About me

I enjoy reading pages like this in a FAQ-style manner, so that's how I'm going to do mine.

Who is Adriana?

In no particular order, I'm:

• a loving daughter and wife;
• a mother of three;
• a scientist;
• highly introverted;
• overly analytical; and
• a generally happy optimist.

I'm originally from Virginia, and now live in the beautiful bay area of California with my husband, children, and Kitchenaid mixers.

What is this site about?

Hopefully by now you've figured out that it's about baking. ;)

Not only will I have tried and tested recipes that I've baked for my family here, I also will have some helpful resources for serious home bakers.

I've created the cakeculator, which puts the baker in control of flavors and pan conversions.

I also have plenty of video tutorials that show you the hows and whys of great home baking.

Why does this site exist?

The goal of this site to build a community of baking-lovers. My hope is that it can be a fun and welcoming place for bakers to be inspire and be inspired.

Baking has always been a backburner hobby for me, but I soon noticed a trend that no matter what chapter of life I was in, baking played a huge underlying role.

I mean, if you're here on this page now, it may be the case for you... think about all the times you've baked. Did you ever wonder why you were doing it?

Few key examples of why I've baked throughout the years:

• Early in elementary school, I remember baking a cakes for classmates for birthdays. (CREATIVE EXPRESSION)
• My whole life I've made Key lime pies for my Dad's birthday; extra sour and always with a graham cracker crust. (TRADITION)
• To impress a boyfriend, I made him a pan of heart-shaped cinnamon rolls. He claimed they were great but having never baked cinnamon rolls before, I'm pretty sure they tasted like cardboard. Didn't matter though, cuz now he's my huzzzzband 😏 (OPTIMISTIC NAIVETÉ)
• In the off-hours of gradute school, I perfected two things: running for more than an hour, and all-butter pie crust. (STRESS MANAGEMENT)
• I'm an active baker for charities that provide homebaked birthday cakes for children who are either sick or underserved. (COMPASSION)
• I contantly bake with and for my children on all occasions. In our house, every celebration deserves a homemade dessert. (LOVE)

Why do you bake?

When does Adriana have time to do this?

Yes, everything takes time. Short answer: at night.

The long answer is in the handy dandy infographic below:

How does Adriana make this site? (technical stuff)

Most people are normal and use wordpress (excellent, btw) or Squarespace (also love) or the like.

But to give a little background, I thrive in problem-solving environments, and I also do very well with self study and constantly learning new things.

And as it would happen, during my last pregnancy I got a bit bored so I taught myself to code. (This was inspired by two people: First, my previous boss who said when his colleague got bored during pregnancy she wrote engeineering textbooks. I had to meet her! She is amazing and my second inspiration.) I'm not the best writer so I thought, hey, why not learn something so out of my comfort zone, like programming! 😱

It started off as a teeny tiny static website to serve as a recipe box. But I soon realized that it was Just Another Dessert Website™ and knew I could offer something different to bakers.

I thought, there had to be other people like me out there that are crazy about baking - thinking about all the details of their next bake. I've since transitioned site to a full on dynamic site geared towards the serious home baker.

My current stack:

I've handcoded this site from the bottom up because I want complete control over the functionality.

The frontend is created using just HTML and CSS on a Bulma framework.

The backend is written in python using a Django framework. My blogging is on a python-based CMS called Wagtail, which I really love.

My latest brainchild is the cakeculator, which is a python app I coded from scratch (developed the models, built the database, etc.) It's basically a working mindmap of how I think of cakes. Check that out here.

Need to contact me?

Email me at tastypastrykitchen at gmail dot com