with Greg Patent, Award Winning Cookbook Author
The first time anyone tastes something new, the moment can become etched in memory. This is true, of course, if it’s a “Wow, I want more of that” event or possibly quite the opposite. My Wow Moment happened in Hawaii when I bit into a…
I’m a macaroon lover from way back. I’m not talking about macarons, the French sandwich cookies made with beaten egg whites. Macaroons do contain egg whites, but they’re simply stirred into the other ingredients. Coconut macaroons are among my favorites—chewy and sweet and altogether a…
Sometimes I want a sweet baked treat but I don’t know what it is specifically. A cookie? Cake maybe? Often a flavor or texture or both might pop into my mind and soon clarity sets in. A few days ago I found myself in this…
I happen to love homey, old-fashioned desserts. And in the winter I often bake a batch or two of Lemon Squares. A few days ago I found a huge display of blood oranges at my market and decided I’d try substituting their juice and zest for the lemons. I’ve always loved drinking blood orange juice with breakfast, a habit we got into when living in Italy. At the time, our two sons were very young, and during the winter in Naples we had a contest each morning to see which of us had the glass with the reddest orange juice. We’d each select uncut oranges from the bowl and either my wife or I would be the designated squeezer.
Brownies are as American as apple pie and if I had my way they’d be our national cookie. I always bake a batch for the Fourth of July. The first published brownie recipe using melted chocolate in the batter appeared in 1906, so the cookie…
Butterscotch, cooked sugar with butter, is always a winner in my book. There’s just something about sweet, toasty, butteriness that makes it irresistible. In the recipe here, I’ve paired it with crunchy roasted peanuts in a blondie version of a brownie. And the combination is,…
In my Gluten-free Chocolate Chip Cookie post, I made the comment that, good as these cookies are, they left a powdery feeling in my mouth. I decided to see if baking the dough until the cookies were crunchy—the original Toll-House method—would correct this problem. After…
I am very new to gluten-free baking, and it’s not because I’ve developed a sensitivity or intolerance to gluten. I am a baker, and I have been asked to teach a class on gluten-free baking at Rancho La Puerta next month (April, 2012). So in…
These buttery crunchy/tender cookies, made only from flour, butter, and sugar, owe their deliciousness to the quality of the butter. So be sure to use the best you can find. Fortunately, many European Style butters are available in our supermarkets: Plugra, Kerry Gold, and Strauss,…
Meringues have always fascinated me. What a stunning notion that you can beat air and sugar into a viscous mass of gloppy egg whites and transform it into a billowy white stiffness that bakes into something crunchy yet chewy.