SKANEATELES - One local amateur chef can cook ethnic food influenced by her Lebanese nationality or French classic dishes inspired by famous chefs.

But Julie Ann Sageer decided to focus on capturing the comforting effects of mom's home cooking in her most recent cooking class at Creekside Books & Coffee Thursday. Sageer is teaching a “Sweet Breads for the Holidays” class. She will lead the next class on Dec. 10 on a yet-to-be determined topic.

On Thursday, Sageer presented a sweet bread (not to be confused with the similar-sounding one-word meat dish) that Sageer's mother made on a regular basis. Her mother assisted her at the Creekside class, just like she has done during Sageer's other classes.

The handful of people who attended the class listened to Sageer share the process of making the bread and saw the results as Sageer brought the bread to show her class.

While she would not divulge the special ingredients that made the bread so special, she said the bread started with a base of simple dough infused with honey and other special seasonings.

After letting the dough rest overnight, Sageer and her mother said that it was a simple matter of forming the bread, which her mother generally made into a knot, but that, could be formed into any shape and baking it for about 15 minutes.

This created a light, flaky, sweet dessert type bread that people can serve with honey or jam as a simple dessert, or for the base of other dishes such as french toast.

For the class, Sageer also prepared a fig and almond dish with honey and a tea infused with honey, anisette, cinnamon and almonds.

“It is all about that feeling of home,” Sageer said. “That way things smell and taste and that warm comfortable feeling you get when you are home with your mom cooking.”

Sageer currently is working on writing a cookbook, as well as marketing the bread for sale at locations such as Creekside, as well as continuing her cooking class series.

Sageer, of Marcellus, began with classes at the Marcellus library and has done demonstrations at the Skaneateles Community Center and for the past several months has hosted a monthly series at Creekside.

Along the way she has showcased many Lebanese dishes, from main courses to snack items.

Sageer, whose family is from Lebanon, is the first generation of her family born and raised in the United States.

After living in New York City for several years where she was a host on the show “New York 360,” she decided to relocate closer to her family.

On the show, Sageer worked on a little bit of everything, from red carpet segments to cooking demonstrations.

This helped inspire her decision to start sharing her love of the foods of her heritage and the Middle East in general with people who might not have the opportunity to try that kind of cuisine.

“I would always call home, and I would ask my mom how she made something while I was living in New York because I wanted to share the food I grew up with my friends,” Sageer said.

She grew up spending a lot of time in her mother's kitchen.

And while she has all the knowledge ingrained in her memory, she has had to work a little to find the best way to convey that knowledge to others.

“That was part of the comfort of home,” Sageer said. “I grew up cooking with my mom. In our family everyone cooked, my mom and my aunts, but they never measured anything. It is always a pinch of this, a little bit of that. So I've had to work on what that really means to try to show other people how to get these dishes to taste the same when they make them at home as they do when they are here, but it has been a fun challenge.”