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Roger and Sharon visited the coast recently, it was a pleasure to spend some time with them. While here, Sharon said she would like to learn to make Pâte à choux, essential for Cream Puffs and a host of other treats like éclair, profiteroles and Croqembouche. Pâte à choux, properly made, yields a delicate and unique pastry.
Pâte à choux breaks the rules in baking, you mix it a lot, develop the glutens, make it wet don’t use leavening; and amazingly you will have an awesomely light and delicate pastry. Cream Puffs are only the beginning, there are wonderful treats both sweet and savory that are based in this delicious dough.
Pâte à choux uses four ingredients and is remarkably easy to achieve great result with just a bit of care. Essential to success is to measure, use fresh ingredients and be patient. [...]
I was in San Luis Obispo recently and my friends Barkev and Tzolig gave me a package of Tahini Bread to try. It was delicious! Of course, this carbaholic loves anything bread so it was almost a slam dunk but the fact that the bread had both a familiar taste and feel and yet was mysteriously unlike any bread I had ever tasted made it all the better. Mia said it kinda reminded her of Rugelach and I thought it reminded me of Palmiers but I think that was only because they loosely resembled them. A cross between the flaky Palmier and the chewiness of the Rugelach and add tahina and we are close. A delicate bread wrapped around a rich, nutty filling would be great but the texture of this treat was of a laminated pastry and for me all the better.
I decided to hit the net and found several entries for tahini bread from the middle east, some Turkish and others Armenian. The recipes resembled one another but the manner in which the bread were finished varied somewhat. For example the Turkish bread used almost the same ingredients as the Armenian bread but the Turkish resembled more of a roll than the “cookie like” flat bread I had eaten. [...]
A couple of years ago I purchase Tortas de Aceite from an online purveyor of Spanish Food and they were wonderful! I thought the tortas would arrive stale and dry as they were imported from Spain. I was wonderfully surprised by the and unique and delicious crump and the combination of savory and sweet. Sterling was immediately enamored of these wonderful treats.
Tortas de Aceite or Oil Cakes are from Spain or more closely Seville. Because tortas are made with Olive Oil instead of other types of fats they are a very healthy, light alternative dessert; the ingredients are simply flour, water, yeast, olive oil and the crispy cakes are finished with sugar and a variety of seeds or herbs. I like a sweet and salty combination that wraps its way around the tongue in a complex way that a singular flavor set could not.
[...]
 
Sterling turned 21 on July 26 and I planned a large meal for the celebrations. Admittedly, I grew tired and chose to make cupcakes rather than an elaborately decorated cake. Keeping in mind that Sterling likes his cake frosted gently rather than with excess I chose the simpler, classic standby butter cream rather than the more elaborate cream cheese frosting I usually like to pile high upon a cake. [...]
I often bake my own bread for lunch sandwiches at work. The flavor and crumb of home baked bread is amazing. When you consider the cost to bake a loaf of high quality bread at under forty-cents a loaf it really does make sense to bake your own.
My friend Kenny joined us for lunch one day and was amazed at our simple lunch, a sandwich filling between slices of home-baked bread. Kenny was amazed that one could make such a delicious bread and asked me if I would teach him how before he left for college. [...]
On my list of life’s wonderful things is freshly made bread. I have been baking bread since I was a child. I find the process relaxing, the finished product healthier for my family. I figured it out recently that it cost me about 30 cents to make a loaf of bread, wow! When I am at home, I just start some dough and go about my business, a bit later I pan it and we have fresh bread for the next few days.
Fresh bread just feels good. Sterling and I are bread lovers but Mia is not, however when I bake bread she magically becomes a fan of the stuff. [...]
 Focaccia is a wonderful, Italian bread which is a perfect light meal or a compliment to salad, soup, cheese or a roasted vegetable tray. Great as an appetizer and easy to prepare this savory bread fills the senses from the moment the bread begins to raise until it is doused with garlic and olive oil and baked. I imagine Focaccia as the predecessor to the modern pizza. Deliciously satisfying and delightfully rustic, Focaccia is a peasant food that is gaining notoriety in bistros and trendy restaurants alike.
This basic Focaccia is one of the easier bread doughs to make either using the conventional method or a bread maker using your dough setting. The end result is a bread with a wonderful crumb and lots of flavor. Add buttery artichoke, onions and garlic the the delicate bread and serve with a crisp salad for a like, satisfying lunch. [...]
It’s Lent and I wanted to bake some cookies. Honestly, I wanted something with chocolate but one of the people I would share with doesn’t eat chocolate during Lent so I decided, while it was still Winter, I would bake a Raisin and Walnut Bar Cookie.
After thinking it through I remembered she doesn’t like raisins and is allergic to walnuts. Sifting through dozens of recipes I realized most of my cookies are chocolaty or contained an ingredient I did not have in the pantry. I did find a new package of dried cranberries and my raisin bar recipe just became Cranberry Bars. [...]
 I don’t think I had ever eaten bagel until I was an adult, at least not a memorable one. When I was a kid, living in our small town, the only bagels available were in the “special” section of the frozen food case. There were maybe three packages of “plain” or “egg” bagels at the end of the food case. It wasn’t until the Silvers moved onto our block I never knew anyone who actually ate them.
As an adult I started seeing “fresh” bagels in the bread section of our supermarket and loved them. I could choose plain, egg or onion and once I toasted them and spread a half-pound of cream cheese on them they were to die for. Later, Mia and I encountered a Noah’s Bagels whilst at a seminar in Portland, OR; The incredible bagels at Noah’s were huge, chewy and topped with an enormous amount of deliciousness. I was hooked. [...]
Focaccia is a wonderful, Italian bread which is a perfect light meal or a compliment to salad, soup, cheese or a roasted vegetable tray. Great as an appetizer and easy to prepare this savory bread fills the senses from the moment the bread begins to raise until it is doused with garlic and olive oil and baked. I imagine Focaccia as the predecessor to the modern pizza. Deliciously satisfying and delightfully rustic, Focaccia is a peasant food that is gaining notoriety in bistros and trendy restaurants alike [...]
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