How a Philly Home Baker Turned Surviving Cancer Into Sweet Success
After a life-changing diagnosis, self-taught pastry chef Alex George channeled her love of desserts into 650,000 social media followers and a new cookbook.
Alex George (aka @LilyPCrumbs) putting the final touches on a sweet treat / Photography by Aaron Richter
At 21, New Jersey native Alex George was building her dream career. Barely out of college, she was already working as a local TV journalist in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and had a detailed plan for how she was going to work her way into the Philadelphia market. But a new TV job in Philly wasn’t what brought her home — it was seeking treatment at Penn for Ewing sarcoma, a rare and aggressive form of bone cancer.
Now 30, the cancer survivor says the experience shifted her perspective on life. “Before, in my head, my career had to look a specific way,” George says. “But now I just want to do things that bring me ultimate joy.” One of those things: baking. Guided by her sweet tooth and her love of nostalgic treats, the self-taught home baker created @LilyPCrumbs, a social media platform where she documents her whimsical pastries. With a part-time gig at Fox29, close to 650,000 followers across Instagram and TikTok, and a new cookbook coming out in September, she’s living a new sweet dream.
What I do: I’m a baker, content creator, and local news journalist. I still do one or two shifts a month over at Fox29 to keep my storytelling skills sharp, but baking takes up most of my time now. My cookbook, In the Mood to Bake, is coming out this September, and it’s filled with nostalgic, fun recipes designed to make baking feel a little less serious.
Why baking? Food was just a big part of my life growing up. I come from a big foodie family — my dad is Middle Eastern and my mom is Italian — and the dinner table was where we always came together. I also grew up at the dawn of internet vlogging, and that gave me too much power. I had a severe sweet tooth, and I could just look up whatever recipe I wanted.
My approach: My background as a multimedia journalist taught me how to shoot and edit my own video. But with this, the subject isn’t a person — it’s desserts. Instead of making traditional recipe videos, I rank texture, taste, and effort and make them personal by sharing the narrative behind the bake — like how a recipe took 24 hours or how my dad ate the cookie dough.
Alex George’s new cookbook, In the Mood to Bake.
My style: I like my baking to be whimsical, nostalgic, and a little bit silly. While I’ll always respect the formal art of pastry, I think home baking is the perfect place to drop the serious attitude and just play.
My inspiration: A lot of my ideas come from taking standard desserts and figuring out my own spin. I really like an everything cookie with oatmeal and butterscotch chips, but then I think, what if I went deeper into sweet and salty and added pretzels and potato chips? Reimagining my favorite desserts in other formats is another method — like taking extra curd from a lemon meringue pie and adding it to ice cream to make a lemon meringue Thai ice cream. I also make hybrid desserts like banana bread cinnamon rolls.
My cookbook: It’s been a massive four-year effort in the making, born out of a desire to memorialize recipes that carry a deep sense of nostalgia. I wanted to create a cookbook that resonates with millennials and Gen Z who grew up on the classic treats of the early 2000s.
My goal: To make home bakers enjoy baking and encourage genuine curiosity in the kitchen. When we ask questions, experiment, and create something new, it’s a satisfying experience. I want to teach readers about ingredient functions. If you understand the rules of baking, you gain the freedom to break them, and you can create pretty much anything you can dream.
Key Lime Pie Ice Cream Sandwiches
Adapted from In the Mood to Bake by Alex George
Makes: 16 sandwiches
Ingredients
Key Lime Curd
- 3 egg yolks
- 1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
- ½ cup freshly squeezed lime juice
- 1 tablespoon lime zest (about 3 limes)
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
Ice Cream
- 2 pints vanilla ice cream, store-bought or homemade, slightly softened
Graham Blondie
- 1¼ cups all-purpose flour
- ¼ cup graham cracker crumbs
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- 9 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
- 1 cup dark brown sugar
- 1 egg yolk
- ¾ teaspoon vanilla extract
Alex George making key lime pie ice cream sandwiches
To Make the Key Lime Curd
In a medium saucepan, combine all the ingredients for curd. Whisk constantly over low heat for about five minutes, until thoroughly mixed. Remove from heat and set aside to cool to room temperature. Once cooled, place in the refrigerator.
To Make the Graham Blondie
Preheat the oven to 350°F. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking powder, and salt. In a separate large bowl, combine the melted butter and brown sugar. Add the egg yolk and vanilla extract and mix vigorously until the mixture thickens. Add the dry ingredients and mix to form a moderately loose dough.
Spread an even layer of dough into an 8×16-inch rectangle on top of a parchment-lined half-sheet pan. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until it is puffed and the top is golden brown. Remove from the oven and let cool. Cut the blondie rectangle into two 8-inch squares.
To Assemble
Line an 8-inch square pan with parchment paper, leaving overhang on the sides so you can lift up the bars once they are frozen. Place one of the 8-inch blondie squares in the bottom of the parchment-lined pan, flat side facing up, and spread the two pints of softened vanilla ice cream on top. Place the pan in the freezer, uncovered, for 30 minutes so the ice cream can set. Remove from the freezer and pour the cooled key lime curd on top. Gently place the second 8-inch square of blondie on top of the curd, with the flat side facing down, and cover the pan with plastic wrap. Place the pan in the freezer for at least four hours before serving.
When ready to serve, use the parchment overhang to lift the square out of the pan. Slice the square into 16 bars.
Recipe excerpted from In the Mood to Bake. Copyright © 2026 by Alex George. Used with permission of the publisher, Countryman Press, a division of W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.
Published as “Sweet Dreams” in the August 2026 issue of Philadelphia magazine.
