Hello, and welcome to The Floral Apron, a new kind of recipe blog made for beginner and advanced bakers alike!

My name is Alyssa Adams, and I’m a self-proclaimed kitchen woman. Baking, decorating, stirring, cooking, arranging, simmering, organizing—those are all my jam (especially stirring). Dishes, on the other hand? Not so much.

You can learn more about me here. Here’s a little more about what makes my recipe blog, The Floral Apron, different, starting with all these unphotogenic dirty dishes:

Every Recipe Has a Cleanup Rating

Dishes are my least favorite thing in the kitchen. When I was younger, I would skim recipes trying to figure out approximately how many bowls I’d need to use and what my kitchen would look like after I made it. I often wondered, “why don’t recipes include cleanup ratings?”

While I love a good one-pan dinner, I also love baking beautiful, complex things that use up every available inch of counter space and fill my sink with dirty dishes. So why not have both, just with advance notice?

Every single recipe includes a cleanup rating and a photo of the stack of dishes at the end. You’ll know exactly what you’re committing to before you even turn on your oven.

I believe I’ve struck a balance between “piece of cake” cleanups and “dish mountain” cleanups. Know that when I make a recipe, I minimize the dishes used without compromising on quality or cleanliness.

P.S. This also gives you a chance to verify that you have all the equipment needed to make a recipe before you start on it!

Every Recipe Is Written for Beginners

If you’ve spent any amount of time in the kitchen, you know there are ample opportunities for a recipe to go wrong. Some of them are out of your control, like dead yeast or a hotspot in your oven, but others are completely avoidable—if you know about them!

For instance, jam has a tendency to boil over if it’s in too small of a pot or not stirred frequently enough. If I had known that early in my jam-making, I would’ve used a larger pot or stirred it more frequently.

But since I didn’t, I had a huge mess to clean. Now, I share that information with my readers early on so beginners don’t make the same mistakes I did.

That’s why I write every single recipe for beginners. If that’s you, welcome! Each blog post goes through the recipe step-by-step, in detail, to point out areas of difficulty that beginners may not be aware of.

I also include pertinent information in the recipe itself. Your time is valuable, and you shouldn’t have to read an entire blog post to know how to make a recipe.

Every Recipe Includes Baking Science

Most complex recipes that are still completely doable end up being passed over—or worse, attempted but end up as failures—because of the recipe, not the baker.

The more baking experience you have, the more knowledge you have about the scientific reactions that take place in the oven or on the stove. That’s why some technical bakes from The Great British Bake Off turn out amazing: The bakers relied on their knowledge.

A lot of that baking knowledge is assumed in recipes online, though, which turns long, complex recipes into short and seemingly-doable steps. And oftentimes, the end result looks more like something from Nailed It.

If you know why something works in a recipe, you’re more likely to succeed in that recipe. And, you can incorporate that technique in other recipes! Baking science is also especially helpful when determining substitutions if you have a food allergy.

That’s why I include bite-sized baking science tips in most blog posts and recipe cards. I want to facilitate your baking science journey so you never wonder if a bake is going to turn out right.

Thank You

By making one of my recipes, you’re trusting that I’ve done my job well in recipe testing and that the recipe will work. I don’t take that trust lightly.

You want an easy cleanup, one-bowl recipe? Done.

You want to spend an hour doing dishes because a special occasion warrants the most beautiful cake you’ve ever made? Well, that’s my specialty.

Again, welcome to The Floral Apron! I’m so glad you’re here. Let’s make your kitchen creations blossom!

Latest Recipes

Here are some of my most recent recipes for you: