Gougères (snack food with the difficult name!)

Gougères | ZoëBakes | Photo by Zoë François

It’s a cheese puff with a fancy name! The exterior is crisp and the interior soft and custardy. Made small, they are a great snack to serve before dinner or make them larger to be filled. Gougères are typically made with Gruyère cheese and thyme, a combination that begs to be filled with sweet orange marmalade (my personal favorite). You can substitute any hard cheese and herbs you desire in the recipe. Read More

Lemon Meringue Bars

Lemon Meringue Bars

It is Minnesota and there is about 6 inches of snow on the ground, not exactly the time of year for a fresh fruit dessert. So what do we Northerners do when we want something sweet and bright, but can’t find berries that aren’t from the freezer or even a decent apple? We turn to citrus. Of course it doesn’t grow here, not even in the summer, but it travels well and there is such amazing variety. For these lemon meringue bars I actually use a combination of lemons, limes and Meyer lemons (for their perfume). The combination is more interesting and has a zing to it that one fruit alone won’t give.

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Babka Alert!!!

chocolate-raisin babkaWe tested and then tested again and in some cases many times more. The Chocolate-Raisin Babka (p. 221) was one such recipe. Because the traditional method was so labor intensive I wanted to come up with a recipe that had the same divine taste without all the fuss. Well I think we came very close indeed. BUT there is a big mistake in the list of ingredients. Read More

Making Suvir’s Puff Pastry Samosas

light crisp samosas from Indian Home Cooking

I’ve been cooking from Suvir Saran’s acclaimed book Indian Home Cooking for years and now from his newest triumph American Masala. The pages are dog-eared and stained with turmeric and garam masala. His recipe for puff pastry samosas with green peas is one of the easiest and most satisfying appetizer/after school snacks I make. My kids devour them and yet they are sophisticated enough to serve to guests. Read More

Anne’s question about weighing flour!

Hi — your book made our Thanksgiving! My grandmother always made cinnamon rolls for Thanksgiving and I had let the tradition go because they were so much work. But this year I saw the NYT article, ran out to buy the book, and we had cinnamon rolls for Thanksgiving dinner to my sister’s and my daughter’s delight. Thanks so much.

Here’s my question: I went through a sourdough phase awhile back and got used to measuring flour with a scale. I’m excited about trying it again with your dough formulas. Is there an equivalent you’d suggest for weighing flour(s)? Different books seem to vary in what they consider the weight equivalent of a cup of flour. I’d appreciate any suggestions and again, thanks so much.

Anne Read More