BAKER BABES PART XIII: JESSIE


I've really been slacking on these Baker Babes. I tend to write what I'm passionate about at THAT moment (hence the super duper adamant posts) and sometimes this causes me to take a little while to post the next kick ass lady that I'm (ALWAYS) honored to share.

This gal is Jessie of Young Georgia Love. I fell in love with her the second I saw her blog and knew that she hadta be a part of this. Just so you guys know, I totally lurk all of your pages looking for baking posts so I can email you my request:) She seems quirky, silly, and rad... pretty much like someone I'd love to hang out with in real life. And I REALLY like reading the question about something that most people don't know... this one is no exception.
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Name: Jessie of Young Georgia Love
Occupation: Aside from being a full-time student, I’m a TA at my college. 
Dream occupation: Owning my dream baby restaurant. He’s a real concept. Half bakery, half coffee shop, half used bookstore type of a thing, half art therapy studio. 
Age: Nineteen in years, twenty-seven at heart.

What was your earliest memory about baking?
Not surprisingly, this is actually one of my very most fondest memories! A little bit before my grandmother was taken by cancer, she decided it was necessary for her to pass down the art of absolutely home-made from scratch pasta noodles. Whenever I miss her, I just remember her and I in her tiny kitchen rolling out the dough.

Howd’ja get started baking?
After my parents’ divorce, my mother and her friend became roommates. Her roommate was a very fancy lady and she had super duper top of the line baking and cooking utensils. We’re talking Williams and Sonoma was taking notes from the woman. That kind of fancy. She very generously let me experiment with her high-class ingredients and expensive appliances. I was hooked.


When you picture “a baker” what do you see?
I picture a smiling person cracking eggs in a kitchen filled with ingredients. There’s a slop of flour on the counter from whatever she was doing earlier. There’s a cake in the oven. There’s cookie dough in the fridge preparing for its turn. There’s brown sugar at an arm’s reach at all times.
But more than what I see, it’s what I feel. When you come in her kitchen, you get an immediate sense of home. This is where she is at her best. You can smell it in the air. You can see it in the lighter step she has. This is her art form and when she’s doing her thing, she’s unstoppable.

What qualities or skills does it take to be a baker?
Patience and creativity. Recipes are going to take a while. Sometimes, no matter how badly you just want to pop those suckers into the oven, you’ve got to let them sit in the fridge for a night. And you know what? Every now and again the dang frosting burns in the pan.


What was the biggest baking FAIL you ever had?
Frosting is my nemesis. As was aforementioned. We have a love-hate relationship. Mostly, I love it and it hates me. No matter how sweetly I talk to it and how carefully I watch it, it’s never perfect. That’s not true. There was that one time. Oh my gosh. Homemade frosting? It’s like what clouds would taste like if they were made of sugar. I swear. Worth the many messed up batches!

How do you feel about Martha Stewart?
She’s an inspiring lady, but down here in the South we have a bigger icon. Her names starts with Paula and ends with Deen. That lady, let me tell you. She must have invented butter. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is complete without butter. Fact.

Tell me something random that most people don't already know:
I have synesthesia! But not the really awesome one where I smell colors or anything awesome like that. Mine is called Ordinal Linguistic Personification. Basically, all of my numbers from 1-9 have personalities. This caused quite the mess in school, as my numbers would fight on the page.


If you had to be an ingredient in a recipe, what would you be?
Brown Sugar. Hands down. That stuff is the stuff. I love brown sugar. For me, it’s not baking if I haven’t put some brown sugar in it. And I like to think that we’re similar, brown sugar and I. We’re both super sweet, but we won’t be messed with. We don’t melt and combine as easily as other sugar and we have a very distinct taste that you can’t miss. It’s that little kick at the end. The touch of spice. That’s brown sugar. And me.

Will you share your all time favorite recipe with us?
Picking a favorite recipe is hard, but if I could only leave one legacy behind to be my legacy, I have no doubt about which one it would be. My legendary deep chocolate chip cookie cake. This cake is magic. I promise. I passed chemistry in high school because of this cake. I’m not lying! I made it every week for my professor, and somehow I finished the class with a B. Despite going into the final with a low C, and making a high C on the test. MAGIC CAKE.
Best Damn Cookie Cake Ever
  •  2 cups of flour
  • ½ teaspoon of baking soda
  •  ½ teaspoon of salt
  • 1-½ sticks of butter
  • 1 cup of packed brown sugar
  • ½ cup of regular sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
  • However many chocolate chips you want!
1. Preheat the oven to 350.
2. Whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt together.
3. Using an electric mixer (or if you’re feeling lucky, do it by hand), mix the butter and both sugars. After a while add in the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla extract in that exact order.
4. Bam! Add the dry crap into the not dry crap! Mix it until it looks pretty.
5. Add in your chocolate chips and mix the entire thing for a little over a minute.
6. Smoosh it all into a pan that’s sorta deep and put it in the oven for forty minutes (remember: a happy oven is one that remains closed until time is up, otherwise it’s not above ruining your cake).



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Those are my kind of instructions, and also the ones I use when I train. Your baking always turns out better when you read relatable steps. Thanks Jessie, and when I come to Georgia, I'm totally crashing on your couch whether you like it or not. Just kidding. I might ask first. Maybe.

(I'm taking submissions for Baker Babes RIGHT NOW! If you love to bake, or even just wanna try your hand at it... email me here. I'd love to have you.)

4 comments

  1. I really like these baker babe posts, so cool! You don't really get content like this anywhere else! Awesome!

    www.cashewcookie.blogspot.com

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  2. Thanks for introducing us to Jessie! Your words paint a picture of her sweet and spicy brown sugar personality : )

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  3. Yay Jessie! What a great post...and I'm *totally* trying that recipe STAT! :D

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  4. I love this series...it keeps me going back into the kitchen. :D

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