Since when did one of my all-time favorite snack foods, crunchy granola, turn into a lifestyle designation?

From a Google search I recently did on “crunchy granola”:

“Slang of the Week: crunchy-granola (adjective)

“Example: Janet knew John was crunchy-granola when he came to pick her up in a rainbow-colored 1974 VW Microbus.

“…crunchy-granola students (named for the food they ate) could be easily identified because they were the only ones wearing Birkenstock sandals. Nowadays, lots of people wear Birkenstocks, but it’s still pretty easy to spot crunchy-granola types. Also called earthy-crunchy, they wear natural fabrics (especially hemp) and long hair, sometimes in dreadlocks. They tend to be vegetarians, shop at the Whole Foods market and give money to Greenpeace.” (more…)

I wasn’t looking for gluten-free bread. Really, I wasn’t. I simply had a hankering for moist, dense, crumbly cornbread, something to serve alongside grilled chicken or a salad on these hot summer days.

At first, I thought I’d simply bake our Guaranteed Cornbread, which is far and away the best-tasting Northern-style (read: slightly sweet) cornbread I’ve ever enjoyed. But when I searched “cornbread” at kingarthurflour.com, lo and behold, what did I see right underneath our guaranteed recipe?

The cornbread of my dreams. Exactly what I was looking for. (more…)

Lately Vermont has been serving up long, cool spring seasons. This year and last have been slow to get to the lemonade and run-through-the-sprinkler weather, but we know those half-dozen days where the thermometer flirts with 90° are out there, waiting for us. Being a New Jersey native, I remember weeks and weeks of 80+° weather, with the humidity matching the temperature digit for digit.

Which is why, as soon as I was old enough to be employed, I got a job as a lifeguard. If I had to live in that climate at least I was in the right place to cool off when I couldn’t take it any more. I’m sure people in warmer places think we’re nuts, but hey, you’re a hot weather person or you’re not. (more…)

Rich, chewy, chocolate-y cookies, full of cocoa and sugar and espresso and vanilla and egg whites. With a touch of salt.

Period.

What, no flour? Translation: gluten-free? (more…)

Once upon a time, before Internet (a.k.a. The Information Superhighway—remember that?), recipes were shared hand-to-hand—literally. If your friend served you some awesome cookies, you asked for the recipe, and she wrote it out for you. Usually on a scrap of paper. Or if she was into it, on a recipe card imprinted with “From the kitchen of NANCY”. Or whatever name you wanted to fill in.

I still have (and use) scrapbooks filled with clipped, handwritten, and manually typed recipes. And while some of the recipes seem dated (Tuna Flying Saucers; Grapenut Pudding), there are others that are just as fresh and lively as the day they were born.

Witness this Easy Cheesecake.

(more…)

One of my faithful “Baking Sheet” correspondents, Amy MacDonald-Persons, is an accomplished baker, generous sharer of recipes, downright foodie, and busy mom of Elizabeth and Duncan. “The Baking Sheet” has a popular feature in every issue called the Recipe Makeover, where readers send me recipes, descriptions of food encounters (the Summer issue’s feature recreates a raspberry pie a reader had while visiting Sweden), or general requests for recipes they wish existed, and I go to town in the test kitchen and try to make those wishes come true.

Amy asked me to do a makeover of Grandma Sadie’s Best Rhubarb Dessert. (more…)

My son Nik, a 23-year-old newly minted college grad out on his own for the first time, emailed me last week with this question: “Mom, how do I make a baguette?”

Well, nothing like jumping right in with both feet, kiddo… A baguette? Though Nik has been part of the King Arthur family since 1990, when he modeled a kids’ apron in one of our first catalogues, he was never interested in baking.

Till now. Hunger and thrift have opened his eyes. (more…)

It all started with Mother’s Day. Mary Tinkham, a longtime baker here at KAF, and writer for the Baking Sheet, was given a selection of specialty salts by her son, including a large salt block, and she was sharing her ideas about recipes she had planned. We, of course are always interested in new and different cooking and baking news, so it was a lively conversation.

Mary mentioned that one of the flyers included in her gift was a salt chart, listing different salts and what foods they were exceptionally good paired with. One that stood out to her was the Maldon Smoked Salt we just started carrying. The chart said it was “exceptional” on fruit. Well, you know we just had to try it for ourselves. I had some fresh strawberries in my lunchbox, Mary had some cantaloupe and pear, and there was a brand new box of smoked salt on our sample shelves. We were off to the races! (more…)

Ah, soft, tender, golden, soft (did I mention soft?) white rolls: a hidden vice for so many of us.

Back in the day, when Wonder Bread was helping build our strong bodies 12 ways, bread was judged by its softness. Your mother made your PB & J  on homemade bread? BLECHH.  Pepperidge Farm? So… adult. The bread of choice for kids was A) Wonder, or B) Sunbeam (batter-whipped; Little Miss Sunbeam. Remember?) (more…)

As test kitchen bakers here at King Arthur Flour, we occasionally labor over recipes WAY too long. Despite the three-strike rule (three failed attempts, move on), Sue and Susan and MaryJane and Andrea and I all plead guilty to expending extra effort on a problem child.

“Just one more try. I KNOW 2 tablespoons of honey is going to make the difference.” And then it doesn’t. And you surreptitiously hide the evidence, and wonder if you can sneak in a “REALLY, I promise this is the last time I’ll do it” attempt, maybe early in the morning… (more…)