LoveTheJourney

Because nobody else is going to save you any, that’s for sure. It’s just too sweet and buttery. Tender on the inside and crispy around the edges like a croissant, it has a crackly caramel top that adds just the right je-ne-sais-quois (I wrote that in French because don’t know how to say it in [...]

For all those who’ve put off getting their hands dirty with laminated doughs, kouign amann is a great place to start. Somewhere between a bread and a Danish, it only requires a couple of “turns” of the dough, and they need not be perfect. This is a rustic pastry, so your standards need not be [...]

This post is all about housekeeping. I’ve received quite a few requests for a pâte brisée recipe lately. I’ve had one on the site for quite a while now, but it’s been filed under “quiche.” This dedicated post on the subject will make it easier to reference.
Pâte brisée is one of the simplest of [...]

I was going to write about how to modify ladyfingers before putting up the tutorial, but I think it’ll be easier to show the recipe first, then talk about adjustments. Ladyfingers are a lot easier to make than this series of photos might make them appear. They require a few steps, but the batter is [...]

A few of you have been asking me to put up a basic tutorial on dough kneading for a while, and this seems like a good time. I’m normally a machine guy, I do most of my kneading with a mixer and a dough hook, however there are times when only the personal touch will [...]

Whole wheat sandwich bread has a few more steps than standard white, but not too many more, and the results will amaze you. Especially if you use a good white whole wheat grind (King Arthur makes a great one), the loaf will be nearly as light in taste and texture as white bread. This is [...]

A soufflé is one of those dishes that gives the home cook a big advantage over the pros. Home cooks generally have better equipment that the pros do for preparing and baking a soufflé: a smoother running, better maintained mixer, a smaller oven with more even heat, etc.. Home cooks can also afford to give [...]

Call me skeptical that a mere cookie can solve our most intractable foreign policy problems, but heck, at this point I’d be willing to try just about anything. Chocolate-y, sweet and salty, they’re a guaranteed crowd pleaser at any international summit, piled in heaps next to the water pitchers on those long, shiny wood tables. [...]

Talk about something that brings me back to childhood. Taking a bite of these put me right back in Lillie’s kitchen, where my twin sister and I would watch her whip up meringue by hand on a flat egg board (she didn’t own a mixing machine of any kind). Lillie was an ample woman, and [...]

When you’ve got a hold of a quality lemon bar, you know it. Last night the missus took a bite of one of these and said: “it’s like I’m sitting under a lemon tree in the springtime, and the sun is shining on me.”
That’s about the size of it.
Start by laying out all [...]