Erin Jeanne McDowell’s latest cookbook is a colorful love letter to food as an art form

Erin Jeanne McDowell // Photo by Nico Schinco

When Erin McDowell graduated from culinary school, she had a fork, a bowl, and a blog.

Fast forward to now, when, on September 29, she released her fourth cookbook, Bake Anything: a guide to doing exactly that. Building on everything she’s learned during her journey as a pastry chef, McDowell’s cookbook is style-forward and aims to give at-home bakers the confidence to bake more than something simple.

Currently based in Kansas City, she’ll take off on a book tour across select locations in the United States and Canada, making a stop at the Mid-Continent Public Library on October 17 for an all things Bake Anything conversation, treats, and a book signing. Outside of her writing, she posts frequently on Instagram and YouTube, sharing recipes and demos to her combined 414.9k followers and subscribers.

Brioche cinnamon rolls // Photo by Nico Schinco

Born and raised in Lawrence, McDowell got her start in the kitchen under the influence of a “Martha Stewart mom” who made everything from scratch, as well as her grandmother. She began baking pies with her grandmother when she was 14, creating their own recipes as they went along, and then landing her first job in a kitchen when she was 16 at the Merc Co-op. Also influenced by her brothers, both artists, she began to view food as an art form and attended the Culinary Institute of America to pursue her eventual career.

“I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was sealing my fate with those recipe tests with my grandma,” McDowell says. “I became so passionate about it. I wanted to be an artist, but I didn’t have that natural ability with pens or paint. I thought food could be my art form, like my brothers had painting or photography.”

When she’s creating a recipe, she’s pulling inspiration from all over, especially from her current double life-living, working, and eating in Kansas City, and as a pastry chef for the French culinary retreat, Rêverie. After returning, she’ll avoid a grocery store at all costs if it means she can attend a farmer’s market instead, citing French baking methods.

(P.S., if you’re looking for an EJM-approved Kansas City pastry, she recommends Slow Rise in Overland Park, recalling how inspiring their journey from the Lawrence farmer’s market to their own brick-and-mortar was, starting as a way to send their kids to summer camp.)

“I’ve really been inspired by the pulse and creativity of the large number of artists and creative people that are here,” McDowell says. “When I come home from France, I get to take the things that I love about being here and appreciate that slower pace of life. I move slower and with more purpose. It inspires me and makes my work better because I have more mental clarity.”

In addition to the passion and artistry she feels for food, she also recognizes and prioritizes the therapeutic power of working with your hands in the kitchen for a few hours. It also serves as a foundational, familial root. It’s helped her discover her family’s history through the evolution of heirloom recipes and hand-me-down cookbooks.

“Baking in particular is wonderful to feed people, share with people, to use for celebration purposes,” McDowell says. “We mark holidays and special occasions with cakes and pies. Family has always been an undercurrent of it for me, and it inspired my work when I was living in New York and was homesick. Now that I’m home, it inspires me in more personal ways. I’m making birthday cakes for nieces and nephews and bringing my dad a birthday pie.”

Bake Anything cover // Courtesy of Erin Jeanne McDowell

Comparing Bake Anything to the culinary mother sauces, McDowell constructed the book to be a crash course in baking.

Beginning with simple recipes, such as sugar cookie dough, brioche loaves, sponge cakes, and biscuits, the recipes gradually get more complicated. This, she says, follows the pastry chef’s work method instead of creating a whole new recipe every single time fingers pinch sugar or knuckles knead dough. The chef will begin with a building block and mix and match from other recipes to create something when inspiration strikes or the seasons change.

In addition to the written recipes, McDowell includes a recipe-specific QR code, creating an accessible way for readers to expand on the dish. Instead of just reading the recipe and trial-and-erroring it until you perfect it–though that’s sure to still be part of the process–she provides a video version to supplement the written instructions. It’s the book version of looking over your shoulder at your watchful teacher and asking, “Am I doing this right?”

“I consider myself a teacher first,” McDowell says. “This book is essentially a book version of the way I teach and how I was taught. I can’t show you how to frost a cake in four pictures, but I can show you in a video. I’m a visual learner, and learning by watching small movements and demos was indispensable. I’m aiming to give readers confidence in the kitchen.”

Erin Jeanne McDowell // Photo by Nico Schinco

McDowell is most looking forward to connecting with the guests in attendance at the October 17 event, hearing their questions and comments on the cookbook. She plans on using questions she receives to inform her eventual next cookbook–if multiple people in multiple cities are asking the same question, that means there’s a knowledge gap she can help fill.

“Creating a book is such a solitary process,” McDowell says. “It’s me and my computer at my desk, me in my kitchen for hours and hours for years. Getting to connect with people as a person who’s mostly in this solitary role and mostly on the internet, getting to connect one-on-one in real life, makes me remember why I love to do this so much. With this tour, I’m bringing people who are interested in my work and community to places that I love. There’s no better feeling.”

McDowell’s conversation at the Mid-Continent Public Library is currently full, but a waitlist is available.