Sea Salt Sweet is Available for Pre-Order!

Today feels like a good day because I get to show you the cover of my new book! I also get to tell you a little more about what’s inside. It’s been a long time coming – a whole year in the making – and I couldn’t be more excited to announce that Sea Salt Sweet is now available for pre-order!

Over the past couple of years I’ve learned that there’s an art to using salt in baking and confectionery. Sea Salt Sweet will show you how to add salt to your sweets in order to achieve the most mouth-watering, crave-worthy results! Better yet – it will demonstrate the best kinds of salt to use in a particular recipe. It’s a primer to all kinds of colors and textures of sea salt, from powdery velvet sel gris, to the beautiful coarse topaz crystals of Alderwood smoked salt. The first chapter, called “A Pinch” uses salt in a subtle way, usually as a flavor-enhancer and leavener in batter and dough. As chapters progress salt is utilized differently -sometimes it’s front-and-center on top of buttery toffee, and other times it’s hidden in umami-rich ingredients like red wine and sharp cheddar.

Salt and sweet together holds true cultural significance in the south. Because I was raised on this divine contrast, some chapters include my most treasured family recipes.

I don’t have any recipes to share from the book yet, but you can be sure to find a couple of sneak-peek blog posts in the coming months. However, I thought it might be fun to show you some of the props I curated for the book. The past year I’ve been living in a sea of blue-green dishes, table linens and other serveware that a mermaid might keep in her cupboard. The mood and style of this book was important to me from the get-go, and so I endeavored to find the most beautiful objects possible. I scoured antique and vintage stores to find my favorite mid-century dish-makers such as furniture designer and onetime dish designer Paul McCobb and Scandinavian designers such as Cathrineholm and Nymølle ceramics of Denmark.

A bevy of blue props! The “Salter” scale was one of my favorite online finds, and it made quite the journey from Dublin, Ireland to my little hometown in Tennessee.

Let’s talk about The Cake.

This magnificent candy bar-inspired confection is dubbed ‘Smoke and Stout Chocolate Torte’ . I crossed my fingers that it would be chosen for the cover. In my experience, the cover is one of the most scrutinized elements because it is the face of your book – catching eyes and inviting folks over to bookshelves (virtual and otherwise). Iterations cycle through the editor, the designers, and the sales team and back to the author (and in my case, then passed on to my smart literary agent). Altogether, the cake was voted in, and I couldn’t be happier. And I just can’t wait for you to try the cake (hurry up November)!

Gosh. It’s difficult to express how completely I’ve put my heart into this book. Aside from developing the recipes, baking, shooting and styling them (and writing about them, too) I also contributed some original watercolors to the design of the book. To say I’m hugely proud of this work would be an understatement. I just can’t wait for you to read it!

The release date is set for November (just in time for Christmas!) but you can pre-order in now at a reduced price from Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can also find it at Books-a-Million, IndieBound, and Powell’s.