I’ve been putting in extra hours to get our stock back up, and I won’t lie, it’s been a hard stretch. I’m genuinely sad we were out for as long as we were. But I guess everything happens for a reason, and this is just another chapter in our book.

So in the meantime, here’s a recipe for strawberry shortcake cookies that are actually amazing. This is what I love about our mix - you can turn it into truly any cookie you can dream up, and you won’t mess it up.

Strawberry Shortcake Cookies—

Ingredients

• 1 box Homemade ish cookie mix

• ½ cup butter, melted

• 1 egg

• Fresh strawberries, cut up

Icing

• 1 cup powdered sugar

• ⅓ cup heavy cream

• 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste (optional)

Subscribe now

Instructions:

1. Make the Homemade ish cookie mix as directed on the box. This is where you fold in your cubed strawberries as the add-on. Feeling extra? Toss in some white chocolate chips for a richer cookie.

2. Bake for about 8 minutes, or until golden. Let the cookies cool completely - I repeat, completely! If they’re still warm, the icing will slide right off and it won’t be cute.

3. Once cooled, drizzle or pipe on the icing, top with a single strawberry and a dusting of edible glitter (it’s included in our cookie mix), and enjoy!

Leave a comment

But right now, i’m struggling to get out of this loop. i know who i want to be, but it’s hard for me to get there. In a way, i think i’m scared to let go of the old person, which is what i know, and become someone new. i work on so many things all the time, but lately i’ve been feeling like maybe i’m working on too many things and nothing is actually getting done?

i’ve touched on this before in another article i wrote, but being a content creator full time is so toxic. Here, i said it. Why, you may ask? Because you never know what’s coming next. The pay is net 60-90 (which is actually the worst part) and you’re only as good as your last video or post. It sucks. As humans, i don’t think we’re built for that kind of instability.

i feel so burned out and almost don’t recognize myself. But the craziest thing of it all? Is that no matter how hard things get, or how lost i feel about my next move, i know it will all work out, and in the best way possible.

So i want to talk about the 4 things that are currently helping me get through this funk:

1. Therapy!!!!!!!!! i can’t stress this enough. Go to therapy, even if you “don’t think you need it.” Mental health is real and can cause your body more harm than you think. And what’s a better way to spend your time than solving things you never thought you would, and getting tools to live a better life?!

2. Journaling - i actually started a challenge with myself to journal every morning for 30 days straight, so it becomes a habit. i’m on day 12 and honestly, it’s helping A LOT. It’s a way of releasing and connecting with my thoughts (scary, i know), but it really is how magic happens.

3. Being around friends and family - this one is big. Being around the people who understand you the most is so special. They can say one thing and it completely brings you up. i’m so lucky for my people and how much they care about me. It’s so special.

4. Finding a hobby - i know everyone always tells you to “find a hobby,” but it honestly is so important. It forces you to disconnect from everything and recharges you.

The list could go on and on, but i feel like these 4 are the most valuable. They will help you get out of the funk. And i can’t wait to circle back when i’m out of it. i hope that day is soon.

Anyways, this is a short one, mostly for me to share what i’ve been going through these days.

Talk soon. Xx

The trick to the cake itself is the hot coffee, and I say this every time I make a chocolate cake because it’s true every single time. It deepens the chocolate without making the cake taste like a mocha, and it’s the reason the crumb comes out this soft, almost fudgy inside a fluffy cake. Nobody believes me until they try it themselves.

After that, it’s really just assembly. Buttercream, cake, buttercream, cake, buttercream, cake, more buttercream, and then a pile of cherries because that’s the whole point. Nothing complicated, no reinventing anything, just a really good chocolate cake wearing its best outfit.

Makes: 3 layers, 1 cake

Bake time: 20-25 minutes, 350°F

INGREDIENTS—

• 250g all-purpose flour

• 56g cocoa powder

• 1 teaspoon baking powder

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 200g granulated sugar

• 110g packed light brown sugar

• 4.5g fine table salt

• 2 large eggs

• 120ml vegetable oil (I prefer sunflower oil)

• 180ml yogurt

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 240ml hot coffee

Instractions—

1. Preheat your oven and prepare three 6-inch round cake pans. I like to grease them and line the bottoms with parchment paper because there is nothing worse than making a beautiful cake and then having it refuse to leave the pan.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, granulated sugar, brown sugar, and salt.

3. Add the eggs, vegetable oil, yogurt, and vanilla and mix until combined.

4. Then pour in the hot coffee and mix until you have a smooth batter. The batter will be fairly thin, which is exactly what you want.

5. Divide the batter between the three prepared pans and bake until the cakes are cooked through and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

6. Let the cakes cool completely before frosting. Please do not try to frost warm cake. I know we’re excited, but just wait.

7. Once the cakes are cooled, place your first layer on your cake stand. Add a generous amount of chocolate buttercream on top, then add the second cake layer and repeat with more buttercream. Finish with the third layer and another generous layer of buttercream on top.

8. Smooth out the buttercream on the tops of the cake layers, or leave it a little more textured, I personally love when cakes look like they were actually made by a person.

9. And finally, add your fresh cherries on top.

A fluffy chocolate cake, chocolate buttercream, and fresh cherries. Sometimes you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. You just need to put cherries on a chocolate cake and call it a day ;)

If this cake makes its way into your kitchen, I want to see it!! Tag me @danahassonn, nothing makes me happier than seeing these recipes come to life in your kitchens!!!!

Xx

Dana

We all want to work for ourselves, but there’s a big responsibility that comes with it. And no one is talking about it.

If you’re new here, hi, i’m Dana Hasson. I have been doing social media for over 10 years, and a little under 2 years ago, i launched my own brand, Homemade ish. I have been working for myself full time for the past 7 years, and the highs are high but the lows are low.

I think everyone has this thought: “oh i can just get online, post, and become social media famous.” Yes, that can totally happen to you, but let me tell you, it’s not as easy as it seems.

You need to make sure you have a lot of time, know how to edit properly, come up with creative ideas that make YOU stand out from the rest of the internet, and this is before the mental toll even takes over.

