
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: That was just a, in the time frame.
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: Impossible.
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: And B, it kind of gets a little
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: bit more complicated than that
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: to like, just do it for like
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: every recipe.
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: So I just wanted to have a section that is a good like
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: baseline, um, that allows you to, um, like have the knowledge
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: and at least experiment and implement it if you need to.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: Um, yeah.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: And I think that a lot of the
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: products that are on the market
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: now, like the Bob's Red mill one
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: to one.
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: Which I love.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: That flour.
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that one is so good.
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: It's my favorite gluten free flour.
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And then, you know, the
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: plant based butters are easy to
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: find.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: Um, plant based milk, easy to find?
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: Aquafaba.
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: Of course, if you're not familiar with using Aquafaba, it
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: is easy to use once you've learned how to do it.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: Flax, eggs, applesauce, coconut
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: cream, and plant based chocolate
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: all readily available in
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: well-stocked supermarkets.
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: Mhm.
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: And now everyone.
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: Because at the end of the day,
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: everyone deserves a dessert, you
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: know?
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: That's right, that's right.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: So that makes it makes it easy to do.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: Now, one other part before we dive into a few of the recipes,
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: Nana's kitchen rules.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: It looks like you had ten of them.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: Um, did Nana really have rules?
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: Rules is like a a strict way.
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: The rules are kind of like more a fun, uh, fun way of thinking.
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: Uh, for instance, I know one of them's like, you can never have
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: too much vanilla.
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: You always measure vanilla with your heart.
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: And I still stand by that.
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: Like if a recipe when I was growing up to she would be like,
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: the recipe calls for one teaspoon of vanilla.
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: You do one tablespoon of vanilla.
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: And I love that measure.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: With your heart.
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: Yes. Um, or like I know another one I know is like I always save
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: room for dessert.
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: Uh, just like small things that,
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: um, she standbys and I obviously
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: do too.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: So the only thing I don't listen
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: to, though, is she's a clean
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: freak.
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: I'm a messy baker.
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: So that's the only thing.
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: That I would say clean up after every.
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Right. Yeah. But then it's
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: thinking you're probably like,
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: yeah, it's just around the
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: kitchen.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: Well, that's what makes us all different.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: I'm sure the product turns out the same, though.
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: Now, something you said a few times in the book.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: The flavor is in the fat.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: Tell us what you mean by that.
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Uh, I always says oil equals moisture.
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: Butter equals flavor.
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: And this is the secret to good cake.
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: Um, you'll notice that I do it
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: in like most of the cake in the
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: book.
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: Um, but basically I was like, I wanted to make the perfect
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: vanilla cake and I was like, this is too dry, too dry.
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: And like in my videos, I always
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: say like dry, like my sister's
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: elbows.
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: Um, no one wants a dry cake.
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: And I was like, okay, let's replace some of the.
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: Well, first, let's replace all the butter with oil.
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: I was like, no, it's moist, but it doesn't taste good.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: That tastes.
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: Good. No, you need that flavor.
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: So I was like, oh, what if I do a little bit of oil, a little
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: bit of butter?
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: Um, and that's just the perfect component because the butter you
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: always need some butter.
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: Butter has the best flavor.
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: Nothing beats it, you know.
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: Um, but oil has that moisture.
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: There's no water content.
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: It stays liquid even when it's cold.
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: So it's gonna give you like that tender moist cake.
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: So when in doubt, use both.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: It's both.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: That's a great thing.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: And like I agree about oil not really adding flavor.
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: I have a carrot cake recipe.
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: It uses oil.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: But and it's good you don't even you just stir it in a bowl.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: But I think butter for a lot of cakes.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: For some.
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: Recipes you don't need it too much because like.
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: There's other flavors in it.
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Pecans or coconut or cinnamon or.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about, um, some of the recipes.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: A lot of people ask if you have
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: a popular like social media
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: following or a blog, do you just
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: put all your recipes in a book
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: or did you decide somewhere for
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: the book and not for social
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: media?
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: Or where were you like, I'm just going to put them all, all the
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: popular ones in the book.
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: This was a hard decision, I will say.
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: Um, especially because I was
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: doing research and I could be
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: wrong.
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: So don't quote me on this.
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: But when you go with like a
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: traditional publisher, I believe
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: they want most of the book to be
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: brand new recipes never before
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: seen.
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: Like they don't want it from your blog.
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: And I would like to speak to my audience and stuff and, and even
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: look at other people's audience and read the comments about
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: their books and stuff.
