There’s something about carrot cake that feels like home.

Maybe it’s the warm cinnamon and spices. Maybe it’s the freshly grated carrots. Or maybe it’s the thick layer of cream cheese frosting that somehow makes every bite feel just a little more special.

Whatever it is, carrot cake has always been one of those desserts that quietly announces the arrival of a new season.

At Plantiful Kitchen, these carrot cupcakes were a seasonal favorite. Every year, as they made their way back into the display case, people would get excited to see them again. They weren’t available all year long, which somehow made them taste even better.

One of the things I loved most about developing recipes for Plantiful Kitchen was taking familiar desserts and reimagining them with thoughtfully chosen ingredients without sacrificing the experience.

That's how I approached every recipe at Plantiful Kitchen. I wanted people to fall in love with the taste first. The fact that the ingredients were gluten-free, grain-free, and refined sugar-free was simply an added bonus.

These cupcakes are incredibly moist, perfectly spiced, and topped with a luscious cream cheese frosting. They’re made with freshly grated carrots, warm spices, almond flour, and naturally sweetened ingredients, yet they still deliver everything you’d hope for from a classic carrot cake.

I honestly think they rival any traditional carrot cake I’ve had.

Whether you’re making them for Easter, a spring gathering, a birthday, or simply because you have a few carrots sitting in your fridge, I hope they bring a little joy to your kitchen.

Just as they did to ours for so many years.

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Americans love donuts. So do plenty of other cultures. In Germany, where I grew up, we have Berliner: pillowy jam-filled donuts that make an appearance at just about every celebration.

The problem is that, once you start paying attention to how food makes you feel, donuts often become one of the first things to disappear from the menu. Deep-fried dough, refined sugar, and mystery oils have a way of leaving you feeling... less than amazing.

But what if donuts didn’t have to be a guilty pleasure?

What if you could bring them back into your life without the sugar crash, the heavy feeling, or wondering what on earth was in them?

At Plantiful Kitchen, that became our mission. We wanted to create baked goods that tasted indulgent but actually left you feeling good afterward. So our donuts are baked instead of fried, naturally sweetened, and here’s the part that surprises almost everyone: about 50% of the batter is fresh fruit.

I know. It sounds completely ridiculous until you taste one.

Even people who insisted there was no way a healthy donut could actually be good became believers after the first bite.

Every glaze was made from scratch, which is why I’ll only be able to share some of our donut recipes. A few relied on a rather unusual piece of equipment to get that perfectly silky finish. Luckily, our Chocolate Sprinkle Donut was also our most-loved flavor, so you’re not missing out.

The soft, tender crumb paired with a rich, velvety chocolate ganache makes these feel every bit as indulgent as the bakery donuts you grew up with. And the colorful sprinkles? They’re made with naturally colored, non-toxic ingredients because life is simply better with a few sprinkles.

These donuts became a favorite for birthday parties, celebrations, and weekend treats. They disappeared from our display case almost as quickly as we could make them.

They were also one of our team’s favorite things to prepare. There was something oddly satisfying about dipping each donut into glossy chocolate and finishing it with a generous handful of sprinkles.

It’s hard not to smile while decorating donuts.

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Triple Berry Vanilla Cheesecake Jars

Since berries are in season right now, it felt like the perfect time to share this recipe. This is a no-bake cheesecake where we use cashews instead of cream cheese.

Yes, it’s a thing.

A very good thing.

There was a time when these cheesecake jars had a permanent place in our display case. People would come in for bread and leave with a cheesecake jar. Sometimes several. Others came in specifically for the cheesecake.

They became one of those desserts that customers told their friends about, ordered for dessert tables at weddings, or brought to dinner parties.

Creamy, rich, and lightly sweetened, these jars combine layers of vanilla cheesecake, berry cheesecake, and graham cracker crust. They feel indulgent while still being made from simple ingredients.

You can use whatever berries you have on hand. We used the frozen Organic Triple Berry Blend from Costco for this version, but feel free to mix things up depending on what’s in season.

The graham cracker crust is made from pecans, almond flour, coconut sugar, and plenty of cinnamon. Somehow, it tastes remarkably close to a traditional graham cracker crust, and most people would never know the difference.

In fact, I think it’s even better.

You may find yourself “testing” the crust by the spoonful while making this recipe. Not that I would know anything about that. 😉

You can make these in individual jars or as a single 6-inch cheesecake.

When I first started eating plant-based over 10 years ago, I was obsessed with finding dairy-free desserts that didn’t feel like a compromise. Plant-based cheesecakes quickly became one of my favorites. There was something magical about creating something that felt rich and creamy without using any dairy at all.

Even after all these years, this is still one of the recipes I make at home.

And now it’s one of the recipes I get to share with you.

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When I asked myself which recipe I should share first, I kept coming back to this one.

