Sticky Fingers, Green Thumb

Sticky Fingers, Green Thumb invites your imagination to travel out of the kitchen and into the garden. Almost sixty recipes celebrate vegetables, herbs and edible flowers in cakes and other sweet snacks. Tips on how to harness their unique flavours, prep them for baking and even grow them yourself will inspire you to create flavour-packed baked treats that aren’t loaded with empty gestures. Say goodbye to mushroom risotto and zucchini fritters and hello to porcini caramel and chestnut cake, and apple cider and zucchini muffins. This is earthy, seasonal baking at its best.

Hayley McKee is passionate about creating sweets that taste of nature, where the ingredients are familiar, the colouring is genuine, and the flavors are unmasked. In Sticky Fingers, Green Thumb she celebrates the use of vegetables, edible flowers and herbs in her incredible baked desserts with recipes such as spiced parsnip and willow blossom cake; sweet pea and green tea cake; passionfruit cupcakes with raspberry basil frosting; peanut butter, rock salt and rosemary cookies; hibiscus brownies and lemon myrtle & fennel seed honey cake.

Broken into five chapters: Real Baking Know-how; Vegetables in Baked Desserts; Herbs in Baked Desserts and Edible Flowers, each section includes a handy flavor wheel and gardening tips and tricks. This is baking as it should be – soulful, earthy and seasonal in Hayley's signature, delicious style.

About the Author

Hayley McKee is a food writer, self-taught baker and owner of Sticky Fingers Bakery (established in 2010). She is known for her stunning cakes made with seasonal ingredients, edible native plants, and homegrown herbs and flowers. She is considered a go-to baker for bespoke baked creations that are big on flavours, not just looks, and has been named as the number one wedding cake designer in Melbourne. Hayley's work has received local and international praise, and has been featured in international editions of Glamour, Rookie, Collective and I Heart. Her cakes and recipes have also been commissioned by Good Food, frankie magazine, ABC Radio, Warner Brothers Music, The Australian Ballet and fashion house Romance Was Born.