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: And people didn't love when your popular recipes or certain
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: recipes are not in your book, like they're anticipating these
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: recipes to be in your book.
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: And I see both viewpoints.
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: It's like, do you want a book of all new recipes or no, I want a
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: book of like the ones I've been already using, you know?
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: So I see both viewpoints.
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: Um, so what I decided to do was kind of do a a fifty over fifty
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: split of the most popular ones at it in the book, like Pound
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: Cake, uh, vanilla pound cake.
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: That's one of my most viewed videos.
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: I was like, if that's not in the book, my followers are gonna,
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: they're gonna kill me.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: They'll be like, this can't be Justin's book unless it has that
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: recipe in it.
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: Exactly. Um, so I, I think a
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: fifty over fifty split is a good
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: balance.
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: Um, that would please everyone because then it gives you
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: something new to look forward to, but it also has those things
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: you're already baking.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So vanilla pound cake is definitely in there.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: One of your most popular recipes.
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: I love the concept of the red velvet cake.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: Can you tell me about that?
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: Because I love to look through
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: all the books that I get from
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: people.
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: And, um, when, when I stop, I'm like, okay, that's a neat way to
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: think about that one.
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: Uh, tell us a little bit about that recipe.
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So red velvet, uh, it's so good to, um, the inspiration
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: behind that was another thing I actually struggle with the book
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: was determining are, should the recipes be more creative.
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: Can I get.
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: The concept of the book was like comfort, nostalgic.
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: Comfort, right?
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: Right, exactly.
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: So I was like, well, like, I can't get like two to creative
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: because then you kind of getting away from that comfort feel.
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: Um, so I tried to be creative here and there.
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: And this is, I would say, one of the more creative recipes and
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: the inspiration behind it was I was like, uh, a, I didn't have a
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: red velvet recipe also growing up, um, I come from like a very
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: diverse area and tres leches was like, it was a thing I would
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: have with my friends.
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: It was just so, so good.
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: And Nana never made it.
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: Like I, I'm, I don't come from a
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: Hispanic background or anything,
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: so I just never had it, uh, from
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: her.
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: So I just thought it would be a fun, um, mash up of different,
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: uh, comfort classics just now introduced in a new way.
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: Um, and yeah.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's great that it looks, looks really good.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: Of course, you got a really
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: nice, um, let's see cookie
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: chapter.
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, cookies that's like, you can't get much better than that.
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: That's my personal opinion.
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: I think they're just about the best thing ever.
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: And your most popular cookie recipe is what?
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: Um, if I had to guess, I would probably say chocolate chip.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: Okay, so after chocolate chip.
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: Everybody loves a.
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: Good. I was gonna say it's hard to beat, you know.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: Um, yes.
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: From the book, a lot of the recipes are brand new.
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: Um, one of the ones that I'm really excited about from the
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: book, um, for the cookies is the hot fudge cookies.
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: They're basically a chocolate cookie and it's stuffed with
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: like a chocolate fudge.
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: So it oozes out when you eat it.
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: I'm a chocolate lover, so it's like a chocolate lover dream.
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: Uh, I think it's just like a fun twist.
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: Um, the inspiration behind that was Nana a lot growing up.
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: She made crinkle cookies, chocolate crinkle cookies.
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: I always felt like it could be more chocolatey.
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: I want more fun, more, more chocolate.
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: Um, so I decided to make a chocolate cookie with chocolate
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: stuffed in it.
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: So how do you do the fudge part to get it to melt when you bite
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: into the baked cookie?
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: Mhm.
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: You make like a separate center for it?
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: Yes. Correct.
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: I make a fudge center.
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: I roll it into balls, freeze it.
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: Um, it firms up and then put the cookie dough stuff that bake it
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: and then it will ooze out.
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: Wow. It's almost like a little mini lava cake or something, but
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: it's a cookie.
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: Wow, those look really good.
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: Okay, so let's talk about the, um, no sharing required chapter.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: This, um, makes me think of an episode I did when someone had a
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: recipe for a, just a single chocolate chip cookie that could
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: be baked in an oven or in a toaster oven just for that time
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: of the afternoon.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: When you think I need something sweet, there's nothing in the
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: house, or you don't want to bake a big batch of cookies.
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: You just need a little something.
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: And you expanded on this.
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: You do have a single serve double chocolate chip cookie,
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: but you also have a mug cake and a mini a maple butter cake.
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: Mhm.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about this.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: And I'm curious if you did it on
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: social media, what the response
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: was, and then a little bit about
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: making a single serve desserts
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: for yourself when you need
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: something sweet.
