Introduction Cooking has long been my livelihood, but baking is my hobby, my playtime, my casual Friday. It''s a break from work, a creative outlet, a stress reliever, and so darn fun. I''ve wanted to write this book for what seems like forever, just to share my passion with you. As a kid, I didn''t bake, but I sure spent a lot of time eating baked goods. I followed my grandma around her kitchen, just to be sure I''d get the first biscuit or dinner roll out of the oven. I got obsessed with chocolate malteds and visited the drugstore soda fountain every day for a month. At church suppers, I''d focus on pineapple upside-down cake all summer, move on to pecan pie in the fall, and then spend the winter gorging myself on banana pudding. Except for an apple crumble I baked to get a Girl Scout badge, I didn''t attempt anything myself.

My journey from absolute beginner to pot pie-baking Top Chef fan favorite didn''t start until I was well into my twenties and still finding my bearings. I started off my adult life as a CPA. Yes, Certified Public Accountant! I was a numbers girl. And even though my path eventually took a big swerve, I look back on my student days and think about how my affinity for formulas and balancing books is related to my love of precise pie dough recipes and straight lines when slicing bar cookies and baklava. There''s plenty of room for color and creativity in baking, but as in math, rules must be followed. The accounting life wasn''t for me, so I flew to Europe to try modeling. Walking runways wasn''t my destiny, either, but it was a bridge between what I knew I didn''t want to do and what I was hoping to find. During extended stops in Paris, Milan, and London, I tasted a world beyond Nashville, where I was born and raised.

French pastries, Italian pizzas, British scones: New food experiences were shaping me to become a chef. My recipes for Chocolate Focaccia (page 227) and Citrus and Sour Cherry Scones (page 35) are descended from items I ate during that fateful year. Away from home, I realized I had no idea how to cook the food I''d been eating most of my life. I began searching English-language bookstores for Southern cookbooks and started building a library of recipes for my childhood favorites. The biscuit that eventually put my catering company on the map was a mash-up of my granny''s recipe and a recipe for scones that I had cut out of a British newspaper, The Independent. During the fifteen years that I catered, my goal was to tailor my menu to satisfy my clients'' tastes. I had my basic recipes--dinner rolls, biscuits, pound cake--but I never asked anyone to pick two from column A and three from column B. Instead, I''d make garlic knots with my dinner roll dough for one party, biscuits flavored with crystallized ginger and chopped cranberries for another, and an Earl Grey pound cake for a third.

In a way, this desire to give people exactly what they asked for prepared me to enter the Top Chef kitchen in 2009. When Katherine Newell Smith, the president of the DC chapter of Les Dames d''Escoffier, was approached by the producers for names of women chefs who might want to compete on Top Chef , she mentioned (unbeknownst to me!) me. I auditioned, never thinking that I''d be cast. I was shocked when I got the call saying I''d made the cut. I was an underdog without a restaurant of my own. But that turned out to be an advantage. As a caterer, I was used to working in other people''s kitchens, yards, boats, you name it. Because I had made so many unique dishes for so many different clients in so many diverse locations, I was maybe more flexible than a restaurant chef might be.

But it was when I started cooking the food I wanted to eat, rather than trying to anticipate what the judges would want, that I began to shine. After competing a second time, on Top Chef: All Stars , I streamlined my business by focusing on a single item in my repertoire--cookies. And don''t you know it, those cookies led to a judge''s spot on the Food Network baking competition shows. The joy of this job has been in mentoring some already accomplished bakers, helping them to express their very best baking selves. It''s important to please the crowd, of course, but the best bakers are always working to please their own palates and exceed their own standards. Wherever I go, I never forget where I''m from. I am a lifelong student of Southern baking traditions, surveying methods for making better biscuits, investigating the history of sweet potato pie, and digging into ingredients used in early African American baking. Just like Augustus Jackson--the African American chef who in 1837 decided to leave eggs out of his ice cream recipe, thus inventing a whole new American-style frozen dessert (I''ve got a recipe for Philadelphia-style ice cream on page 277 that''s a tribute to him)--I''m not afraid to experiment.

My Sweet PoPunkin Pie (page 125) has both sweet potatoes and pumpkin because, as I''m known to declare, why say OR when you can say AND? I love me some classic rice pudding, but I also love my Brown Rice and Barley Pudding (page 27) made with oat milk and honey. Whole grains, important ingredients in early African American baking, are also close to my heart and I use them whenever I can. Coconut Sugar Whole Wheat Pound Cake (page 161), Honey Oatmeal Sandwich Bread (page 209), Crisp Sweet Corn Waffles (page 43)--these are heirloom recipes that I''ve tinkered with over the years, keeping our health in mind. My recipe for Chocolate Pumpernickel Pancakes (page 39) is a nod to the chocolate hazelnut cocktail bread I made at my first restaurant job--at the Henley Park Hotel in Washington, DC. I''m constantly inspired by the places I travel to and the people I meet. Immersing myself in unfamiliar foodways always gives me a huge creative boost. I have a penchant for asking strangers what they like to eat. Whether the conversation starts at a cart on the street, in the back of a cab, or while browsing a spice market, I keep asking questions until I have enough information to take a stab at an intriguing recipe myself.

And then I try to put a "Carla" spin on it to infuse my roots and learning into it somehow. Take, for instance, the boat-shaped stuffed breads called pide from a trip to Istanbul. My version (see page 235) is made with sorghum, a grain with roots deep in Africa. Or my take on Italian biscotti, Amarena Cherry Almond Biscuit-otti (page 65) made with classic Southern biscuit dough. My baking besties continually motivate me. Lisa Yockelson (page 32) has been a mentor and dear friend for many years, teaching me so much about respecting and revising heirloom desserts, building flavor layer by layer, and writing recipes that are crystal clear. On page 120, you''ll meet my Floridian friend, Monique Polanco, who references old family recipes (her grandma, aunts, and cousins sold pies at country fairs) when developing treats like blackberry-thyme shortcakes and peaches en croûte. Her styling--moody and sophisticated--reflects her elevated yet homey creations.

James Beard Award-winner Paola Velez (page 220) works magic with ingredients from the Caribbean of her ancestors as well as the Bronx bodega near where she grew up. I''m amazed by her use of color, and treasure our conversations about kitchen authenticity and expertise. When I judge the work of Baking Championship contestants, I''m always looking for the right balance--between chewy and creamy, sweet and tangy, fluffy and crisp. Holiday Baking Championship Season 9 winner Dru Tevis (page 262) produced just such a perfectly balanced dessert, a margarita tart that had a crispy/flaky crust and a smooth custard filling with big citrus flavor. I strive for my own recipes to be meaningful, successful, and fun. Each chapter intro contains general info on that chapter''s recipes, and each recipe headnote includes tips and techniques for winning results. In Chapter 1, which is all about breakfast, I take a morning staple like sweet grits and zhuzh it up with a brûléed sugar crust (see page 28). The Scallion Biscuit and Sausage Gravy Casserole (page 51) is my Southern take on breakfast strata and has become a holiday favorite.