few years ago I took my kids
to dinner at my sister’s house
and right after we arrived,
my older daughter, Sawyer, pulled
me into the hallway for a private
conversation. “Mom!” she shout-
whispered. “Uncle Dave is making a
box cake!” She’d spotted a cake mix
on the counter and it didn’t seem
right: Uncle Dave was not the kind of
guy who would turn to Betty Crocker
for help with dessert. He cooks
steaks sous vide on weeknights
and rolls his own sushi at his sons’
birthday parties. I glanced back
into the kitchen and had to break
the news to Sawyer: The box inmirror-glaze disasters, attempted
elaborate floral-patterned roulades
and spent entire weekends building
over-the-top fondant-covered
birthday cakes for her cousins.
Maybe the better way to get kids
interested in cooking and baking is
to make things easy for them: We
created a special section for kids
in this issue (see page 31) full of
doable recipes, including simple
sheet cakes in 15 different flavors.
We’re also launching a new
kids’ cooking column next month.
And we’ve just released The Big,
Fun Kids Cookbook, which is packed
with no-fuss recipes along with
quizzes, games and food trivia. The
book includes (you’re welcome,
Sawyer) an entire chapter of cake-
mix hacks, like how to turn white
cake mix into a giant dessert pizza.
We figure that’ll give kids a taste
of the fun, and everything else—
maybe even a real homemade
pizza—will follow.Maile Carpenter
Editor in Chief
@maile__fnmagof the
It's here! Go to
foodnetmag.com/
kidscookbook to order.editor’s letter
10 FOOD NETWORK MAGAZINE ●MAY 2020
CAKE AND BOOK: RALPH SMITH. CARPENTER PORTRAIT: TRAVIS HUGGETT.a
question was actually just Swans
Down cake flour. I could see the
disappointment on her fa ce when
I told her. She'd been begging me
to buy a cake mix for years. Every
time we'd go down the baking aisle
at the grocery store, she'd throw
one into the cart as a joke, and then
we'd both laugh-haha, hilarious,
now put it back!
But what was I thinking? All she
wanted was to bake something
on her own-and I could have
given her that thrill just by getting
her a single box of cake mix.
Instead, we've suffered through a