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: Mhm. So I've actually never posted a single serve recipe.
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: However, I would read the comments and people are saying
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: like, well, like, what do I do?
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: I don't, I don't need twenty four cupcakes.
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: I don't need twelve cupcakes.
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: Like not everyone, you know, has a big family.
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: Or also like, if you have twelve cupcakes and you gotta eat
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: twelve cupcakes and, you know, like that's not the healthiest
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: thing to do.
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: And you know, what a waste.
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: Um, so the idea behind that was creating simple recipes that you
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: could bake at any time.
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: Um, and you don't have to waste
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: a bunch or if you live by
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: yourself, there's plenty to
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: choose from.
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: And also me personally, I always
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: have a sweet tooth, especially
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: at midnight.
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: I want a sweet treat.
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: I need something quick to prepare.
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: Um, and this is perfect.
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: And again, now you don't eat a
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: dozen of cookies, so it's
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: healthy.
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: Yes. So for the Nutella mug cake is a yellow cake, and then you
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: put the Nutella on top.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: But you do say if you're not a
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: fan of Nutella, you can top it
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: with jam, melted chocolate,
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: whipped cream, fresh fruit, or
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: cookie butter.
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: It's so good.
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: And again, this section is honestly dangerous because the
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: recipes are so simple, especially the mug cake because
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: you bake in the microwave.
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: So it's like you really can have
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: cake at any minute and it's a
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: good thing, but it's not a good
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: thing.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. And I, I always am curious about the eggs.
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: This one uses just an egg yolk, which is nice.
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah. That was the hardest part
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: about the whole chapter,
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: honestly.
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: The eggs.
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: Um, because a whole egg for like one cupcake or one cookie.
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: Um, so and you don't want like
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: an eggy taste or anything like
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: that.
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: So most of the recipes you'll notice will use just egg yolk.
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: Um, but don't worry, save the egg white and make angel food
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: cake, which is in the beginning of the book.
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: Oh, and there's also a chocolate chip skillet cookie that's
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: single serve also, isn't it?
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: Also dangerous pillow scoop of ice cream.
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: There's also a peanut butter brownie single serve.
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: Um, which again, it's just these are easy recipes don't take a
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: lot of ingredients.
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: Um, and it's also like a little bit like trendy.
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: So I feel like it helps also
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: like, you know, bring a little
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: bit more fun to the book
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: uniqueness.
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And then everybody's favorite edible cookie dough.
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: What's happened?
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, that is fascinating to me that, that, that trend has
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: really just happened.
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe the past what, five, ten years?
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: And I'm um, there's even a, there was an edible cookie dough
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: shop in the, in the neighborhood in the, near the, in the town
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: where I live.
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: Mhm.
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: Which is crazy to me.
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: I know that's true.
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: I one hundred percent agree, but
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: it's so funny that they have a
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: store that sells edible cookie
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: dough.
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: There's one by me too.
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: Used to be in the mall.
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: I don't know if it's still in the mall.
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: Uh, but I also think it's, like, cute for kids, you know?
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: Um, it's a nice snacking thing.
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: And you, you know, you do make a point about, um, the flour.
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: Tell everybody about heat treating flour and why there's a
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: concern even about flour potentially carrying bacteria.
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So it's not only like with cookie dough, it's not only the
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: eggs that could be concerning.
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: Uh, it's also flour to carry a
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: lot of bacteria in it, which
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: could, um, hypothetically, like
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: upset your stomach, make you
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: sick.
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: Um, the chances granted are small, but it can happen,
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: especially if you are like more sensitive and stuff.
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: Um, so just an easy way just to
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: heat treat the flour, um, just
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: to cook off any potential
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: bacteria and make it safer to
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: consume.
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: Granted, I won't lie to you,
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: sometimes I eat regular cookie
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: dough as I'm baking, but you
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: know.
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, when you're baking, you gotta.
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, people lick the lick the, you know, the, the beaters.
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: And I mean, that's half the fun
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: of actually baking when you were
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: a kid, as I'm sure with your
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: grandma, you would just, like
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: lick things and if you had a
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: spatula in the bowl, you'd lick
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: it, right?
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: It is worth fighting for.
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: And then there's the red velvet cupcakes for two.
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: So that's a neat little chapter
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: for people that just want a
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: small amount.
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: Mhm.
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: So, um, tell us people that are, um, maybe thinking about the
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: book, wanting to buy the book.
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: Um, how many recipes are here?
