Hayley Parker found her ooey-gooey sweet spot in a box mix.
With an adventurous flare and a serious love of desserts, Parker doesn’t stick to directions on the back of the box. Instead, she uses pre-made mixes as ingredients for other, totally different, totally amazing creations that are all her own.
Her knack for turning basic baking mixes into exceptionally pretty — and tasty — desserts has made the young Rocklin, Calif., woman a published cookbook author while her friends are still in school or just starting first jobs.
Featured on the QVC channel, “Out of the Box Desserts: Simply Spectacular, Semi-Homemade Sweets” (The Countryman Press, 210 pages, $24.95) became an almost-instant hit with fans, too, when it was released earlier this summer. The 25-year-old baking blogger is now working on a second cookbook.
“I want to inspire people to think beyond the box,” Parker said in her Rocklin kitchen. “Obviously, you can use a box mix to bake a cake or cupcakes, but you can also use it to make cookies, brownies and a lot of other desserts.”