I Made That!

A Southern girl at heart, Brandi Henderson of the blog I Made That! is the pastry chef at Delancey, the Seattle wood-fire pizza joint opened last year by Molly Wizenberg (whom many of you already know and love from her blog Orangette and memoir A Homemade Life) and her husband, Brandon Pettit. You have to really dig into Brandi’s blog to find this out though, since her About Me page exclaims, simply, “Hi! I make things! Things like this and that and sometimes even those. My goal is to make absolutely everything I eat from scratch. And I mean everything.”

And she’ s not kidding — from nutella to candy corn to Girl Scout cookies, Brandi really does make her own everything. And her unique blend of genuine passion, ambition, humor, and honesty makes it impossible not to be charmed and inspired. She has a penchant for exclamation marks (her enthusiasm cannot be contained!), making her own cheese (“When I see a sticky white bundle of cloth dangling in my kitchen, I know good things are coming”), homemade pasta (“At this point in our relationship, I think John [her boyfriend] has learned to leave the house quickly and quietly when he sees me dragging the pasta machine out of the pantry”), and, of course, desserts galore, but she makes plenty of savory main courses too, and is particularly enamored of pork.

   

Even if you’re the type of cook who prefers recipes on the quick and streamlined side, you may just find yourself running to the kitchen to try Brandi’s versions of Nutter Butters or Whatchamacallits or lemon icebox cake (even if the cake does take 16 hours to make!). But if you lack time and Brandi's boundless energy, rest assured that she has plenty of from-scratch recipes that are simple to throw together, like homemade power bars and bourbon pecan praline. And if Brandi has you curious about cheese making, start with her ricotta. It’s “super easy. I know I say that a lot but this time I really mean it,” she says. So what are you waiting for?