I love toast for breakfast. Crisp, crunchy, buttery hot toast. Perfect with a glass of cold Ovaltine; yin to creamy oatmeal’s yang. I love the way just the very top millimeter of toast crust softens up under its coat of melting butter. I like toast’s toasty aroma. I just plain like TOAST. (more…)

Imagine the William Tell Overture (a.k.a. the Lone Ranger theme song), pounding in your head. Hear the drumming hoofbeats (if you were a fan of the Ranger, Tonto, and Silver), or the lively violins (for you classical music buffs). OK, got that? Ready… Set… Go bake 32 dozen cookies—in 2 hours! (more…)

You know those TV ads for McDonald’s or Wendy’s or (name your favorite national chain) that show these gorgeous—I mean, FLAWLESS—fast-food hamburgers? A perfectly browned, sizzling beef patty; crisp lettuce; a thick slice of tomato; melting cheese, and a golden, light-as-air bun are gently sandwiched together, and look to be a majestic 4” tall. (more…)

Love brownies. Love their shiny, flaky top that shatters into micro-thin shards that shower onto your fingers as you eat. Love their dark, gooey center. Their “chocolate nirvana” flavor. (more…)

Attention: If you’re not absolutely enthralled with old cookbooks and ancient recipes, stop reading right now and cut to the chase: our recipe for Washington Pie, a takeoff on Boston Cream Pie. (more…)

So, one blog and some 3 dozen comments later, Baltimore’s finest cookie—the Berger Cookie—has resurfaced in a new incarnation. Like the REAL Berger cookie (can you pick it out in the photo above?), our new version is smaller, and spread with frosting that’s closer to the original and heaped even higher. This is my final take on these cookies—I promise! (more…)

As much as I love pancakes, I’d never been able to find a recipe I really, REALLY liked. That all changed while we were working on King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking, the book we published 2 years ago. At the start of the project, the three authors—myself, fellow blogger Susan Reid, and Susan Miller, director of King Arthur’s Baking Education Center—divvied up the book’s proposed chapters. And in we jumped. (more…)

As the cost of food continues to rise, I continue to try to bake everything possible at home. We don’t eat a lot of sweets, but bread is a must-have staple: toast for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, rolls or focaccia for dinner. Thus I’ve made it my goal each weekend to bake a week’s worth of bread. (more…)

Baguettes. Crusty, golden… unattainable-except-from-an-artisan-bakery baguettes.

Not so. And we’re here to prove it to you. (more…)

I’ve done my time running the show behind the swinging doors of high-end restaurants, where there’s something I call the “first dish” phenomenon. They’re the menu items that sell themselves once they go out on the floor: the sight and smell of the first plate creates an “I’ll have what they’re having” cascade. You know from experience that once the first order leaves the kitchen, there will be a dozen more tickets for the same item coming within the next 15 minutes. Picture the perfect head of warm roasted garlic, scented with lemon and rosemary, with crusty bread to smear it on, the right soft sheep’s milk cheese to put on top, and fresh, lightly cured and slightly sweet green olives to go with. (more…)