[Photograph: Donna Currie] If you've never made pie dough or puff pastry and you're a little afraid of the recipe, let me put you at ease. If you mess up and the butter gets incorporated into the dough rather than... More
Kim Boyce, author of the James Beard Award-winning Good to the Grain: Baking with Whole-Grain Flours cookbook, recently opened the quaint and cozy Bakeshop in Portland, Oregon. Fans of her cookbook are in luck: Bakeshop sells a number of items from Good to the Grain, including her chocolate chip cookies, Figgy Buckwheat scones, ginger molasses cookies, corn gruyere muffins, and maple pecan granola. Here's a peek behind the scenes. More
It's been three weeks since I began working on Canelé for my column, and this is what they've reduced me to: crazed, unable to pull myself away, and struggling to put down words that might help you, gentle reader, avoid the madness to which this pastry has driven me. Learn from my dozens of attempts and come see how to makes canelé for yourself. More
Pastry Paris is equal parts incredible food picture book and historical narrative. It's a chronicle of French pastries, telling the story of pastries past and present. Author Susan Hochbaum shows that in France, pastries aren't just exclusive to the cute patisseries lining cobbled streets; they're literally everywhere, echoed in the city's very architecture. More
Kolaches, those sweet little stuffed pastries of Czech origin are one of those regionally unique treats that's not too easy to find outside of a certain area of Texas. To satisfy her craving for these little yeasted buns, Lisa Fain, author of The Homesick Texan Cookbook, took it upon herself to recreate them in her tiny New York. She equates the challenge to tackling bagel-baking in Texas—ambitious with a touch of foolhardiness. More
When I told Carrie I was headed to Spain, she had this advice to give: "If you can tear yourself away from all the jamon, look for ensaïmada." But after a few clicks of research, I realized, uh, it's not entirely jamon-free. The pastry is made with flour, water, sugar, eggs, and reduced pork lard (where the oink comes in). "Saim" actually means "pork lard" in Mallorquí. More
It's pretty safe to assume that most of us have had an éclair or two at some point in our lives, whether it was at a Parisian pâtisserie or at a corner bakery. But how many of you have attempted to make a batch of these chocolate topped, cream filled pastries at home? More
New England may be doughnut country—and rest assured we'll get to the region's best specimens at a later date—but there are plenty of baked (not fried), equally delicious reasons to get up in the morning, too. Behold, our local tribute to those twisty, knobby, sometimes-sticky, cinnamon-sugar-swirled breakfast beauties known as sticky buns and morning buns. More
In Israel, bourekas are the quick breakfast or lunch of choice. These savory pastries made their way to the Middle East by way of the Balkans and can be filled with all sorts of cheeses and veggies. Janna Gur, author of The Book of New Israeli Food, includes several boureka recipes representing many of the filling combinations and doughs that make this pastry so popular. More
[Photograph: Robyn Lee] Note: It's best to make the rolls the night before and allow them to rise in the refrigerator overnight. You can bake them anywhere between 10 and 24 hours after shaping and refrigerating them. Pearl sugar isn't... More
