pineapple coconut cake

I’ve been away a while, haven’t I? Didn’t realize it had been five months… Time is flying these days. I’ve got to practice writing. The discipline slips away just like any other activity and it is tough to hone again.

Most of the time, life feels so cyclical. I learn and forget the same things over and over. When it comes round again, especially here, I think to myself that certainly no one wants to hear these words again. Why would you want to hear about how I’m trying to un-busy myself? How I’m trying to write more? How I still cherish all the same things in this life, knowing that they are gifts that come and go? But still! Here I am again.

Cake, Dessert, Fruitellyn hopperOctober 15, 2016Comment

rosemary cake with dark chocolate

It’s a blank page. It’s always a blank page. And yet every time it’s turned into a beautiful story. Even though it’s often far from eloquent, far from coherent, far from perfection, it’s a story. Your story, my story. Any word poured out on a page, any syllable uttered from the mouth, any brush spread across a canvas, any root stretched a little deeper. They are utterances of our stories. And they matter.

There are a handful of word artists that I deeply respect. For some, I haven’t even read all of one of their books. But the theme coming from each of their voices is that your art matters. Your art that my not feel like art at all? It is. It matters because it releases your person as you really are. It leads you to notice the beautiful and creative around you. It leads you to express, release, and give thanks. It leads you to the King. Every little step of the process is important, so much more important than anyone can make you realize unless you believe the Creator Himself. I read Shauna Niequist, Emily Freeman, Hannah Brencher, and so many more, and in one way or another I’m redirected to my King in the purest, most sensible way my heart knows. I think that is art accomplished.

Cake, Chocolate, Dessertellyn hopperMarch 11, 2016Comment

prosecco cake with grapefruit curd & vanilla bean icing

Sometimes working at a bakery and also baking at home proves to be a challenge. It’s hard to separate the two environments from a creative perspective. I want to be innovative at work and produce goods that will excite customers and do joyful justice to our industry. But as an at-home creative, I don’t want to exhaust it fully there. I want to test things and try things from my own kitchen, hopefully to eventually share here or with friends. And I don’t want those to overlap, for the sake of my work’s integrity. So in some senses, it feels like my personal endeavors have been limited.

Cake, Fruit, Dessertellyn hopperFebruary 16, 2016 Comment

swedish chocolate goo cake

It's gooey. It's warm from the oven. It's dusted in sugar. It's crispy and fudgy all at the same time. It's pretty much a circular, underbaked brownie that you get to call cake and can serve for the fanciest meals. In fact, I would like to test the theory that this cake, in all its messy and delicious chocolatey glory, would unravel even the tightest of dinner parties. Pursed lips splitting with laughter, uncomfortably straight backbones swaying with chatter, and previously clasped hands waving with expression. That's how great this brownie-cake is.

Cake, Chocolate, Dessertellyn hopperJanuary 26, 2016Comment

peach cake and new traditions

One of the sweetest things about this daring and new phase of life, this settling into marriage and days in a different city, is the establishment of new traditions. Ask anyone who knows me well at all, they'll tell you that I am a traditions fanatic. Maybe it's that I'm the youngest of the fam. Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe it's just in the threads of my being. Whatever it is (I'm going with the latter), I can't stop.

At first, I've mourned the loss of well-known traditions- ones that felt like home and comfort. The ease and habits of having female roommates. The way I could hole away at any time for personal renewal. The family dinners we'd established in college. My coffee shops, my frequented locations. The music I'd always listen to. These things were part of my composure, I thought. But what I'm finding is that I haven't lost them entirely. Sure, some of them were and will only be circumstantially confined to my college days. But that's okay. Because truly, they're not gone. They're still here. They're simply being polished and refined as they converge with those of my husband.

And when I think about it, that's a really, really sweet thing. That's one of the most precious things that could happen to a person.

Cake, Dessert, Fruitellyn hopperOctober 28, 2015Comment

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