Just Baking

A sure sign that Christmas is around the corner is that my craving for these cookies.  I remember my first time tasting them, they were amazing, and definitely beyond my expectations.  My boss at the time brought in a huge batch freshly baked by his wife, as their yearly way of spreading holiday cheer.  I had already heard about her famous gingersnaps, and […]

For the past couple of years, I’ve asked for manly gadgets for Christmas…  Thermapen thermometers, welding gloves, you get the picture.  I have all the stuff I use now for outdoor cooking, though, including a good sized trailered smoker.  So what do I ask for this year?
Baking supplies!!!
I get some of my stuff from a […]

Stollen is a traditional German fruitcake made to celebrate the Christmas season.  Although many recipes exist, the most famous is the Dresden Stollen (”Dresdner Weihnachtsstollen” in German).  The city of Dresden is also where Stollen was first created in the 15th century and sold at the Striezelmarkt Christmas market.  Originally called Striezel, the once folded […]

I was recently given the opportunity to review a cookbook with 175 recipes using puff pastry.  Now before you stop reading, give me just a few more minutes.  I wasn’t big on puff pastry either - I had a few boxes in the freezer that I had bought on sale, thinking some day I’d […]

Hey y’all!  We’re taking Sunday off so we can catch up on reading all our holiday baking magazines and plan out all our baking adventures for the upcoming week.  So from all of us here at Just Baking, we hope you are having a wonderful weekend.   We’ll be back Monday with more great recipes, the […]

And this week’s Unusual Ingredient of the Week is Agave Nectar or Syrup as it is less romantically known over here in England.  As someone who suffers from food intolerances, I am always trying out new ingredients that might make life a little bit more comfortable for me, without compromising the flavour.  Obviously this is […]

Chocolate is growing up.  In its youth, it presented itself to cooks and candymakers in three simple notes:  milk, dark, and white.  But now, with the advent of epicurean refinement (or snobbery) and the growing foodie obsession with variety (or perfection), chocolate has matured into a veritable Crayola box of choices.
For a baker, the choices […]