basic Archives - Page 4 of 5

Vanilla Pastry Cream

March 21, 2008December 9, 2023 Zoë François 30 Comments

Pastry cream is one of the most versatile recipes in a professional pastry kitchen (and your home). It is used for the filling of eclairs, napoleons, fruit tarts, banana cream pie, trifle, and just scooped out of the bowl with a spoon. It is essentially “kick-ass” vanilla pudding, to quote one of my former bosses. It can be scented with vanilla, in fact I always start with vanilla pastry cream and then add flavors to it. I’ve made everything from Thai chili-chocolate to passion fruit pastry cream. Here is the basic vanilla pastry cream recipe to start with!

This is an old post with old photos (I’ve come a long way with my camera since then)…

Creme Anglaise (Vanilla Sauce)

March 13, 2008July 19, 2022 Zoë François 16 Comments

Creme Anglaise is one of the most versatile sauces in the pastry kitchen. It is wonderful served with chocolate cake, as the sauce for floating island and as the base for lots of ice creams. It is also a creamy contrast to fruit desserts such as my tropical fruit vacherin, where I added mango puree to add a bright flavor to the sauce.

I always start with a simple vanilla flavored sauce and then add flavors to it to suit my dessert.

Butter Shortbread Cookies

March 4, 2008November 13, 2022 Zoë François 14 Comments

Last week was my aunt Kristin’s birthday, and she had only one request of me: butter shortbread cookies. She is a woman of very discerning tastes and gave me explicit directions on just how she wanted them baked. They were to be thick, delicate, not too sweet, a light dusting of very fine sugar and above all else, buttery! As some of you may have noticed, my aunt Kristin is one of my pastry muses. She doesn’t bake much herself, but she has a keen sweet tooth and can recognize a great recipe, without ever making it.

Homemade Ricotta Cheese with Red Wine Poached Cherries

February 12, 2008July 1, 2022 Zoë François 14 Comments

Homemade Ricotta Cheese with Poached Cherries | ZoëBakes | Photo by Zoë François

This week I discovered something that has changed my kitchen forever. I made my own ricotta cheese. It was a suggestion from one of the people at eGullet. We were discussing the recipe for calzone from the book and we were lamenting the state of ricotta cheese that is available in the supermarkets. No sooner had we complained than a recipe for homemade ricotta cheese appeared on the screen. Not one, but several.

How Should Rising Bread Dough Look?

January 18, 2008February 7, 2022 Zoë François 129 Comments

Several of you have had questions about the right type of bucket to be using when storing your dough from “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day”. I have many that fit the bill beautifully, these are just a few! It depends on the size and shape of your refrigerator and how much dough you intend to make. There are a few basic guidelines to storing your dough in a bucket: Read More

Back to Basics: The Original Chocolate Chip Cookies

January 1, 2008December 9, 2019 Zoë François 12 Comments

They are the chocolate chip cookies we all ate as kids and probably still make on occasion. Toll House, of course. The recipe right off the bag. It is the cookie by which all others are measured. The perfect balance of sweet, salty, gooey, chewy and crisp. Most of us, as we got more confident in the kitchen, ventured from the bag and experimented with other recipes. We dared to add oats, nuts, dried fruit, black pepper, and even pumpkin puree to our chocolate chip cookies but there is still a place for the original. Read More