sugar Archives - ZoëBakes

Valentine’s Day Sugar Cookies with Blood Orange Glaze

February 3, 2021February 20, 2022 Zoë François 1 Comment

Everyone should have a great sugar cookie dough (or two) in their kitchen arsenal. The perfect sugar cookie bakes up crisp, sweet and able to handle a bit of icing without getting soggy. I’ve baked dozens over the years and Sarah Kieffer’s Olive Oil Sugar Cookie is one of my favorites, along with her Lemon Sugar Cookie recipe, both you can find in her best selling 100 Cookies book. It’s also where you’ll find her famous Pan-Banging Chocolate Chip Cookies and the amazing Peanut Butter Marshmallow Swirl Brownies (amazing!!!)! This is a must have book. You can watch my son, Henri and I make these Valentine’s Day Sugar Cookies with Blood Orange Glaze from Sarah’s book on his YouTube Channel “Baking with my Mother!”

Jelly Doughnuts (Sufganiyot)

December 6, 2018January 8, 2022 Zoë François 13 Comments

Amber Wilson’s cookbook, For the Love of the South is a delight. It is one of the most strikingly beautiful books I’ve seen recently. The photography and recipes are romantic, sultry, so Southern, and yet, they are entirely approachable.

When I first flipped through the pages, I wanted to make everything, but these jelly doughnuts grabbed me the most. I adore a great doughnut and she delivers. Her dough is scented with lemon zest, then filled with blackberry preserves, but there are a number of other homemade fillings to choose from. I’ve since made these doughnuts several times and filled them with everything from pastry cream (vanilla and coconut), lemon curd, whipped milk chocolate mascarpone, and coated them in ganache, all from my Zoë Bakes Cakes book. So, I turned them into the cake they were meant to be! 😉

Coffee No-Churn Ice Cream Sandwiches

May 1, 2018December 8, 2021 Zoë François 5 Comments

We went from 16″ of snow to 80 degrees in two weeks. My mind spun into summer mode in about 10 seconds flat. We Minnesotans can’t adjust to the warm slowly or we may miss it. So, in my mind it’s summer and that means ice cream season.

My friend, Sarah Kieffer, from the Vanilla Bean Blog and the fabulous The Vanilla Bean Baking Book, has been talking about no-churn ice cream for years. She’s one of my favorites (baker, blogger, book creator, photographer and human) and yet, I wasn’t listening when she said it was SO easy and delicious. Ugh, sometimes I’m just too wedded to the traditional ways.

Well, I’m here to tell you that I should have paid attention earlier, but at least I am on board now. I won’t give up my ice cream maker, just because it’s super fun, but Sarah’s no-churn ice cream will play a major role in this summer’s desserts.

I also made her deep, dark, chocolate sugar cookies to sandwich the coffee ice cream between, which made for the perfect ice cream sandwiches. The cookies are incredible all on their own, but with the intense coffee flavor of the ice cream they are sophisticated, a touch edgy and a perfect grown-up dessert that kids will love too, but make it with decaf! The cookies have enough body to hold up to the ice cream, but they don’t turn to stone when they are frozen, so they are perfect for this marriage.

Tea Cup Rose Cakes – Paleo Sweets

May 10, 2016April 11, 2024 Zoë François 4 Comments

My story with sugar is long (my whole life long) and a bit convoluted. I was raised by hippies in the 1960s. We lived on communes, as one did. Until I was about 7 it was really the only life I knew, so never struck me as unusual.

It wasn’t until I started to attend school that I understood that my life in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont wasn’t the way the whole world lived. It was sugar that was the first and most profound indication. I’d grown up thinking (being lead to believe) that raisins and other dried fruits were candy.