If you’re a yeast bread baker, you know that different loaves provoke different visceral responses. There are sandwich loaves, golden brown and perfectly domed, that seem almost too beautiful to cut into. And there’s country sourdough bread, whose occasional lack of beauty is made up for by its enticing aroma. Focaccia begs you to cut it into squares and dip it in seasoned olive oil; a baguette makes you bend down and listen to it “singing” as it cools. (more…)

Scali bread. If you’re from Boston, you grew up with it; it was the daily bread of choice for most Italian families. And a common offering in sandwich shops, as in “Ya want that on white, wheat, rye, or scali?” Now, it’s sold at Trader Joe’s. And if you google scali, you’ll find all kinds of recipes and discussion about it. (more…)

My goal was to make a yellow birthday cake with chocolate icing. I tried. I really did. But I failed. And I’m not unhappy about failing, not one little bit. (more…)

What do a spoonula, a large plastic bag, a spray bottle of water and parchment paper have in common? They’re all part of the arsenal when I start to make pie crust. Of course, there’s a rolling pin and pastry cutter involved, too. This messy business is one of the key steps to good pie crust. Really.

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I’ve no doubt baked many hundreds of different recipes in the 30+ years I’ve been baking on my own. But there are certain ones that I bake over and over again—fudge birthday cake, almond puff loaf, whole wheat pain de mie, and a host of others that never fail to win accolades from whatever audience enjoys them. (more…)

I was first introduced to the concept of strawberry shortcake made with biscuits, rather than with yellow cake, when I moved to Maine as a new bride, over 30 years ago. We settled down midway up the coast, entranced by the restless sea bordered by lines of fir trees, and the shoreline snaking in and out of countless rocky coves. Little did we know, at the time, that the rocky shore made for problematic “beachcombing”; and the ocean, while lovely to look at, was brutally cold to swim in. (more…)

It all started with the Velveeta Fudge.

“Hey, Sue, how about this? Velveeta Fudge.”

King Arthur’s test kitchen director, Sue Gray, is a woman with an exquisitely refined palate. Not to say she doesn’t enjoy the odd slaw dog or Ring Ding along with the rest of the world, but she can also sniff out the extra 1/16 teaspoon of cloves in a batch of spice cookies, or the smidgen of baking soda that made those cookies fall on the wrong side of the line, texture-wise.

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The 43rd annual Pillsbury Bake-Off® Contest is coming up April 13-15. Devoted tracker of food trends that I am, I figured I’d better go cruise the Pillsbury Web site, read the 100 finalists’ recipes, and see what’s hot with home bakers this year. Chocolate, sure. But how about fancy cakes? Cookies? Gourmet muffins, maybe? (more…)

On a recent trip to New York City, I had a conversation with Regina Ragone, the Food Director of Family Circle Magazine. She said she’d had a note from a reader whose child had an egg allergy. The reader’s question was, “what can you do to make eggless French Toast?”. I got that glazed look I often do when I’m thinking about a new food invention, (more…)

I have a confession to make. WARNING: This is not a pretty story. The nutrition police will pull up at my door as soon as the secret gets out. Heck, the dreaded Center for Science in the Public Interest—those folks who’ve proclaimed Chinese food, Campbell’s soup, and Starbucks Caffè Mocha dangerous to our health—will come knocking. (more…)