Why Family Matters In Baking, According To Jocelyn Delk Adams - Exclusive

Anyone that follows celebrity chef and baker Jocelyn Delk Adams knows that her love of cooking always starts with family. "I think a lot about if there was a particular meal that I would be amazed to have ... if I could bring my grandmother back and she made a meal for me," Delk Adams told Mashed in an exclusive interview. "That, to me, would be more special than anybody else making a meal for me. Because, I've eaten all over the world, I've experienced so many incredible restaurants, and nothing to me has been better than when my grandmother has cooked for me."

According to Delk Adams' website, the chef authored a cookbook and started her brand, both called "Grandbaby Cakes," inspired by her grandmother that aims to bridge the gap between grandparents and grandchildren in the kitchen. While Delk Adams invented the recipes that appear in the book, each item gives a solid nod to the past and wouldn't exist, she says, without some familial love. In the interview, Delk Adams further explained exactly why family matters when it comes to baking.

"I want the legacy to be really beautiful," she told Mashed. "The beauty of generational recipes and the beauty of passing things forward — and understanding that legacy — in and of itself is really the [story] of Grandbaby Cakes."

Jocelyn Delk Adams is now paying her love for food and cooking forward by sharing it with her daughter. "There's so much beauty in the recipes that I learned growing up that I'm now passing on to my daughter," she told Mashed in an exclusive interview. "She's finding pride in the kitchen with me and she's feeling the joy and the love that I experienced in the kitchen with my grandmother and my mother. Being able to pass that on to her, seeing the love in her face and seeing the accomplishment, and then knowing one day she may pass that on to her child is something that I think is truly special."

Delk Adams does point out, though, that recipes can evolve and she has modernized some of the dishes in order to put her personality into them. "I'm honoring my ancestors but I'm still being true to me," she said. "And so, because I am different, I think that's why the name [of my company] was important to me, Grandbaby. I'm the grandbaby. I'm not the grandmother. I have those elements of my grandmother, I have those elements of my mother and my aunt, but I am still my own person and I still have my own personality and I've been able to inject those pieces into my brand. ... and I've been able to share that with people and inspire a new generation, possibly, who wasn't looking for those recipes. They find something new and exciting about it."

For more kitchen inspiration, make sure to check out Jocelyn Delk Adams' current partnership with Libby's, which also includes the two partnering up for a Cansgiving event.