Just Baking

Ah, spring. The snow is gone, the trees are showing their inner green, and that mourning dove is once again outside my window at 4AM. But spring is about more than just Mother Nature reawakening and annoying birds, they say that spring is a time when love is in the air. You […]

Who wouldn’t love to merge health and dessert?  Recently I had the luck to stumble across a well known pastry chef, Fran Costigan, who specializes in this very concept.  In fact, Fran’s extensive culinary experience combined with her desire to have her cake and eat it too, has resulted in too many ‘healthy’ dessert recipes […]

One of my favorite amateur food photographers and Recipezaar Chefs, Marg, turned me on to the most wonderful little “gadget” the other day. Marg is always posting photos on Recipezaar of gorgeous pies that she has made. The crusts always look flaky, delicious and professional. I finally sent her an e-mail to see if she […]

I’ve been away a while, and not baking for that time.  I’m here to report on why I haven’t been baking…
I’d read all the books about how to bake artisan breads in a home oven.  I have 2 stones, one for the dough, one above to even out the temps.  I use a shallow pan […]

Several years ago I returned to a dairy-free diet when I discovered that I had not outgrown my childhood milk allergy.  Since I had never been fond of milk or cheese (I know, it’s just me and the cows on the cheese) there were only a few rough spots in the transition.  The primary issue […]

Let’s say you’re just starting out baking from scratch for the very first time. You need a tray of cupcakes to bring to work tomorrow and it’s 7 o’clock in the evening. You bought the ingredients and they’re all ready for you to use, you just need to take them out of the […]

Just when I had tackled, no make that mastered, dairy-free cookies, a new dietary challenge was thrown into the mix - wheat-free.  Today, I made my first attempt at recreating my favorite oatmeal chocolate chip cookies sans wheat and milk of any kind.  Though I still consider the recipe a work in progress, the initial trial passed […]

Last week, I got yet another bread book, called “Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes”, by Jeffrey Hamelman. I’d heard this was about the best book out there. I really like the “Bread Baker’s Apprentice” by Peter Reinhart, but Bread has some great information, too.
I’ve been trying to get bigger holes in the […]

If you ever want to bake a cake or other dessert in the shape of a heart but don’t have a heart pan, you can always use a round pan and a square pan.  The length of the square pan should be the same as the diameter of the round pan.  Once everything is baked, divide […]

Continuing on trying to make better artisan bread, I recently bought The Bread Baker’s Apprentice by Reinhold.  I really enjoyed the book; it’s a good mix of information, and some practical techniques.  I don’t know enough to know if it’s the best book or not, but it does seem to be very highly respected.
I decided […]