ZoëBakes

Purple Sweet Potato Pie

This Purple Sweet Potato Pie with a mound of an Italian meringue is inspired by Esther Williams (anyone younger than me will have to google her). It’s a stunning and delicious pie fit for a special occasion like Thanksgiving. I was gifted a box of super fun produce by my […]

Pumpkin Swirl Cheesecake Bars

There seem to be two schools of thought about Thanksgiving desserts. Those who must have pumpkin pie and those who avoid anything pumpkin, other than the spice mix. I am squarely in the pumpkin camp and so is my whole family, but if you or someone you love is not, […]

Raisin Pecan Bread

Let me tell you about this raisin pecan loaf that I baked from my book, New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day (Breadin5). I made our big batch of the Master Recipe using Platinum Yeast from Red Star Yeast, then pulled off a piece of dough, rolled in some […]

Apple Galette With Almond Cream (Pie Without A Dish)

This Apple Galette is just an apple pie without the plate or a top crust. So, it’s even easier to make than pie and I think just as beautiful in a fruit forward, rustic way. Fall was always my favorite time of year when I was growing up in Vermont. […]

French Silk Pie

When I moved to Minneapolis from Vermont, I hadn’t expected to experience culture shock. I was raised mostly in New England with stints in Northern California. Somehow, those places, as far from each other as they can get on a map, are more alike than the vast land in the […]

Pear Panna Cotta Cake

When I was growing up my paternal grandmother made a dessert she called “Swedish Cream” on Christmas day. It was rich beyond imagining (at least when I was a child) and its arrival meant the festivities were coming to a close, because we’d all slip into a Christmas Swedish Cream […]

Instant Sourdough Donuts on a wire rack, coated in pink icing

Instant Sourdough Doughnuts

In 2005 when my co-author, Jeff, and I wrote the first edition of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, people were just coming out of the Atkins Diet fog and were longing desperately for bread. We offered a simple, fast and delicious approach to baking bread that ANYONE could […]

Anthropologie Catalog Dessert Recipes: (Poached Pear Tart, Creme Brûlée, Apple Crisp)

It is with delight that I share with you the desserts I created for the current Anthropologie Catalog, which you can find in the stores and on their website. They invited me to Philadelphia to bake and style the desserts and I had an absolute blast. It is a funny […]

Fruit Tart with Homemade Puff Pastry

This fruit tart with homemade puff pastry is made with nothing more than ripe pluots (apricots, peaches, plums, cherries, any other stone fruit or berries will also do), lemon zested sugar and a sheet of puff pastry. Super elegant in its simplicity. The tart is from Rory O’Connell’s new book, […]

Mirror Glaze Cherry Cake

I’ve been intrigued with mirror glaze cakes ever since they started popping up on my instagram feed years ago. There is something so satisfying about the glassy, reflective finish. Aesthetically, it’s not typically my style to create something quite so glitzy and glam, but sometimes ones inner Liberace needs to […]

Peach Dutch Baby

A Dutch Baby, or as I called it way back in the day (1970s), a “Puffy Pancake,” was my first real baking adventure. It was also one of my very first posts on ZoëBakes in 2007. Going back to that original post will give you a glimpse of what blogging […]

“Peach Melba” (Fresh Peaches with Ice Cream and Croquant)

There is nothing more satisfying than a perfectly ripe peach. When that happens, it is my job, as a pastry chef, not to screw it up. Nature is perfect, and often deserves to be left in its most pure form. Having said that, I am a pastry chef and what […]