[N]othing matches the satisfaction of making a pie. Cakes are showstoppers. Cookies are always welcome. But they rarely feel as accomplished a feat as setting a humble dish of freshly baked pie, still warm from the oven, on your countertop. The baker’s glow is a different kind here. [P]erhaps it […]
[G]reat discoveries can happen in your own backyard, or, in this case, your own bookshelf. I was recently cleaning (gasp!) and re-organizing some books, and I stumbled across a little baking book from Ireland, actually named “The Little Irish Baking Book,†by Ruth Isabel Ross (1995), and, eager to take […]
[D]id you know there is a recipe for fool? And it’s so simple! Almost too simple, so that you almost want to pass it by (as I have, many times). Something that easy (and oddly named) certainly cannot be very good. The first recipes I saw for fools — desserts […]
[I] need no excuse to make biscuits except, perhaps, the word “biscuits.†That’s all it takes to get me going. Making these simple quick breads is one of my favorite things. From blending the cold butter (or whatever fat) into the dry ingredients to doling out the dough, either in […]
[I] have plenty on my plate, but I’ve enjoyed adding trying out the recipes from Baked Sunday Mornings to my “to-do†baking schedule. It gives me a chance to attempt things I might not have otherwise and share with fellow bakers the results! While I cannot commit to making each […]
[M]y friend Petrie and I get along pretty well, for the most part. We have our moments of contention.At times, he seems to be sluggish and distantly separate when I have forgotten him for awhile…he likes to be stirred up, and only I can do that. He spat at me […]
[G]rowing up, we ate lots of homemade soups. All very basic, simple, homey and quite delicious: rich beef stew, flavored with lots of vegetables, including chopped cabbage that cooked to a clear tenderness holding all the rich juices of the chunks of chuck roast; pots of beans that, depending on […]
[I] love to make ice cream. But when I bought my first ice cream maker, just several years ago, I had dueling ideas about where things might go from there — would I be making all sorts of the ice creams, gelato and sorbets of my dreams, or would the […]
[T]hroughout the year, I mark (via Post-it, bookmark or scrap of torn envelope) interesting recipes in my cookbooks that I think I might want to try at some point. Sometimes, this really yields treasure, particularly, if one of my books has been neglected. I’m not sure where or when I […]
[C]learly — as one could see from the name of this blog — I am a scone fan. I’ve written of my love and admiration of scones here before, but I don’t have a problem making a new scone recipe to remind me of everything good — and great — […]