I don’t want this to sound like i’m ungrateful, because i am actually so grateful for the life i created for myself and for what i’m building every day. But i think we all fall for this “picture perfect” world, when in reality there’s so much more to it than it seems.

I want to talk about myself (because of course that’s what i know and have experienced firsthand). I started social media back in 2017, i was in college, we did a case study on Chiara Ferragni, and from that moment i realized, wow, i’m going to give this thing a shot. I love to create, take photos, i also love beauty and fashion. So i did.

While i was in college, i would skip mandatory sorority events (and would get fined for it…) just so i could go collaborate with a local photographer and get creative and chase what i love. I would drive back and forth to NYC just to go to one event i got invited to, and would constantly email/DM people from the industry to get coffee, lunch, dinner, or even just 5 minutes of their time.

But i don’t want to go into all of this (i’m happy to make another post about it all), i want to talk about what social media does to your mental health, and how working for yourself is the biggest survival mode you will ever be in.

So here is the thing about the internet: things move FAST and you become irrelevant faster. Tomorrow a new creator will blow up and become the “hottest thing” and brands will jump right to it (as they should). But, what about those who have done it for sooooooo long? What about those who have built those relationships? It’s funny how it all works, but you really are just measured by numbers. You can be the best person or the worst one, but it doesn’t actually matter, because if you have 100k views vs. 5k views, you will be treated very differently.

And this happened to me. I have been doing social media and loved doing it so much. My engagement was always amazing (or i should say most of the time) and i was getting brand deals left and right, it was truly magical. The perks of this job are too good to be true.

But, after doing the same thing every single day for 5 years, i was craving something new. Something i could tell my kids i built with my own two hands. And that’s when Homemade ish was born. I was building, and i started to grow myself. I started to face real problems with building a brand and all that comes with it: hiring a scientist, hiring designers, hiring a website designer, finding a manufacturer to produce my product, finding a warehouse/fulfillment center. I mean, things i had dreamed of doing (and i did, and still am), but this whole thing caused something big to happen to me… i grew up… A LOT.

Things i was ok doing before, i wasn’t ok doing or posting anymore. I had a different standard. I wasn’t allowing myself to post 5 times a day, or even taking 5 days just to film. I think i just had a different perspective on life. I have always been very protective of my personal life, i don’t share things that are just for me, because i think as a society we sometimes forget that getting so many opinions can also be bad. And you want to be able to make your own decisions without someone telling you they love it or hate it. PLUS, whatever you post on the internet… is there to stay FOREVER. And that is something i think a lot of people forget.

Anyways, i stopped posting as much. I stopped creating as much. I became a different person. And now? I still am that new person who grew so so much. I am so proud of her. But my content is not what it used to be.

1. The engagement has dropped because i stopped posting 4 times a day.

2. I no longer know what i want my content to be. I feel like what i used to create isn’t who i am anymore, she’s someone new now.

3. I don’t have time to “figure it out” because things are moving so fast here.

So i have been reflecting. A lot. Why do people want this? Yes, when the good is good, it’s incredible. You almost feel like this can’t be real. But when it’s bad? Oh it’s bad. You compare yourself, you take it personally because it is. At the end of the day, if your content is not doing well, you will not get chosen.

And so i have just been craving something new. I can’t tell you what it is yet. But what i can tell you is that i’m really excited to find myself again. I’m excited to be creative again and to feel fulfilled. I’m still going to post on social media even if it doesn’t perform best, but as long as i am happy with what i’m creating and feel as if that is the new me.

And for Homemade ish? Just wait and see. Because that is what gets me the most excited, and i truly can’t wait for it to take over the baking aisle.

If you read all of this, and you don’t even know me, i love you. Thank you!!! And i hope you stay. I hope you can relate in one way or another. And i can’t wait to take you along on the journey of who i’m becoming.

xx

Dana

Leave a comment

The short answer, because you are probably standing in your kitchen right now: brown butter wins on flavor and it is not close, but it costs you spread and it will make your cookies denser and chewier than you expect. If you want a thin crisp edge, stay with regular. If you want a deep toffee cookie that tastes like it was made by someone who knows what they are doing, brown it.

Now, the whole thing, because I ran these back to back in the test kitchen this week and one of the results genuinely annoyed me.

Why I ran this test?

I am making a real decision, not a content decision. I have been going back and forth on whether to build the browning step into the Homemade ish instructions as the default rather than the optional upgrade, and I was tired of having opinions about it instead of data. So I stopped theorizing and made both.

The setup

Same recipe, same day, same oven, one variable. Both batches built on the Homemade ish mix, same weight of butter, same egg, same rest time in the fridge, same scoop size, baked on the same sheet rotation. The only difference: batch one used softened room temperature butter, batch two used butter I browned, cooled, and re-solidified back to a scoopable texture.

Read more

Subscribe now

Blood oranges only show up for about six weeks a year, and every year I forget this until I’m standing in the grocery store staring at a crate of them like I just ran into an old friend. This year I bought way more than I needed, told myself it was “for the newsletter,” and then had to actually figure out what I was doing with eight blood oranges before they went soft on my counter.

The obvious answer was juice. The correct answer was cake.

I wanted something that tasted like the fruit, not just something with a wink of citrus zest thrown in at the end. So the juice and zest both go straight into the batter, not just the icing, which means the whole cake ends up that pale pink-gold color and actually tastes like blood orange instead of just smelling like it. It’s a simple butter cake at its core, nothing fussy, just really good ratios and a lot of citrus doing the heavy lifting.

The icing is the other thing I care about here. Not a thick, sweet frosting that sits on top like a hat, just a thin, glossy blood orange glaze that soaks in slightly at the edges and sets into that shiny finish. It’s the difference between a cake that looks homemade in the good way and one that looks like it’s trying too hard.

I made this three times before I got the icing consistency right. First batch, too thin, it slid right off and pooled at the base like a sad little citrus moat. Second batch, too thick, it sat there like spackle. Third time was the charm, pourable but not runny, and now I’m just annoyed I have to actually measure the juice instead of eyeballing it like I want to.

