Back to Basics: The Original Chocolate Chip Cookies

Zoë François 12 Comments

Plate of Chocolate Chip Cookies | ZoëBakes | Photo by Zoë François

They are the chocolate chip cookies we all ate as kids and probably still make on occasion. Toll House, of course. The recipe right off the bag. It is the cookie by which all others are measured. The perfect balance of sweet, salty, gooey, chewy and crisp. Most of us, as we got more confident in the kitchen, ventured from the bag and experimented with other recipes. We dared to add oats, nuts, dried fruit, black pepper, and even pumpkin puree to our chocolate chip cookies but there is still a place for the original. Read More

Gougères (snack food with the difficult name!)

Zoë François 11 Comments

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

Zoë François 16 Comments
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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Star Tribune Article and Video

Zoë François 2 Comments

About a month ago Rick Nelson from the Star Tribune came over to talk bread and sample some of the recipes in the book. We baked up a storm, ate lunch and he left full (and we hoped convinced). His article came out this week and he had some wonderful things to say. “…If holiday gift-givers are aiming to buy one new cookbook title for the bakers in their lives, they should look no further than the remarkable Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day… Hertzberg and Francois should have called their burst of genius “Breadmaking for Dummies” — that’s how user-friendly it is… their master recipe is wildly flexible, generously adapting to a wide range of breads, pizzas, flatbreads and pastries.” Rick Nelson’s article. Read More

Babka Alert!!!

Zoë François 16 Comments

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