Devil’s Food Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing

Devil's Food Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing | photo by Zoë François

This Devil’s Food Cake from Zoë Bakes Cakes is the best chocolate cake recipe I have ever tried and believe me, over the past 20+ years, I’ve tried them all. The dark chocolate cake has a texture that is smooth and rich. The flavor is not overly sweet, because of the intensity of the coffee (you don’t actually taste the coffee, it just cuts the sweet) and the rum (the Devil in “Devil’s Food cupcakes” perhaps?), which make it a great match for cream cheese frosting sweetened with Lyle’s Golden Syrup.

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Lemon Curd Cheesecake

www.craftsy.com/ext/ZoFranois_10284_H

I have a bunch of classes on Craftsy, including “Show-Stopping Cheesecakes!” To find any of my classes on the platform, just type Zoe Francois in to the search bar and you will find all three of my courses.

I’ve done an “Artisan Bread in Minutes” baking class based on the Master recipe from my book The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day and I created an intensive Baking and Pastry class for beginners, which will help you feel confident with all of your family recipes or those beautiful treats you see on Pinterest. I hope I will see you in one, or all of my Craftsy classes.

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Come Get Your Hands in a Bucket of Dough!

bret’s table

(Bret, Suvir Saran, Me and some of the wonderful students at the last class we taught at Bret’s Table)

Come to Bret’s Table on June 11th and roll your sleeves up. We’ll be making dough and baking bread. It is a wonderfully intimate kitchen, decked out with great equipment and a glass of wine. Bring your ideas and questions and we’ll tailor the night to what you want to learn. This is the beauty of a class with only 10 students. If you bring your own 6 quart bucket you can fill it with dough to bring home and continue baking. Read More

Baking Bread in Chicago, Seattle and San Francisco in June.

choc bread

(photo of chocolate ganache bread (page 195) by Mark Luinenburg for Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day)

Jeff and I are heading out on the road in June. We’ll be in Chicago, Seattle and San Fransisco doing demos, teaching classes and baking bread, what we love most. Below is the the itinerary as of now. Our publisher seems to be adding new events all the time so please check back in the next week to see what else they have in store for us. Hope to see you!

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Private Class with Suvir and Zoë (February 25th at Bret’s Table)

American Masala

Suvir Saran is one of the most forward thinking chefs of our time. His recipes borrow from ancient traditions and yet he gives them a modern and unexpected twist. He is truly inspired! It is an honor and a delight to spend an evening listening to his intelligent musings on food and eating his spectacular creations. He is the author of two of my favorite and most used cook books. Indian Home Cooking and American Masala: 125 New Classics from My Home Kitchen. Read More

Dark vs Light Sticky Buns

Last night Jeff and I taught a class based on Artisan Bread In Five Minutes a Day at Cooks of Crocus Hill. It was a tremendously fun evening, made all the more so by the curiosity of the people who came out to watch us bake a frenzy of breads. There were a number of great questions and one in particular that stumped me. I was baking the sticky pecan caramel rolls from the book. Because there were so many people in the class I had to bake them in two batches. One in a light cake pan, the other in a dark one. Other than the color of the pans the process and baking times were identical, in fact they sat side by side in the oven. When the time came to invert the sticky buns onto the serving platter we were shocked to see that they were entirely different colors. One was a very pale (I’d say insipid) caramel and the other was rich and deeply colored. I knew that it was because of the color of the pans, but when pressed by this curious crowd as to exactly WHY this happens I couldn’t answer. So I did a little investigating and this is what I found out… Read More