Just Baking

Recently we enjoyed a bit of fall family fun by taking a trip to a local farm for some apple picking. It was a warm fall day, overcast and gently humid, and we had a really awesome time picking our way through the rows of apples, selecting from among the seven or eight varieties that were ripe at […]

 
This has to be my favorite dessert ever! I have memories from early childhood making these with my grandmother. When I was no older that eight years old, I remember rolling these babies up in tea towels and slathering on that delicious cream cheese filling. My grandmother and I would make a bunch of these […]

Honey-glazed pumpkin with spices . . . I knew I was going to get your attention. For starters, despite the fact that there are as many pumpkin recipes as they are yellowing leaves on trees, there are never enough - pumpkin recipes, I mean.
Pumpkin cooked with honey, as in pumpkin pie, is a sweet delight, so you can almost […]

The crust for empanadas is pretty much nothing more than pie crust, so you can use the recipe I give, or use your own favorite recipe.
I was looking for something fun to do at work and decided to make these. The recipe for the crust is:
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup white sugar
8 ounces cold […]

For those who love baking pies, here’s an easy recipe to make the perfect pie crust at home. I love baking, but I hardly find time to bake a crust from scratch. And yet, a home-made pie crust is much better than a store-bought one. For most pies, the ready-made crusts available out there are […]

I love fall. The cooler weather, the leaves turning colors, soups and stews and just getting ready for all the holiday baking that’s to come. I mark these muffins as my first recipe of the fall season. I love pumpkin anything, so when I came across these, I decided I’d share them with you. The flavor reminds […]

I’m a big fan of gratins, so when I saw an easy recipe for Broccoli Gratin in Martha’s Everyday Food magazine, it quickly got ripped out and added to my burgeoning to-try pile; no matter that I’m the only one in the house who will eat broccoli. 
Very simple to make and tasty to boot, it would make […]

 
Fall is in the air and that means it’s time for some spiced-up baking, filled with the warm flavors and aromas of nutmeg and cinnamon.
I do not know what my problem is, but it seems as though I cannot consume my bananas before they hit that nasty, brown, spotted stage. Maybe I subconsciously let them […]

Looking for something a little different to add to your Rosh Hashanah table this year? I developed this spin on a classic Tsimmes recipe for my dear friend Deborah. I chose foods that, to me, represented the symbolic elements celebrated at Rosh Hashanah:  “sweetness, roundness, and fullness.”
Shana Tovah! 
Roasted Plum Tsimmes with Honey-Apple Juice Reduction
In my […]

Of the countless versions of basic scone recipes out there, I tend to like cream scones, which I find stay fresh and moist a bit longer than the butter-based variety. Because scones are at their best eaten soon after they leave the oven, I like to bake these right before I serve them. Because they […]