Blood Orange Cake with Blood Orange Icing-

What you need:

• 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour

• 2 ½ tsp baking powder

• ½ tsp baking soda ½ tsp salt

• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened

• 1 ¾ cups granulated sugar Zest of 3 blood oranges

• 4 large eggs, room temperature

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• ¾ cup fresh blood orange juice (about 3-4 oranges or any kind of citrus that’s in season)

• ½ cup buttermilk

• 1 ½ cups powdered sugar, sifted, for the icing

• 2-3 tbsp fresh blood orange juice, for the icing

• ½ tsp blood orange zest, for the icing

What you do:

Preheat the oven to 350°F and grease a 9-inch round cake pan.

Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together and set aside. Beat the butter, sugar, and zest until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes, then add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each.

Mix in the vanilla. Combine the blood orange juice and buttermilk in a separate cup, then add the flour mixture and the juice mixture to the butter mixture in three alternating additions, starting and ending with the flour. Don’t overmix.

Pour into the pan and bake 40 to 45 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then turn out onto a rack and cool completely before icing, or you’ll end up with the sad citrus moat I mentioned earlier.

Whisk the powdered sugar, 2 tbsp juice, and zest together until smooth, adding more juice a half teaspoon at a time until it’s pourable but not thin. Pour over the fully cooled cake and let it set for about 15 minutes before slicing.

Subscribe now

Tag me when you bake so I can see!!

xx Dana

Subscribe now

Not the topic. I knew the topic. The topic was desserts, obviously, it is in the name. I mean the thing underneath the topic. The reason anyone was here. The actual product. I did not know what that was for well over a year, and I was publishing the entire time, confidently, like a person who knew???

Here is what the first 40 posts looked like from the inside. I would sit down on a Sunday (or on a random night when i have a bit of time) and think, what would a food newsletter do. Then I would do that. Recipe, pretty photo, a warm little intro about the weather or my week (if that), & send. And they were good. Genuinely, they were fine. People opened them. But I was writing a costume of a newsletter. I was doing an impression of the thing instead of making the thing, and the tell was that I could not have told you what made it mine. Swap my name out, and any competent baker with a decent camera could have sent the exact same email… and that felt inauthentic to me.

The click did not arrive as a strategy session. It never does, which is sort of the whole point of this post. It arrived when I felt like I was just “posting to post” vs. really think it through and give content that I would love first.

And what I finally understood was this: I want YOU to get to know me better. what I’m really working on, what it’s like to be a creator and start a business from the ground up. Why did I start baking? What is it about baking and not cooking as well? and SO many more questions that I get on daily basis. i’m finally going to open up about them here. Because sometimes, writing instead of speaking to the camera is easier for me.

I could have gotten here faster. I probably could not have skipped it, but I could have gotten here faster, so I am handing you the three things I wish someone had told me on post 4!

ONE-

Clarity is downstream of volume, not upstream of it.

I wanted to plan my way into knowing what this was. Sit down, think hard, define the brand, write the mission, then execute cleanly against it. That is not how it works, and I have genuinely never watched it work for anyone. You do not think your way to your voice. You write until it shows up and taps you on the shoulder. The 70 posts were not the thing I did before I understood. They were how I understood. There is no version where you skip the reps and arrive at the insight early, and every hour I spent hunting for that shortcut was an hour I was not doing the only thing that actually produces it.

TWO-

Your readers know before you do.

They were telling me for months. The posts I thought were throwaways would get replies. The ones I labored over for six hours would land politely and die. ✱ I kept reading that as noise. It was not noise, it was the answer, delivered weekly, for free, by people who had no reason to lie to me. I was too busy checking whether I was doing it right to notice I was already doing it, just in the paragraphs I kept apologizing for.

Three-

The thing you keep editing out is usually the thing.

Every single week there was a version of the post I wanted to write and then talked myself out of. Too personal. Too much about me. Too far from the recipe. Who do you think you are. And the stuff I was cutting for being self indulgent turned out to be the only part nobody else on earth could have written.

I was editing out the real deal. Every week. On purpose. And calling it good??

So what do you do with this if you are on post 3 and not post 70?

Listen up!

Not what I did, which was wait for permission and clarity to show up together like a matching set, as though one day the universe would hand me a brand deck and a sense of purpose in the same envelope.

Do this instead. Publish before you know. Watch what actually lands, and be brutal about the difference between what landed and what you wish had landed. Keep the paragraph you were embarrassed to write. Then go do it forty more times and let the pattern tell you what you have been making this whole time.

Seventy posts sounds like a mountain until you do the math. It is a year and a half of Sundays. That is nothing. That is the cheapest tuition on earth for finally knowing what you are.

Which brings me to why everything around here looks a little different lately. I stopped writing a food newsletter that was secretly about building something, and started writing the actual thing: the build, in public, cookies very much included. Same warmth. Same group chat. I am just done pretending the interesting part is the frosting.

What are your thoughts?? xx Dana

Leave a comment

Then I ate one straight off the tray and had to sit down for a second.

Here is the thing nobody tells you about olive oil in a cookie. Butter makes a cookie taste like butter, which is fine, which is the whole category, but olive oil makes a cookie taste like itself plus something you cannot quite name. A little green. A little peppery at the back of your throat if you use a good one. It does not fight the chocolate, it makes the chocolate taste more expensive than it is. And the texture goes from the usual bakery soft to something closer to a really good olive oil cake had a baby with a cookie. Crisp edge, dense chewy middle, the kind of chew that makes you go quiet mid conversation.

So, founder R&D report, because that is apparently the pillar we are in:

Butter gives you the classic. Familiar, a little sweeter tasting even at the same sugar amount, spreads more predictably, the cookie your brain expects when it hears chocolate chip cookie.

Olive oil gives you something with an edge. Savory undertone, denser chew, a dough that behaves a little looser so it needs a chill before it bakes, and a finished cookie that reads more grown up. This is the one you bring to a dinner party to be a little bit annoying about.

I am not saying retire the butter version. I am saying if you have not made this add-in, you are cookie-blocking yourself from a genuinely better bite.

