The list went up in our employee kitchen last week, and the buzz started.

“Hey, did you see the list? It’s Girl Scout cookie time!”

“The list is up in the kitchen… Karen’s daughter is selling Girl Scout cookies again.”

“Any new ones this year? Did you order yours yet?” (more…)

This afternoon our Listen Center community service team is in full swing. (more…)

It’s that time of the year again–time for our annual Daffodil Watch. Those of you who’ve been reading our emails for awhile know that we track the progress of my daffodils each spring. Last year, they poked their heads up out of the ground on Dec. 31. This year, they made their appearance exactly 3 weeks later, on Jan. 21. Can spring be far behind? Sure can! These little green shoots will certainly be buried in snow at some point before they bloom. But the south-facing foundation of my house, where they grow, will keep them nice and cozy till winter finally leaves.

I have a confession to make. I don’t like rolling out dough. It fills me with… well, trepidation. Maybe it’s because I didn’t used to be a very good dough-roller. Piecrust? Scary. It would start out fairly promising, but all of a sudden a map of Antarctica would appear: a big white blob with cracks and crevices all around the edges. And, like the polar icecap in spring, (more…)

The last recipe where I tested Granulated Splenda and Clabber Girl Sugar Replacer yielded some of the most dramatic effects. (more…)

Friday’s evaluation session took longer than expected, as we dissected each and every bread and pastry product (literally and figuratively), and each aspect of Dara’s decorative piece, with intent detail. It can be extremely demoralizing for the team to work so hard all month, all week, and all day on their individual products, only to then sit at the evaluation and be told all the things that need to be improved, or changed, or eliminated, or incorporated. (more…)

The Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie–“the bread-baking Olympics”–is now about 10 weeks away, and the three bakers who’ll represent the United States–Solveig Tofte of Minnesota (breads), Peter Yuen of Chicago (viennoiserie), and Dara Reimers of Maine (artistic design)–have returned to the Johnson & Wales campus in Providence, Rhode Island for more practice sessions. (more…)

Doughnuts. Fried dough. Or, as Mardi Gras approaches, let’s raise a toast to New Orleans and its signature treat, beignets. To say nothing of French fries, fritters, and zeppoles, those fried cruller-like creations my Italian husband HAS to have at Christmas (even though mine have never matched the quality of those made by his mother, despite 32 years of trying. It’s OK; his mom’s zeppoles really are better than mine.) (more…)

After putting Splenda Granular and Clabber Girl Sugar Replacer through their paces with sugar cookies, it was time to move on to muffins.

I used our Simplest Muffins recipe, with the addition of some diced apricots and cranberries for an accent.

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We’ve all heard how overweight we are as a nation. The incidence of diabetes in this country is disturbingly high and headed upward all the time. It’s not surprising that we get a lot of requests from bakers within days of their last doctor’s visit asking for help.
I hear from Baking Sheet subscribers all the time, looking for ways to make healthier, lower calorie recipes. So I decided to do some homework. (more…)

After the storm: a sunny, 21°F Tuesday outside our office here in White River Junction, Vermont. Yesterday’s Northeaster slipped past nearly unnoticed, leaving us just about 6” of new snow.

Remember the “bagel boom” of about 20 years ago, when bagels suddenly left their traditional urban environment and spread across the land, literally from sea to shining sea? Never mind Manhattan’s famous H&H Bagels, with its big, fat, doughy treats, offered right out of the oven in a tiny Broadway storefront on the Upper West Side. National chains like Bruegger’s and Einstein introduced the bagel to Peoria and its counterparts in every state. Meanwhile, Lender’s frozen bagels became a fixture in the supermarket. (more…)