The Vanilla Bean Blog's founder, Sarah Kieffer, is a self-taught baker who has worked in commercial bakeries before deciding to become a home baker when her two children were born. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Saveur, Pure Green Magazine, Food52, Mashable, The Kitchn, The Huffington Post, and Food + Wine, as well as on Today and America's Test Kitchen. She also contributes to the websites Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, Food52, and Handmade Charlotte on a regular basis and develops recipes for them. She enjoys reading and rereading favorite novels, spending time with her husband and two children, and drinking far too much coffee when she's not baking.