It's no Slayer Scythe, but even still, Sarah Michelle Gellar wields an 11-inch chef's knife like a seasoned pro. Even one that's so dull it can barely cut through a platter of frozen brownies.
"Seriously?" Gellar asks, laughing as she presses her weight onto the blade, until it finally cuts through.
She's making a batch of brownie popsicles, one of several baking kits she sells as part of her new company, Foodstirs. Gellar launched the company with friends Galit Laibow and Gia Russo as a way to make it easy to create Pinterest-worthy "food crafts"—ones the average person (and, particularly, small children) couldn't fail at making, and feature all-natural, GMO- and preservative-free ingredients.
She's All for Playing with Her Food.
Gellar's husband, Freddie Prinze Jr., and two children, Charlotte and Rocky, often help in the baking—and, more critically, taste-testing—process. The brownie popsicles were an instant hit; so much so that her son swiped his older sister's treat when she had stepped out of the room and devoured it in seconds.
"It was a sad day in the Prinze household," Gellar explains.
Another favorite baking project is close to Gellar's heart: Cupcake Cones, which involve baking vanilla cupcakes in an ice-cream cone, then frosting it to look like freshly scooped ice cream.
"My mom made them for my birthday every year," she says. Often, deciding which baking projects to tackle next comes from a combination of factors: Family recipes, what her friends are raving about, fans' suggestions, or simply what she sees when scrolling her Instagram feed.
She Believes That Failure Is Not an Option.
Not every baking endeavor is an instant hit, but even the ones that don't turn out quite right (like the cookie dough that glommed onto her rolling pin, making it impossible to roll out) taught her something in the process. That's why the actress/entrepreneur says she doesn't believe in cooking or baking failures.
"Believe me, I've had my fair share, but I make the most out of it, and worst case, I make my kids eat it," Gellar jokes.
She's Not the Only One Cooking Up A Storm.
In the Prinze home, the kitchen may be the liveliest room of all. When Gellar isn't working on new Foodstirs projects or baking with her kids, her husband can be found there, cooking up enchiladas or his four-cheese truffle macaroni and cheese, AKA Gellar's ultimate guilty-pleasure food.
"I'm not sure how, exactly, he came up with that recipe, but I love cheese, and I can never really eat enough cheese, so I think it came down to, 'how many cheeses can you put in something to satisfy me?'" she says.
Prinze Jr.'s cooking skills have become so renowned that the actor's releasing his first cookbook this June, which features the truffle mac & cheese.
She's Fearless About Trying Dishes That Freak People Out.
When it comes to food, Gellar doesn't discriminate; and she'll sample just about anything. That includes pork sashimi, alligator and fried cricket. All three she deemed pretty tasty, though the last two came with a disclaimer:
"Pretty much if you fry anything, it just tastes like fried," she says, pausing for a second. "I've also had some excrement—Can you say that in the kitchen?—from, um, snake and bull, in a liquid form, in Tokyo. That was interesting."
Chelsea Lupkin
Gellar has no plans on introducing that dish to the Foodstirs lineup, or any other Fear Factor-caliber ingredients.
For now, it seems, she'll stick to slaying more conventional desserts.
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