Subscribe now

The recipe

What you need

• 1 bag Homemade Ish Cookie Mix

• 1/4 cup good extra virgin olive oil, in place of the melted butter the bag calls for, use one you would actually put on a salad, this is not the place to reach for the cheap stuff

• 1 egg, or as the bag directs

• 1/4 cup melted butter

• Flaky sea salt for topping, Maldon is my ride or die

• Optional, a small handful of extra chocolate chunks for pressing into the tops before baking, because this is necessary!

What you do

1. Preheat your oven to the temperature on the bag.

2. In a bowl, combine the Homemade Ish mix with the butter, and egg, Adding the oil in exactly where the bag calls for melted butter just it inside. Mix until just combined. Do not overwork it.

3. Scoop into balls slightly larger than you think you should, this is not a delicate cookie.

4. Press a few extra chocolate chunks into the top of each ball if you are using them.

5. Chill the dough for 20 minutes (optional). Olive oil makes a looser dough than butter, and the chill is what keeps the spread in check.

6. Bake according to the bag’s time, pulling them when the edges are set and the centers still look slightly underdone.

7. The second they come out of the oven, hit them with flaky salt. Not five minutes later, now, while they are hot enough for it to melt in slightly instead of just sitting on top.

8. Let them cool for five minutes before you drizzle a little olive oil on top and inhale the first one. You will not make it much longer than that!!!

A little Homemade ish update :)

This is the same mix I use as the base for basically everything I bake for this newsletter, and it is also the reason I started Homemade Ish in the first place. I wanted the shortcut that still lets you make it yours, whether that means olive oil instead of butter, a weird chocolate you found at a specialty store, or whatever mood you are in that week!

We are currently re-branding our packaging and so there is a bit of a wait until you will be able to get your hands on it BUT trust me… it will be worth it!!!!

If you want to be first in line when that happens, waitlist sign ups is the place to do it + join our broadcast channel on instagram for all the live updates.

Subscribe now

Tag me when you bake so I can see!! xx Dana

Subscribe now

I used to be that person. I judged box mixes. I judged the people who used them. I thought it meant they didn’t care enough, didn’t have the skill, were taking the easy way out. And I said all of this while burning out, stress baking at midnight, and convincing myself that the extra two hours of measuring and sifting was somehow a moral accomplishment.

It wasn’t. It was just two extra hours.

Then I actually started testing it. Properly, side by side, blind taste tests with people who had no idea which was which. And the box mix won. Not “close enough.” Won. More consistent texture, more reliable rise, and most people genuinely could not tell the difference when both were made with care.

That sat with me for a while, because if the box mix can be that good, what was all that scratch-baking superiority actually protecting? I think the honest answer is that it was protecting an identity. “I’m the kind of person who does things the hard way” feels good to say. It just doesn’t actually make the cookie better.

This is one of the reasons I started Homemade Ish. PS: we are re-branding a bit and i would love for you to join the waitlist!!!! At Homemadeish.com) Not to convince anyone scratch baking is bad, people who love the process should absolutely keep doing it, but to push back on the idea that the shortcut is shameful. A good mix isn’t cheating. It’s just someone else doing the boring, finicky part so you can get to the part that’s actually fun, which is eating a warm cookie twenty minutes after you decided you wanted one.

If you want to see what I mean, here’s the laziest, most “doctored box mix” cookie I make on repeat, and I’m not even a little sorry about it.

The “I Didn’t Make This From Scratch and It’s Still Better” Cookie

What you need: 1 box of your favorite cookie mix (homemade ish perhaps even thought we are re-branding and it’s currently unavalible but I promise when you can get your hands on it, it will change your life) 1 stick of butter (1/2 a cup), melted 1 egg.

What you do: Dump the mix into a bowl. Add the melted butter, egg. Stir until just combined, don’t overmix. Add your favortie add’s in (chocolate chunks is my personal favorite). Scoop into balls slightly bigger than the box recommends, because bigger cookies are always better cookies. Bake at 350°F, until the edges are set but the centers still look soft. Hit them with flaky salt the second they come out of the oven!!!!! (this is important).

That’s it. Five minutes of effort, box mix energy, and people will ask for the recipe like you slaved over it.

I’m curious where you land on this. Team scratch-only, team mix-and-proud, or team “depends on my mood and how much wine I’ve had”? Tell me in the comments, I have a feeling this one’s going to get spicy.

If you’re already in the “life’s too short” camp, my paid subscribers get the deeper version of this, the actual systems I use to cut corners on purpose without anything feeling cheap, from baking to building a brand to basically everything else. Come join the inner circle!

xx

“Thoughts best served warm.” — Dana Hasson, Desserts for Thoughts

Subscribe now

SKIN + BASE:

Summer Fridays Bronzer Butter Balm: My skin prep obsession. I use this before everything and my skin has genuinely never looked better. It gives the most gorgeous warmth and glow before I even start my base. If you’re not using Summer Fridays you need to start immediately.

ColourPop Freckle Pen: This thing has genuinely changed my life. I dot it on before foundation for the most natural looking faux freckles and I am OBSESSED. It looks so real and gives the most effortless fresh-faced moment.

YSL Skin Affair Soft Glow Cushion Foundation: Okay first of all it’s gorgeous and sits on my vanity as decor but also?? The formula is incredible. YSL never misses and this little quilted compact is so chic it almost feels wrong to use it. Almost.

EYES:

Hourglass Brown Mascara: I have tried so many mascaras and this one has fully won me over. It gives the most insane length and volume without any clumping and my lashes look like I have extensions in. + the brown color?! INSANE.

Merit Glitter eyeshadow: (that’s it. that’s all you need to know).

CHEEKS + BRONZER:

Dior Backstage Blush Stick: Glossy, so effortless. I swipe this on my cheekbones and it instantly pulls the whole look together. A forever staple.

Westman Atelier Powdered Blush Duo: If you know, you know. Clean, luxurious, and the most beautiful flush on the skin. This brand is everything I want in makeup, elevated but effortless. It just melts into your skin like it was made for you.

