ZoëBakes

My Aunt’s Birthday Cake flies to Florida!

Many of you may have read about my aunt Kristin in past posts. She is a true lover of food and cookbooks. In fact, she supplies me with a great number of the books that fill my shelves. That is saying a lot considering I own hundreds of them. In […]

Chocolate Poached Pears

Every New Years Eve my husband and I stay home and have raw oysters, lobster and champagne. This has been our tradition ever since we moved to Minnesota, 15 years ago. Graham proposed to me on NYE so it has always been a special night for us. This year our […]

Chocolate Biscotti (Perfect For The Holidays!)

Biscotti are the cookies I can’t keep my hands off of. I force myself to give some of them away so that I don’t eat the entire batch all by myself! This chocolate biscotti recipe is one of my favorite cookies to give as a holiday gift. Biscotti are ideal […]

Candied Pink Grapefruit

Around the holidays you find many recipes that call for candied fruits. I use them in my Panettone recipe from Artisan Bread in Five, in a chocolate ginger biscotti, a Trinidadian rum cake, for my granny’s maple brown-butter shortbread cookies or just dipped in bittersweet chocolate.

Aebleskivers

This fall I met Chad and his partners at the Mill City Farmer’s Market in Minneapolis. My co-author and I did a bread presentation from our book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. When I came off the stage, there was Chad and these funny round pans, which were […]

Maple Brown Butter Shortbread Cookies

Order my new cookbook, Zoë Bakes Cookies, now! When I was growing up I looked forward to Christmas morning at my Granny’s house. It seemed like magic how I’d go to bed at night and wake up with a stocking stuffed with goodies at the foot of my bed. Later […]

“Red Hot” Boston Cream Pie

This week was my husband’s birthday and he requested a true American classic for his cake, Boston cream pie. Light pillowy sponge cake with layers of rich vanilla pastry cream and topped with a smooth chocolate glaze. Why do we call this cake a pie? It was invented in the […]

Cream Puffs and a Nest of Nuts!

It is my birthday and I decided to make myself something fun to celebrate. Now that I am squarely in my 40s I find it especially important to make this occasion a special one. I was in the mood to play with sugar. It has been years, many years, since […]

Milk Chocolate Cinnamon Mousse Cake

Last week I made a Génoise, the classic ethereal cake that is the perfect base for so many desserts. It is a cake just begging to be flavored with a syrup. If left all alone it can be a bit on the dry side. In fact, it is also known […]

Apple and Cajeta (Rich Mexican Caramel) Crisp

Last weekend my family finally got out to pick apples. It was the most spectacular day — perfectly blue sky (see picture below), cool, but not cold and all the varieties of apples were in full readiness. I came home with 20 pounds of apples; a variety of Haralson, Honey […]

Basics: Homemade Rolled Fondant! Part 2

More than half of the cakes I do for clients are covered with fondant. It is gorgeous, sleek and can be simple or ornate. Over the years I’ve tried just about every product out there and have loved some and loathed others. Some are easy to use but have no […]

Basics: Génoise and Homemade Rolled Fondant! Part 1

I’m gearing up for my one year blog-iversary next week and I’m making myself a cake. On the way to that celebratory occasion, I’ve made a few of the basic elements in the pastry kitchen: génoise and homemade rolled fondant. As Sherry Yard says in the opening of her génoise […]