A really good chocolate chip cookie has a way of bringing people together. It doesn’t matter whether you’re gluten-free or not, whether you follow a specific way of eating, or whether you’re simply someone who loves dessert.

A cookie is a cookie. And these were one of my favorites.

Over the years, we made a lot of them. In fact, we had one wholesale customer who ordered 6,000 cookies nearly every month. Since every single cookie was scooped by hand, our team would spend days making dough and scooping cookies. It felt like there were trays of chocolate chip cookies everywhere you looked. The kitchen smelled like chocolate for days.

I also remember a customer stopping by our farmers market booth to tell us that her husband, who was diabetic, could enjoy these cookies without experiencing the blood sugar spikes he typically saw with traditional cookies. Conversations like that meant a lot to me because they reminded me of why I started Plantiful Kitchen in the first place: Creating food that people could enjoy without feeling like they were missing out.

These cookies are soft in the center, lightly crisp around the edges, rich with chocolate, and made with simple ingredients you can actually recognize.

Like everything we made at Plantiful Kitchen, they’re gluten-free, grain-free, and refined sugar-free, but most people would never guess.

That’s always been my favorite kind of recipe: the kind that stands on its own without needing an explanation.

So it feels fitting that this is the very first recipe I’m sharing here.

I hope they bring a little Plantiful Kitchen magic into your kitchen.

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Welcome Back to Plantiful Kitchen

A couple of months ago, when I closed Plantiful Kitchen, I wasn’t sure what would happen to all of the recipes that so many of you loved.

Over the years, I received countless emails asking for the recipes behind the breads, bagels, cookies, and treats that became part of your daily lives. At the time, I wasn’t sure if I would ever share them.

As I am beginning to build my new coaching business, I initially considered sharing both coaching content and recipes in the same place. But the more I sat with it, the more I realized they deserved their own homes.

Someone looking for support through a life transition probably isn’t searching for grain-free bagels.

And someone looking for a recipe for sesame bread probably isn’t expecting conversations about identity, change, and personal growth.

So instead of combining them, I’ve decided to bring Plantiful Kitchen back as its own dedicated space.

A place where we can continue celebrating the food that brought us together in the first place.

What You Can Expect

Over the next 12 months, I’ll be sharing 24 of my favorite Plantiful Kitchen recipes.

That’s two recipes every month.

Some will be familiar classics. Others are recipes that never made it into the bakery lineup but became staples in my own kitchen.

You can expect recipes that are:

• Gluten-free

• Grain-free

• Refined sugar-free

• Made with simple, real-food ingredients

• Designed to be delicious enough to share with everyone at the table.

Membership Options

This publication will be a paid-membership community.

Creating, testing, documenting, photographing, and writing these recipes takes a significant amount of time, and the subscription helps support that work.

Monthly Membership

You’ll receive:

• Two new recipes every month

• Access to the recipe archive included in the monthly membership

• Community discussion and recipe updates

Founding Membership

Founding members receive everything included in the monthly/yearly membership, plus access to the Plantiful Kitchen Signature Collection.

The Signature Collection will include:

• Sesame Bread

• Linzer Cookies

• Plain Bagels

• Golden Flutterbread

• Bread Variations

These recipes will be posted throughout the year, be available exclusively to foundation members, and will not be included in the monthly/annual tier.

The Recipe Roadmap

Below is the planned publishing schedule for the next 12 months.

July

• The World’s Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

• Berry Vanilla Cheesecake Jars

August

• Chocolate Sprinkle Donuts

• Carrot Cupcakes

September

• Key Lime Cheesecake

• Dbl Chocolate Cookies

October

• Pumpkin Cheesecakes

• Cinnamon Rolls with Maple Pecan Frosting

November

• Spice Donuts

• Apple Pie

December

• Gingerbread Men

• Macadamia Chocolate Chunk Cookies

January

• Ferrero Rocher Truffles

• Tiramisu Cheesecake

February

• Vegan Date Caramel

• Salted Caramel Pecan Cookies

March

• Chocolate Celebration Cake

• Raspberry Bliss Balls

April

• Snickers Bars

• Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

May

• Chocolate Cheesecake Jars

• Chocolate Almond Clusters

June

• Chunky Monkey Cookies

• Lemon Poppyseed Bliss Balls

The schedule may shift slightly as recipes are tested and refined, but these are the recipes currently planned for release.

Why I’m Doing This

Plantiful Kitchen was never just about bread.

It was about creating food that helped people feel included again.

Food they could enjoy at family dinners, celebrations, holidays, and everyday meals without feeling like they were missing out.

Even though the bakery has closed, that mission still feels meaningful to me.

This space is my way of preserving a piece of what we created together and sharing the recipes so many of you have been asking for.

Thank you for being here. I’m excited to bring these recipes into your kitchen.

Barbara