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's over eighty recipes in the book.
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: Uh, again, they're all dessert and some breakfast things.
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: Um, idea again is just to bring you back to childhood, bring you
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: back to those comfort desserts that you're always craving at
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: the end of the day.
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: Um, and the book is available,
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: um, at shop dot everything dot
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: com.
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: And, um, I can guarantee you're gonna love it.
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: And hopefully it goes through generations.
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: You bake with your children and then your children pass it down.
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: And hopefully in twenty years, the cover is missing.
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: That would make my day.
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: And the pages are stuck together because that's where this all
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: started for you.
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: With your grandma doing exactly what you loved.
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: And it's neat to spend time with people in the kitchen that way.
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: And certainly a lot of memories and delicious things baked at
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: the same time.
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: So I'd love to talk about cookbooks, obviously, on this
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: show and outside of baking with your grandmother, was there any
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: other memorable cookbook that you remember being in her
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: kitchen that you used together?
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: Mhm.
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: I would say the Betty Crocker, I don't know the exact name of it.
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: The cookies one.
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: Mhm.
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: It has like, it's like red on the outside.
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: It has a ton of cookies.
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: Uh, that one has a ton and a ton of good cookie recipes.
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: And, um, I still remember it.
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: Like her cookbook, like the spine is half ripped off.
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: The pages are like torn, but it's a good one.
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Fascinating about the way they spell cookie on that book.
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: Did you notice that as c o o k y?
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: Isn't that something?
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that's to match, Betty.
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: Do you know, like if it's some.
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: Of that.
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: Some kind of a like, design thing.
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: Ask your sister.
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: She's the one that would have the eye for that.
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: That makes sense.
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I'm sure she was a big help with the design.
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: Some people have a big eye.
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: They're just really good at that.
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: That's her.
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: She's like, she'll show me two fonts.
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: I'm like, these fonts look the same.
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: And she's like, no, they don't.
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: They they feel different.
• 56:03
  Speaker 3: They have different meaning.
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: Uh, so yeah, she definitely was.
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: I definitely recommend, like hire a good designer.
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: Um, branding, it will really
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: help bring your whole project
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: together.
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And I think you hit the
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: nail on the head with the
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: editor, too.
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: You can't.
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: Did you, um, find an editor that was had experience doing
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: cookbooks and recipes?
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: Yes. So shout out, Dear Abby. Uh, she's in New York.
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: Um, she used to work in publishing houses.
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: She's been doing cookbooks, like forever.
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: Um, saw her resume.
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: I was like, I like it.
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: Let's let's work together.
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: Great. Yeah. That's wonderful
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: because you do, you work way too
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: hard on an independently
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: published book to not have it
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: edited.
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: Exactly. Yeah. And it's like,
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: again, like for Bradley to me,
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: there's a lot of things that I
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: didn't know.
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: Um, that should be a certain way.
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: So it's just a nice little.
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: Way to make it more professional.
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: That's right, that's right.
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: Well, Justin, um, tell us again
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: how everybody can connect with
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: you online and get a copy of
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: your book.
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: Yes. You can connect with me on anywhere.
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: Honestly, at everything just baked.
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: Uh, my website's everything just baked dot com.
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: And more importantly, you can get the cookbook at shop dot
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: everything dot com.
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: Great. And I'll link to that in the show notes.
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: Well, I wish you nothing but the best.
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: Everything's really just kicking
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: off for the book being live, so
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: to speak.
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: Um, enjoy all the promotion and
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: time spent talking about the
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: book.
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: You certainly worked hard.
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: And, um, again, this is better
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: than grandma's comfort desserts
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: we grew up loving by Justin
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: Ellen.
• 57:34
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: This is so fun.
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: Yes. Thank you and have a great rest of your day.
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: You too.
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us today for this episode of the
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: Cookbook Love Podcast again.
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: All the links can be found in the show notes at w w w dot
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: cookbook dot co.
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: And if you are interested in
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: writing a cookbook of your own,
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: please check out the free
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: Cookbook Writing Masterclass
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: called How to Get Paid to Write
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: a Cookbook.
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: It is designed specifically for
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: food or nutrition experts, and
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: you can check that out at w w w
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: dot cookbook writers academy dot
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: com.
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: So that's it for today's episode of the Cookbook Love Podcast.
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: This is your host, Maggie Greene.
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: And until next time, have a
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: great day and keep loving your
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: cookbooks.
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to the Cookbook Love podcast.
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: You can find out more information at w w w dot.