By Nora Vasconcelos
For Casey Barber the solution was to develop the popular snack recipes on her own in order to produce delicious homemade, preservative-free, treats that are similar to the popular commercial ones, like cream cookies; chocolate or orange spongy little cakes filled with cream; tasty, kind of salty, sometimes cheesy or spicy crackers, and most of those common treats that go so well with the Sunday brunch or during the movie marathons.
“There’s a ‘mad scientists’ feel to reverse-engineering these treats, dissecting each layer of an oatmeal crème pie or licking the life out of a barbecue potato chip to analyze the exact spice blend”, says Barber in her book Classic Snacks Made from Scratch, where she includes 70 homemade versions of popular brand-name snacks.
Each one of her recipes explains in a very detailed way how this snacks can be made at home, either to enjoy them on your own or to treat your love ones with them. The only difficult thing here is to decide which recipe to prepare first!
To help you out with this decision, the book, published by Ulysses Press, is divided in sections that cover Cookies, Cakey treats, Cheese snacks, Salty snacks, Ice Cream treats and Sweets and Candies.
Then, when all the treats are ready, it’s time to enjoy them, share them, and if you’re strong enough as not to finish all of them at once, storage them for a few minutes or a week, whatever the recipe advises… or your appetite decides.
*All photos courtesy of Ulysses Press/Judi Swinks Photography