O.Piccola Bronze + Slow Balm: This one is such a vibe. It gives the most subtle, natural bronze glow and the balm formula makes your skin look so healthy and lit from within. I’ve been reaching for this constantly.

Saie Setting Powder + Brushes: Saie is having such a moment and honestly they deserve it. The powder sets everything so beautifully without looking flat and their brushes are so incredibly soft. A full yes from me, always.

LIPS:

YSL Lip Liner: The most perfect base for any lip look. It defines without being harsh and keeps everything in place all day. YSL never misses and this liner is proof.

Pat McGrath Labs Lip Gloss: Pat McGrath is a LEGEND and this gloss gives the most insane shine. One swipe and your whole look is elevated. Non negotiable for me right now.

FINISHING:

REFY Brushes: Honestly such a sleeper hit. The precision on these brushes is unreal and they blend everything so seamlessly. Once you try them you truly cannot go back.

One/Size Powder Melt Glass Setting Spray: The finishing touch that takes everything from good to GREAT. It melts everything together and gives the most dewy glass skin finish. I spray it on and feel like I just stepped out of a photo shoot. Last step, every single time.

These are my ride or dies right now and I genuinely use every single one of them. If you’ve been sleeping on any of these, consider this your sign to add to cart!!

Drop a comment and let me know which one you want me to do a full deep dive on because I could honestly talk about all of these forever. Love you guys!! 🩷

Xx

Dana

Share

Subscribe now

I don’t announce it. I don’t put up an out of office. I don’t post about needing a break or caption a sunset with something about rest being productive. I just go. And I come back different in a way I’ve stopped trying to explain and started just protecting.

Here’s why.

Read more

Subscribe now

The short answer? Yes.

The longer answer is that brown butter and regular butter serve completely different purposes in baking, and understanding the difference can completely change the outcome of your cookies.

Read more

I want to tell you something I don’t say lightly, because I know how it sounds and I’ve made my peace with that: I manifested Homemade Ish. I manifested this life I’m living in New York City. And I’m not done yet…

Subscribe now

I know. I know. The word “manifesting” makes certain people roll their eyes so hard they need a minute to recover. It sounds woo, it sounds passive, it sounds like a vision board and a wish and a whole lot of waiting around for the universe to drop something in your lap. I get it. I used to brace for that reaction too.

But here’s what I actually know, from lived experience, from watching it happen in my own family before I ever had words for it: manifesting is one of the most active, demanding, clarifying practices I have ever committed to. It is not for the faint of heart. It is not a shortcut. In a lot of ways, it makes you work harder than you ever have before, because you’re not just building a business or a life, you’re becoming someone who can hold it.

My parents are manifesters. I didn’t have that word for it when I was little, but I had the evidence. My dad especially. He had this quality that I couldn’t name at the time, this unshakeable certainty about things that hadn’t happened yet. He didn’t talk about dreams the way most people do, like fragile things that might not survive contact with reality. He talked about them like they were already in process. Like the question wasn’t if, just when and how.

We moved to New York because of that. My dad decided we were going, held onto that knowing, and we went. That’s not a small thing. That’s not luck. That’s someone who understood something about the relationship between belief and outcome that most people spend their whole lives arguing themselves out of.

I grew up watching that, absorbing it, not fully understanding it yet but filing it somewhere important.

Then, when I was fifteen, I read The Secret.

I was fifteen years old and I read The Secret and something in me went: oh. This is the thing. This is what my parents have been doing.

It gave me a framework for something I had already seen work in real life. The law of attraction, the idea that your thoughts and your energy are not just internal weather but actual forces that shape what comes toward you, landed on me not as a revelation but as a confirmation. I had watched my dad move our whole family to New York on the strength of a belief. Now I had language for it.

I was a teenager, so naturally I started small. I would think about things I wanted, hold them clearly, and then watch what happened. And things happened. Not always on my timeline, not always in the shape I expected, but they happened, and they were almost always better than what I had originally pictured. That last part, I want you to hold onto that. The thing you manifest is almost never exactly what you envisioned. It’s usually bigger. More layered. More right for you than the specific version you were attached to.

That pattern has never stopped being true.

Let me be really clear about this because I think the misconceptions are what make people dismiss it before they ever give it a real chance.

Manifesting is not sitting in your room thinking positive thoughts and waiting. It is not a substitute for action. It is not magic in the way people mean when they say magic dismissively. Manifesting is the practice of getting so clear and so aligned on what you want and who you’re becoming that every action you take starts moving in that direction, and every opportunity that’s meant for you becomes visible to you in a way it wouldn’t have been before.

You still work. You work a lot, actually. In some ways you work harder than someone who isn’t manifesting, because you’re not just going through motions or following someone else’s map. You’re building something specific, something that matches the vision inside you, and that takes precision and patience and an enormous amount of showing up even when nothing visible has happened yet.

The difference is the energy underneath the work. When you’re manifesting, you’re not white-knuckling it. You’re not grinding from a place of desperation or fear or “I have to make this work or everything falls apart.” You’re working from a place of trust. A deep, settled knowing that it is working, that the pieces are moving even when you can’t see them, that what’s coming is already on its way. That trust changes everything. It changes the decisions you make. It changes how you handle setbacks. It changes how you show up in rooms and conversations and opportunities because you’re not radiating scarcity, you’re radiating someone who already knows how the story goes.

And here’s the thing about that energy: people feel it. Opportunities feel it. The universe, or God, or whatever word sits right with you for the organizing force of things, feels it.

When I started Homemade Ish, I didn’t have a guarantee. I didn’t have a road map or a mentor or a clear line of sight to what it could become. What I had was a picture in my mind of what I wanted to build and a bone-deep certainty that I was going to build it. Not arrogance. Not delusion. Certainty. There’s a difference, and you know it when you feel it.

There were moments that looked like setbacks from the outside that I experienced as redirection. Things that didn’t work the way I planned that turned into something I never would have thought to plan for. I kept coming back to what my dad modeled for me, that quality of holding the vision without gripping it so tightly that you can’t recognize it when it arrives in a different shape than you expected.

