Life is What You Bake It: Make a Recipe Journal Your Go-To Gift This Mother’s Day

A feature I clipped from Better Homes & Garden magazine a couple years back touted the benefits of baking as a mindful practice. With its repetitive kneading and stirring, measuring and sifting, it puts the baker in the same Zen-like zone as, for example, yoga.

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Baking stimulates ALL your senses–a pinch of salt, the smell of zested citrus and melting chocolate, the sound of the mixer whirring–plus you get to eat the results!

My mother was a baker, particularly of cookies, which she distributed to everyone she knew every Christmas. All the shut-ins identified by our church got a plate, as well as neighbors and friends. My dad, my brother and I all toted huge platters of cookies, fudge and nut breads into our offices each holiday season.

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And mom always showed up for Christmas dinner at our house with an additional tray, which my daughter pretty much claimed. My niece and nephew, who didn’t live nearby and usually visited on Thanksgiving, always took home a repurposed ice cream bucket each, full of grammy’s bakes, which usually was empty by the time their plane landed.

Saundra Hamm photo

I always shied away from baking because of the calories, but got interested in it again when I decided to host a Christmas cookie swap for neighbors back before the pandemic hit. What I found was that I really LOVED to bake and I could give most of it away so the impact on my own hips was limited. What a way to put a smile on someone else’s face! Now I know why my mom worked so tirelessly baking.

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All that said, one of the best gifts I ever received since I rediscovered this love was a recipe journal that allowed me to collect my favorites along with the memories and photos associated with them. I planned to do a post for Mother’s Day gift ideas centered on that journal–The Great British Baking Show Recipe Journal–but discovered it’s no longer in print.

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So I did the next best thing–perhaps a better thing!–I created my own recipe journal and made it available for you to buy in my Etsy store.

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I call it The ‘My Happy Kitchen’ Recipe Journal, based on a fun print displayed in my kitchen for years. The artist, Mike Dexter of Dex Art Prints (DexMex on Etsy), was kind enough to grant me permission to use it. I sourced additional art over the internet and purchased rights to use it as well.

My inspiration

My husband gave me The Great British Baking Show Recipe Journal for Christmas two years ago. I love that show, and I love how the journal made it so easy for me to link memories to favorite recipes. It even came with STICKERS I could use to personalize the journal. That’s my daughter and I in the bottom row of photos making Williamsburg gingerbread cakes at Christmas about 30 years ago, LOL! As you can see in the photo bottom-row-right, I gave her a “Star Baker” sticker.

I make the gingerbread cakes a bit differently now, and the journal format allows me to chart variations. For instance, last time I made these it was as linzer-style cut-outs filled with lemon curd, shown in the bottom-left photo. Erin would now get a star EATER sticker! They were a big hit, believe me.

The ‘My Happy Kitchen’ Recipe Journal doesn’t come with “Star Baker” stickers, but it does have stickers aplenty:

I designed these myself so you can make your journal extra special. Each journal includes one sheet of 48 one-inch round stickers–four each of the 12 designs seen here.

What else does this journal have?

The $49.99 price includes a customized title page, with the recipient’s name and, where applicable, the gift-giver’s name and the occasion or date. The journal can conversely be shipped with a blank space on the title page for the recipient to fill in. (Heads up: Don’t tell my friend Linda I’m giving this to her on Saturday!)

There’s also an expandable table of contents. The book ships with the “Hot Contents” page you see at left and five additional “more hot stuff” pages like those at right.

Then there are the recipe “sets.” The journal comes with 25 recipe sets you complete and organize as you wish. The first two-page spread is for the recipe itself: ingredients, directions and various notes. You can rate the recipe quality, bake and difficulty, as well as note servings, source, prep time and bake/cook time. There’s even a spot on that apron artwork to paste a photo of your creation.

The second two-page spread (middle row) is for written memories on one side and photo memories on the other. The final two-page spread (bottom row) includes a lined and unlined “Etc.” multipurpose page. Use these pages to include more notes or memories, as extra recipe pages, or to paste in tips or recipes you clip or print. Even though each recipe set includes one lined and one unlined Etc. page, about 40 more are inserted at the back of the notebook to use and place as needed.

And speaking of the notebook itself…

It’s a three-ring mini-binder that opens flat and has front-and-back inside pockets. It’s a standard size, so if it wears out from use or you need a deeper binder to hold a burgeoning recipe collection, you should be able to find a replacement at any office-supply store and simply transfer your cover inserts, pages and dividers.

You also get a handmade (by me) fabric-and-elastic reversible bookmark–black-and-white houndstooth check on one side to match the journal border design and a brightly colored print on the other side. The elastic can help hold your journal closed if you have items tucked into it, or it can mark a spot you’re working on. Toss the journal in a tote bag, and the bookmark won’t fall out and lose your place or dump your stuff.

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And notice this extra bonus: Included in each of the five tab dividers is one of my special recipes formatted on the basic ingredients/directions and notes pages, complete with photo. Blank memory pages follow for you to add your own experiences with those recipes. Recipes included are:

  • Double-double chocolate raspberry espresso cookies
  • Tuscan flatbread with fresh rosemary
  • Red-skin potato salad with my grandmother’s special (but easy) cooked dressing
  • Mom’s hot fudge sauce
  • Pupcakes (dog treats) in four flavors, muffin-style or crispy cutouts

In the future, any time I share a recipe on this blog, I’ll provide a formatted PDF that matches the journal so you can print it out, trim, punch and add to your binder.

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Tab dividers are write-on and eraseable so you can decide how you want to organize your recipes and change your mind anytime. And you can purchase additional recipe sets, multipurpose pages, tab dividers, contents pages and stickers, as needed.

Start a legacy

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It’s a great gift for Mother’s Day, which is coming up soon, but also Father’s Day for the guy who cooks and bakes, birthdays, weddings or wedding showers, and, of course, Christmas and other winter holidays.

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Or simply gift it to yourself, fill it up, and pass it on someday to a son or daughter.

A note about how I use my recipe journal

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No recipe goes into my journal unless it’s tried, true, and memorable. Not everything makes the cut–only what I make over and over again because I love it or my family or friends do. Journaling is a lot like baking, you see: It’s all about the experience.

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Life IS what you bake it. Especially when you have it down in print.

To buy ‘My Happy Kitchen’ Recipe Journal

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Click on the link to take you to the listing in my Etsy store.

PS: The cookies I’m making in this post are persimmon. You’ll find the yummy recipe at Two Peas and Their Pod.

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