eat dessert first
Key Lime pie is one of my favorite desserts, and this is a classic recipe with a little twist. It beautifully balances the creaminess and tartness that takes a pie from good to great. I love Key Lime Pie and seek it out whenever I can. I’d say it is […]
This beautiful Roasted Squash Brown Butter Cake just happens to be gluten-free, as is everything in Aran Goyoaga’s new book Cannelle et Vanille. If you don’t happen to follow a gluten-free diet, this book is still for you, in fact, you’ll not even notice the wheat is missing from any […]
My Granny Neal made a version of these Sticky Coconut Maple Bars every Christmas. They’re really perfect for any occasion, but when I was a little kid they were a special treat reserved for Christmas morning. Enjoy! These are inspired by my Granny’s holiday coconut bars, which I later realized […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
I'm Zoë François and I love to bake. This is where I play with sugar and take the mystery out of baking everything from cookies to wedding cakes. I studied pastry at the CIA (the culinary school, not the spy agency), worked in restaurants, have written 10 cookbooks and you can find more of my creations in my Substack Newsletter and YouTube videos. More...