How to actually start

If you’ve never consciously practiced manifesting, or if you tried it once, felt silly, and gave up, here is how I’d invite you to begin. Start small enough that your skepticism doesn’t get in the way.

Get specific. Vague wanting produces vague results. “I want to be successful” is not a vision. “I want to build a product business that generates consistent revenue and lets me work for myself in New York City” is a vision. The more specific and sensory you can make it, the more real it becomes to your nervous system, and your nervous system is where manifestation actually lives.

Write it down like it’s already true. This is the practice that changed things fastest for me. Not “I want to have a newsletter with a thousand subscribers” but “I have a newsletter that over a thousand people read every week and it is one of the most meaningful things I have ever built.” Writing in the present tense, as if it has already happened, rewires the way your brain looks for evidence in the world around you. Suddenly you start noticing the opportunities and the open doors that were always there but invisible to a mind focused on lack.

(linking everything I use for manifesting here)

Use a scripting journal. This is one of the most powerful tools in the manifesting toolkit and one of the least intimidating entry points. Every morning or evening, write two to three paragraphs from the perspective of your future self describing your life as you want it to be, in the present tense, in detail, with gratitude woven through it. Do this consistently for thirty days and notice what starts to shift, not just externally but in how you feel about what’s possible.

Practice gratitude before you have the thing. This one is counterintuitive but it works. Being genuinely grateful for what is coming, before it arrives, sends a very different signal than anxious wanting. Try ending every day by writing down three things you’re grateful for that haven’t happened yet, as if they have. “I’m so grateful that Homemade Ish is stocked in stores across the country.” Write it. Feel it. Mean it. Then go to sleep.

Act as if. This doesn’t mean spend money you don’t have or pretend problems don’t exist. It means make choices that are consistent with the version of you who already has what you’re manifesting. How does she carry herself? What decisions does she make? How does she talk about her work? Start doing those things now. The becoming precedes the having, always.

Let it be better than you thought. This is the hardest part and also the most important. Hold your vision clearly, do your work faithfully, and then loosen your grip on the specific form you think it has to take. The universe has a wider view than you do. What comes will be shaped better for you than what you imagined. Trust that. I have never once gotten exactly what I pictured and every single time I have gotten something more right.

Manifesting is not a belief that the world will hand you things. It is a belief that you and the world are in a conversation, and that what you bring to that conversation, your clarity, your energy, your willingness to act and trust simultaneously, shapes what comes back.

My dad moved us to New York on that belief. I built this on that belief. I’m still building on it every single day.

You have a vision in you. You wouldn’t be here, reading this, building what you’re building, if you didn’t. The question is whether you’re going to let yourself hold it out loud, claim it without apology, work toward it without fear, and trust that it is already, in every way that matters, on its way to you.

I think you should. I think the signs are all around you if you’re willing to look!

xx Dana
“Thoughts best served warm.”

Share

Subscribe now

My mix is the base and YOU are the creative director. And today we're turning it into the most dreamy, soft, melt-in-your-mouth peanut butter cookies. No mixer required. No mess. Just pure deliciousness. These come together in like 15 minutes and they look (and taste!) like you spent all day in the kitchen. Which, honestly, is the whole vibe. Let's get into it!

Using the Homemade ish Cookie Mix

Makes: ~12 cookies

Prep time: 10 minutes

Bake time: 8 ish minutes

INGREDIENTS

• 1 Homemade ish cookie starter mix (cookie base + brown sugar packets)

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened or melted

• 1 large egg

• 2-3 tablespoons creamy peanut butter

• 2-3 tablespoons Jam of choice (I used homemade raspberry)

STEPS

1. Preheat & prep: Preheat your oven to 350°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. Mix the dough: Pour both packets from your Homemade ish cookie starter mix (the cookie base and brown sugar packet) into a large bowl. Add melted butter, egg, and swirl everything together with a spatula until a soft dough forms. Now add your peanut butter and jam and fold them in gently. You don't want to fully mix them in!! The goal is little pockets of peanut butter and jam in every scoop so when they bake you get that perfect swirl in every single bite. It'll smell INCREDIBLE already, I promise.

3. Scoop & press: Using a cookie scoop or a spoon, roll the dough into balls and place them on your lined baking sheet, leaving about 2 inches of space between each one.

4. Bake: Bake for 8 ish minutes, until the edges are just set. They’ll look slightly underdone in the center that’s EXACTLY what you want. They firm up as they cool and stay perfectly soft inside.

5. Finish & sparkle: The second they come out of the oven, top with a swirl of peanut butter on each cookie to get an even more intense flavor. If you have your edible glitter packet from the kit, this is your moment. A little shimmer never hurt anybody. Let cool on the pan for at least 5 minutes before eating (I know, hardest part).

As always, if you make these, I need to see them!! Tag me @danahassonn and @homemade ish nothing makes me happier than seeing you bake. Happy cookie making, loves!

Xx

Dana

Subscribe now

Subscribe now

LUX Unfiltered Sunlit Santal: Warm, sun-drenched, and just the right amount of sexy. This one smells like a perfect summer evening and I mean that in the best possible way. It’s the kind of scent that people stop you and ask what you’re wearing. A forever summer staple.

Giorgio Armani Acqua di Gioia: Fresh air in a bottle and truly the most perfect summer fragrance. It’s clean, airy, and makes me feel like I’m standing next to the ocean with a breeze hitting my face. Timeless, effortless, and so so beautiful.

Summer Fridays Sunlit Vanilla: Summer Fridays did NOT have to go this hard with a fragrance but here we are and I am not complaining one bit. It’s warm vanilla but make it light and sophisticated for summer. It literally smells like sunshine in a bottle and I am completely obsessed.

Henry Rose London: This one is for those summer nights when I want to smell truly luxurious and mysterious. It’s deep and complex but still feels warm weather appropriate and it lingers in the best way. Every single time I wear this someone asks me what it is. That’s how you know!!

Absolue 1001 Roses: Floral, romantic, and so perfectly summer. It blooms on the skin in the warmth and just makes you feel so beautiful and feminine. This is my go to for any summer occasion, day or night.

