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."
Saving up for her own house, Parker still lives at home with her parents, siblings and three dogs. Meanwhile, she's devoted to recipe creation and writing.
"I'm very excited _ and shocked _ to be able to do this every single day and get paid for it," Parker said with a laugh. "I really wanted to be a writer, then I started baking."
In between classes at American River College, she started blogging about her baking on the immensely popular The Domestic Rebel. Born in 2011, the blog immediately found its recipe for success, turning ordinary box mixes into extraordinary desserts.
It took a little longer to find its audience. "For the longest time, my only readers were myself and my mom," Parker said. "Then, cliche as it all sounds, everything changed overnight."
Her online recipes were discovered _ and shared _ by such outlets as the Huffington Post, Ladies' Home Journal and "Good Morning America." Parker's blog now averages between 500,000 and 600,000 unique visitors a month.
"With the blog, I was able to write," Parker said. "That was my goal all along. But I thought I'd write a novel first _ not a cookbook!"
With more than 2,000 original recipes, The Domestic Rebel attracted the attention of cookbook publishers as well as home cooks.
"The Countryman Press reached out to me to do a review of a cookbook they had just published," Parker recalled. "So, I pitched them on (a cookbook idea) and they really liked it. It was really surreal _ and cool."
Then came crunch time. TV network QVC wanted to feature the cookbook, a huge boon to a first-time author. But due to QVC's deadline needs, it also meant she had to turn in her finished manuscript in just 10 weeks.
"I can't even count the number of (mix) boxes I went through," she said. "I spent a lot of time brainstorming, mixing and matching mixes and testing recipes."
"Out of the Box Desserts" reads _ and looks _ like a companion to Parker's blog. Every recipe comes with an anecdote. As she does for her website, Parker did all her own food styling and photography.
"This is totally my aesthetic _ using ordinary everyday ingredients to create awesome desserts," she said. "It's something for new cooks and beginning bakers to use. I was a beginner, too. I taught myself."
Her experience is hands-on.
"I make dinner for my family every single night," she said. "I want to inspire other people to start baking. It's really easy. There's no shame in using a box mix as an ingredient; it's an easy, smart shortcut."
With her family and friends as taste testers, Parker developed more than 100 new recipes for the cookbook. That put a lot of pressure _ and pounds _ on her family, too.
"It's not easy to live in a bakery," said Dan Parker, her dad, as he patted his stomach. "I never remember tasting something and not liking it. I like it all. I just can't eat it all."
His favorites: Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Brownie Bombs and Salted Caramel Crispy Treats.
The hardest part is keeping hands off until the photos are finished, he noted. "Until she's taken her photos, we're not allowed to touch."
A teacher at Whitney High School, Dan Parker regularly takes his daughter's creations to school to share with staff and students.
"I think it's great that she's accomplished so much at such a young age," said sister Chloe Parker, another frequent taster. "This started as just a blog. It shows you really can love what you do and do what you love."
