James Beard Award-Winning Baker Dorie Greenspan: ‘When It Comes to Happiness, You Can Count on Cake’

Here, Greenspan shares with AARP why the best recipes are intertwined with memories, what inspires her about the next generation of women in food and the benefit of baking by hand. “Cooking moves faster,” she says wryly. “Baking is something for patient people.”

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You write in the book that you’re drawn to simplicity in baking. Why?

When I was just starting to learn to bake, I think I felt that it didn’t count unless it was complicated. It had to be a challenge in some way. I learned a lot from that, but the pleasure is always in sharing what you make. In the beginning, I felt that all of all those frills, all that extra frosting, was proof of something. I don’t feel that way any longer. I’ve found that in just about everything, I don’t need the extras. I want to get to the heart of things, whether that’s a conversation with a friend or a cake.

The recipes in this book can largely be made without a mixer. Why do you prefer to bake by hand?

Every time I bake something by hand, I’m happy and want to do it again. When you’re working by hand, you’re not just touching the ingredients, but you’re watching them transform. You’re smelling the change in fragrance when you add the vanilla or when you rub sugar and lemon zest together. You are seeing the batter thicken as you add flour. There’s something beautiful, something relaxing, something concentrating about and clarifying about going through the steps to make a cake.

I have two granddaughters who love to be in the kitchen with me. They’re very young, so it’s not like they have a lack of energy. But they settle when we bake. We stop all the time and have them smell an ingredient or put their finger in the batter as it changes from stage to stage. It helps them to understand their senses. And I think it makes the experience more meaningful. There’s a moment as you’re working when things around you get shut down. You’re just focused on what you’re doing and taking pleasure in making something that will be good and shareable.

Speaking of young chefs, is there anyone newer in the food world that you find particularly inspiring?

I love [media company] Cherry Bombe, an organization for women working in food. A few years ago I was at their annual Jubilee conference and I started tearing up: I was moved seeing so many women from everywhere, of all ages, who were interested in food and who were forming a community.

I am old! When I started out, there wasn’t the respect for chefs that we have now. I was a doctoral student in gerontology when I decided I wanted to be a baker. I was already married — I got married right after I was born [laughs] — but my parents were so disappointed. Working in a kitchen, working with food, it wasn’t what they saw their daughter doing. It’s a joy to see where food is now. To see people committed to this field and wanting to write about food, to make food, to find ways to make community around food? That’s exciting.

As you’ve gotten older, what kinds of physical self-care habits have helped you continue doing the things you love?

That’s a great question that I don’t have a good answer for. Partially, I’m lucky. And, like so many things, if you do something all the time, you build up the energy, the tolerance, the resilience to keep doing it. There’s something about doing the work that makes sparks in my brain.

What role do memories play in baking and recipe development for you?

There are so many recipes in the book tied to memory. I think about my grandmother’s honey cake — well, it’s not my grandmother’s, but it certainly reminded me of hers. I’d made other honey cakes, but really nothing was exactly right until I was given this recipe. Immediately, all of the memories of my grandmother came back: She would always wrap cakes in wax paper, and when we pulled the paper off the cake, a little bit of the cake would stick to it that I would pick off and eat. When you’re tasting something and it reminds you of a beloved memory, it brings back so much more than the cake. It brings back the feelings around having something that you loved and that you shared with people you loved.

And food is something you’ve shared not only with friends and family but with legendary culinary figures like Julia Child. Is there anything you still carry with you from collaborations like that?

When I worked with Julia, she was older than I am now — in fact, she’s the person you should have asked about how she keeps going! [Laughs.] She said something to me that I think about all the time: “We’re so lucky to work in food,” she said, “because it means we’ll never stop learning.” I certainly had a love for the work when I started working with Julia, but to see her day after day, after so many years, still having such enormous enthusiasm? I wanted to have what she had. And I think I’m lucky enough to still have that joy.