Nette Lemon Puff: My fun summer one and honestly maybe my most reached for of the whole lineup right now!! It’s bright, citrusy, and smells exactly like summer in New York City. It just makes me so happy every single time I spritz it on. This one is non negotiable for the season.

A good perfume is honestly the ultimate accessory and summer is the best time to find your signature scent. These are mine right now and I am so excited for you to try them!! Drop a comment and tell me your favorite summer perfume because I am always looking to add to the rotation!!

Xx

Dana

I’ve learned more about how to be good at things from baking than from almost anything else. Here is what the kitchen actually taught me.

You cannot rush the part that feels like nothing is happening.

Dough needs to rest. Butter needs to chill. Caramel needs to come to temperature slowly or it seizes and you start over. There is a phase in almost every bake where you’ve done the work and now you wait and it looks like nothing is happening and everything in you wants to intervene. This is the most important phase. This is where the gluten is relaxing, the fat is solidifying, the flavors are developing. The intervention ruins it almost every time.

Subscribe now

I think about this constantly when I’m building something, a brand, a habit, a relationship, a creative project and I’m in the phase where I’ve done the work and nothing visible is happening yet. The dough is resting. Something is developing. The worst thing I can do is open the oven.

The recipe is a starting point, not a ceiling.

Every recipe was written by someone with a specific oven, a specific butter, a specific idea of what the finished thing should taste like. Following it exactly gets you their result in their kitchen. Understanding why each step exists lets you get your result in yours. The cooks who only follow recipes make good food. The cooks who understand the recipe make their food, which is always more interesting.

The same thing is true for every template, framework, or playbook you’ve ever been handed. It’s not wrong. It got someone somewhere. But the ceiling of following it exactly is someone else’s outcome. The floor of understanding it is your own.

Consistency is a practice, not a personality trait.

I used to think some people were just consistent, naturally disciplined, naturally reliable, naturally the kind of person who shows up the same way every time. Then I started baking seriously and I realized consistency is a system, not a character. Same scale, same process, same sequence of decisions, same standard for what counts as done. The people who produce consistent results aren’t more disciplined than everyone else. They’ve just removed the variables that create inconsistency and replaced them with decisions they don’t have to make again.

The full method, including the exact sequence I follow for every single bake and the one question I ask before I start anything, is below:

Read more

This is the one for the cream and white and tan girls. The shell earring girls. The I packed light but I packed right girls.

Subscribe now

You already know what to do!!!

The White Strapless Midi Clean, structured, effortless. This dress is doing the thing where it looks like it costs four times what it actually does. Wear it to dinner, wear it on the boat, wear it everywhere and let people assume.

The Cream Knit Cover-Up Long sleeves, deep V, textured knit, and it somehow works over a swimsuit AND as a standalone dress. This is the piece that makes your beach-to-town transition completely seamless.

The Brown Kelly-Style Bag I am not going to say it looks like a certain bag that costs five figures. I am just going to link it and let you come to your own conclusions.

The Rattan Buckle Slides The sandal of the entire summer. Woven, buckled, goes with everything in this edit. Your feet deserve this.

The Shell Earrings Gold. Dangly. Coastal without being kitschy. These are the earrings that make an all-white outfit feel intentional instead of boring.

The Straw Market Tote Every European trip needs a tote you can take to the market, the beach, and back to the hotel without thinking twice. This is that tote.

The Oval Black Sunglasses Retro, sleek, under twenty dollars. The sunglasses that make every photo look more editorial than it has any right to.

The Diamond Stud Earrings For when the shell earrings feel like too much and you just want something quiet and expensive-looking. These deliver on both counts.

The Shell Clutch The bag you bring to the one nice dinner of the trip. Sculptural, pearlescent, and the conversation starter of the evening.

Two edits, one summer, zero regrets.

xx

“Thoughts best served warm.” — Dana Hasson, Desserts for Thoughts

There’s a version of hosting that exists in my head at all times. Candles melting into the table. A playlist that somehow perfectly matches the energy of the room. Food that came out at the right temperature. Guests who did not want to leave.

And then there’s what actually happens when I don’t plan…

Subscribe now

I’ve served appetizers after the main course. I’ve forgotten to account for the fact that my oven only fits one dish at a time… kinda. I’ve set the table five minutes before people walked in, using mismatched napkins I grabbed from a drawer, slightly panicked. I’ve texted the group chat “can someone bring wine” at 6:47 when dinner was at 7 ?!?!?!?! SOS.

The chaos is not the vibe. The chaos is what happens when you love the idea of hosting but skip the actual planning part.

So I want to talk about what separates a good dinner party from a great one. Because I’ve had both, and the difference is almost never the food.

It’s the intention!

The best dinner parties I’ve thrown (and attended) had one thing in common: someone thought about the experience before it started. Not in a stressful, overproduced way. In a “I know what I’m making, I know when I’m making it, and I’m not going to spend the first 45 minutes of my own party sweating in the kitchen” kind of way.

Here’s what I actually do now.

I start with a theme, even if it’s loose. “Cozy Italian” tells me everything about the menu, the playlist, the candles, the vibe. You don’t need a Pinterest board (though I won’t stop you as I love making them). You just need a single word or phrase that anchors the night. For example: “late summer, a little bit fancy.”

Then I plan the menu backward from the moment guests arrive. If they’re walking in at 7:30, I want something already out on the table. Olives, a good cheese, bread. Nothing that requires me. This is non-negotiable now!!!

From there, I think in terms of oven space and timing. I’m working through what needs to cook when, what I can make the day before, what absolutely cannot be reheated. Writing it down changes everything. It turns a mental spiral into an actual plan.

The table is where I spend the most time for the least amount of money. A linen napkin, a small candle, a card with someone’s name on it. That’s it. People feel seen before they’ve even eaten.

And I always, always have a drink ready the second someone walks in. A pitcher of something, a bottle already open, sparkling water with lemon if that’s what someone needs. The vibe is set in the first 60 seconds. Make those seconds count.

This is the part where I tell you about something I made because I kept wishing it existed.

