Janelle is a beginner baker & a petty betch.

I may have a stubborn personality and minor shopping addiction. Combined, it’s led to this fun and delicious discovery that I may actually be good at baking.

It all started with an innocent friends-giving celebration and some strong-willed determination to bring something tasty, sweet, and homemade. Scouring through dozens of dessert recipes of pumpkin spiced everything (because let’s face it - I’m a little basic too), I had come to the realization that I would not be able to achieve homemade perfection of anything by trying to whip butter by hand.

Finding myself at Target the next day with my husband, he was determined to get us in & out of there before the inevitable occurred. We all know what I mean by the inevitable: you go into Target for just ONE thing and leave $200 later. So after we had gathered up the real list of practical, planned items, I sneakily wandered us over to the kitchen aisle where I saw exactly what I needed: a KitchenAid hand mixer.

Now here’s where the drama unfolds. I already knew what I was going to hear: “You don’t need to spend money on something else that you’re only going to use once.” Oh yeah. He said it.

To his defense, I do have a bad habit. Let’s just say that there’s a ukulele, record player, medicine ball, yoga mat, and some attachable phone lenses that sit at home not being used in my favor.

Well this time was going to be different, and I was ready to prove him wrong. After a successful pumpkin spiced cake with a cream cheese frosting for friends-giving and weekly baking endeavors since, he’s now a grateful husband for his wife that bakes, and I get to be the gloating wife who gets to use baking as a proof point whenever I want to spend money on the next nonsensical thing that I get an Instagram ad for.

So, although born out of spite, but with a bit of sugar and a dash of everything nice… welcome to sugar & spite, where I’ll attempt to jump right into some seemingly easy and some mildly intimidating bakes.