When you think of tea and the English do you think of a large Manor House with immaculately groomed lawns, ladies in long dresses and hats and gentlemen standing behind them? The High Tea of Downton Abbey! I think of a roadside sign on a back road leading to a charming cottage with a few tables set out on a rose flanked patio. The sign simply reads “Cream Tea”. Cream Tea is a summer institution in the United Kingdom. Cream Teas can be found at the best restaurants and in small tea shops. They are available in cities and in the countryside. They are most common in Devonshire and ...
Breads and Pastries
HIGH TEA: VICTORIA SANDWICH CAKE
It’s time for the finale of my Great British Baking Show Competition and I am knee deep in flour, butter, sugar and eggs. I have one day to prepare three different elements of a classic British High Tea: Victorian Sandwich Cake, French Tarte Au Citron and Scones. Up to now I have not worried about the time requirement of each challenge but since I know how to make each of these items already I thought it would be interesting to try making them in the same time allotted to the contestants: five hours. Pastry dough for the tarts is made and resting in the fridge and I turn next to ...
DONUT JOY: MAPLE GLAZED WITH BACON OR CHOCOLATE GLAZED WITH NUTS?
Sweet and Salty Maple Glazed Donuts with Bacon Bits or Satisfyingly Rich Dark Chocolate Ganache Glazed Donuts with Crunchy Pecans, there is something for everyone here! In the beginning, donuts came in three varieties: filled with strawberry jam, coated in powdered sugar or sparkling with bright crystals of cane sugar. My favorite was, and still is, the jelly donut. Its soft pillowy exterior hides a blob of sticky red jam making each bite an adventure. Sugar donuts are also a favorite. When I was a child, my mother would cut the centers out of Pillsbury Poppin Fresh Biscuits, fry them and ...
ECLAIRS
Crisp and airy pate a choux shells are filled with vanilla or raspberry cream then covered with luscious chocolate ganache for two takes on the Classic Eclair. This is the year that time slowed down. Spring creeps ever so slowly across the landscape. Warm days are followed by cold and frost and my winter clothes have not yet rested safely in the back of my closet. Day follows day with extraordinary sameness broken only by the question of what the Great British Baking Show will ask me to make next. Truthfully, it seems like that show will never come to an end either! But it is coming ...
BRITISH BAKING SHOW BREAD WEEK: CIABATTA (NOT-AH)
Two days ago, I went for a walk and I found myself thinking about making Ciabatta Bread as a metaphor for living life by oneself in quarantine and maintaining a good mood. You start with the dough, which takes a lot more yeast than most other dough and you don’t add a lot of flour so it’s a very wet dough. Then you let it rise. And in spite of all that yeast it takes a long time to rise because you can’t put it in a proofing drawer or even in a warm place. It needs to rise slowly at room temperature. Eventually it doubles (or triples!) in size and you are ready to form the ...
WHEN LIFE GETS CHALLENGING, CHALLENGE IT BACK! BLUEBERRY COFFEE CAKE
Challenge yourself to make a beautiful blueberry filled coffee cake! Recipes for using cans of beans and other imaginative things to do with pantry staples are not really my thing. And there are a lot of much better chefs out there who are creating and sharing those kinds of recipes for you. I am working on the assumption that the cooks among you are looking for projects, something to stretch your mind and talents and hopefully result in something fun to eat (#gettingfatfromcoronovirus). Starting next week, I am replaying one episode from the Great British Baking Show, Season One and ...
IF I CAN MAKE A FRUIT TART, YOU CAN MAKE A FRUIT TART
An elegant fruit tart is easy to make with this recipe. The cookie crust and quick custard support the fruit design of your choice! The first time I tried to make a fruit tart was 37 years ago. I lived in Paris and I was eager to try all kinds of cooking. I know exactly when it was because I still have the recipe written down in the notebook I was using at the time. It was from the August 1983 issue of Bon Appetit and it was called Crème Brulee Tart Jimmy. It consisted of a pastry shell, baked and brushed with chocolate, then topped with blackberries and custard. It was finished with a ...
READY FOR THE BIG LEAGUE? FETA CHEESE ROLLS
Up to now, we’ve been making bread the easy way—as a quick bread. But it’s time to step up our game and make a yeasty bun filled with a lovely herb, feta and cream cheese filling. Hey, come back here! There’s no reason to run away from baking bread with yeast! There used to be, back in the day before stand mixers with dough hooks and instant-read thermometers. But life is a lot easier now. The only thing that hasn’t changed is the time it takes to make it. These lovely cheese-stuffed rolls take about two to two and a half hours to make. Most of that time is devoted to letting the ...
A CONFLUENCE OF EVENTS: CHEDDAR-PECAN BREAD
Fresh Dill, Sharp Cheddar Cheese and Nutty Pecans combine to make a savory quick bread that is perfect for a winter day. There are two things I know: Never go shopping on an empty stomach, and The best time to read a cookbook is when you are hungry. Both of these things grow from the same stem. Because when you are hungry everything looks good to eat! I have been traveling a lot since January and while I’m not complaining (really!) it does mean that I have fallen behind a bit on cooking for my blog. But now I am home and I have been itching to get back into cooking and ...
BROWN BUTTER SAGE APPLE BREAD
Forsaking the traditional cinnamon flavoring, this quick bread uses the savory flavors of Browned Butter and Sage for a fresh take on Apple Bread. October is here. I am not sorry to say good-bye to September. My September was pretty eventful: from hurricanes to a wedding to a funeral, it pretty much spanned every type of stress. As a friend put it to me recently, I have been living in a deep end of emotion. Which might explain my obsession with baking these days. Homemade muffins and breads, pies and cookies, cakes and desserts, they all speak to me of comfort and stability. So ...