I put together a Dinner Party Planner that lives on my Etsy, and it’s basically the physical version of everything I just described. There’s a menu planning page, grocery and shopping lists organized by category, a table setting guide, a moodboard page, and a party planning timeline so nothing falls through the cracks. It’s $15 and it downloads instantly, so you can print it before your next dinner and actually feel like you have it together. Which you will.

Grab it here!!!!!!

The dinner party era is genuinely one of the best things you can lean into. Your table is the most underrated version of a good time. All it takes is a little planning and someone willing to be the one who hosts!! (Usually, me).

xx

“Thoughts best served warm.” - Dana Hasson, Desserts for Thoughts

Okay, I need to talk about matcha for a second because I think about it more than is probably normal for a person who runs a cookie company.

There’s something about that slightly bitter, slightly grassy, deeply green flavor that just feels like it’s doing something for you, you know? Like you’re being healthy and indulgent at the same time, which is obviously a lie, but a lie I will gladly tell myself every single morning. I have a little ceremonial grade tin that I’m weirdly precious about. I will not let anyone else scoop from it. This is a whole personality trait at this point.

So naturally, the second I got my hands on ruby chocolate (have you seen this stuff? it’s naturally pink, no dye, just a different cacao processing method, very witchy) I knew it had to go with matcha. The earthy bitterness of the matcha against the bright, almost berry-like tang of the ruby chocolate is one of those combinations that feels a little unexpected the first bite and then completely obvious by the third.

Anyway. Here’s the recipe. It uses your Homemade Ish base, obviously, because I’m not about to reinvent the wheel on a Wednesday.

Matcha Ruby Chocolate Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 package Homemade Ish Cookie Mix (sign up to be the first to know)

• ½ cup unsalted butter, melted

• 1 large egg

• 1 tablespoon culinary grade matcha powder

• ¾ cup ruby chocolate chunks

• Flaky sea salt for finishing

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the melted butter, egg, and matcha powder with the dry mix.

3. Mix until a dough forms.

4. Fold in the ruby chocolate chunks.

5. Scoop the dough into desired portions and place on the prepared baking sheet, leaving space between each cookie.

6. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, or until the edges are set and the centers appear just set.

7. Remove from the oven and immediately sprinkle with flaky sea salt.

8. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.

If you make these, tell me. I want to know if you’re as obsessed as I am or if this is just a me thing.

xx
“Thoughts best served warm.” — Dana Hasson, Desserts for Thoughts

Leave a comment

Let me paint you a picture.

It’s July. I’m somewhere warm, ideally somewhere with water nearby and a very good pastry situation within walking distance. I have a tote bag that cost more than my first paycheck and I am not apologizing for it. My skin is glowing not because I did anything particularly responsible but because I’ve been drinking a lot of water and eating a lot of good food and sleeping like it’s my job. I smell expensive. My nails are done. There is a cold drink in my hand and nowhere I need to be for at least three hours.

Subscribe now

This is the summer fantasy. And every year around this time I go down a rabbit hole of everything I would buy to fully live in it. Some of it I have. Some of it I’m working toward. All of it is absolutely worth knowing about.

Here is my completely unhinged, if-money-were-no-object summer list. With links, because I love you <3

The tote that started everything.

Every summer needs a tote. Not a grocery bag masquerading as a tote. An actual beautiful intentional tote that makes you look like you have your life together even when you are carrying seventeen things including a water bottle, a book you haven’t opened, and a snack you forgot about. Mine this summer is STRATHBERRY - Scallop Tote Bag and I think about it more than I should.

The sunscreen I will never not recommend.

I know everyone has a sunscreen era and I am fully in mine. The one I’m obsessed with right now goes on like a dream, leaves zero white cast, and somehow makes my skin look better than it does without it which should be illegal. It’s Ultimate Sun Protector Lotion SPF 60+ and if you buy one thing from this list make it this.

The dress that does everything.

There is a specific summer dress that works for the beach and dinner and wandering around a new city and sitting at a rooftop bar and absolutely nothing about it is trying too hard. It is the Switzerland of dresses. Neutral, effortless, gets along with everyone. I found mine at Reformation and I have worn it in three different countries.

The candle that smells like the vacation I’m manifesting.

I believe very strongly in olfactory manifestation, which is the completely made up but very effective practice of burning a candle that smells like somewhere you want to be until your apartment starts to feel like it. Mine right now smells like warm sand and something citrusy and vaguely Mediterranean and I light it every evening and pretend I am somewhere with better weather. It’s Hotel Lobby Candle and of course some cute matches because, why not?! it is absolutely worth it.

The hair thing I didn’t know I needed.

Summer hair is its own category of chaos and I spent years fighting it before I found Crown Affair Mousse which I now use every single day and which has made me genuinely at peace with what humidity does to my general situation. If you have the kind of hair that has opinions about the weather, this is for you.

The thing I’m buying for my kitchen this summer.

Every summer I let myself get one kitchen thing that feels slightly indulgent and this year it’s a pink Kitchenaid. I can’t get enough. I’ve talked myself out of it twice. I had stop talking myself out of things that will genuinely bring me joy every single time I use it.

The lip thing.

There is always a lip thing. This summer’s lip thing is Lip Glow Oil and it is the color of a very good rosé and the texture of something that cost significantly more than it does and I wear it to the grocery store and I feel incredible about that.

The wildcard.

Every list needs a wildcard. The thing that makes no sense in the context of everything else but that you find yourself adding to cart at midnight anyway. Mine this summer is Camelia Embellished Satin Mules and I cannot fully explain it except to say that it felt right and summer is about feeling right.

That’s the list. Some of it is practical, some of it is aspirational, all of it is genuinely things I would buy without hesitation if my bank account had different opinions about my lifestyle.

Tell me in the comments: what’s on your summer list this year? The real one, not the responsible one.

And if you want more of this, more recommendations, more honest opinions on the things worth spending money on and the things that aren’t, more behind the scenes of what I’m actually buying and using and obsessing over, that’s what the paid side of this newsletter is for!

xx “Thoughts best served warm.” Dana Hasson, Desserts for Thoughts

Subscribe now