I’ll warn you now, as if you couldn’t have already guessed, I make rich Danishes. I can’t help it, it’s how I learned. Not only did the bakers that taught me employ that classic, buttery layered dough, they managed to work an additional layer of vanilla buttercream into almost every Danish we made (and that’s […]
READ ONHere’s a nice Danish-style pastry dough that works as well for coffee cakes as it does for Danishes. And mark my words, this tastes as close to the real thing as we can get in the States. A mighty viking woman I once had the honor of knowing (until, sadly, she died two years ago) […]
READ ONThere are a few of you out there who’ve been waiting a long time for me to get back around to this topic. Finally, I’ve carved out a little time to actually do it properly: Danishes.
READ ONA rather odd little detour for a pastry blog, don’t you think? Yet I think it’s a helpful distinction to remember these days, when overheated rhetoric about agricultural practices and land use are driving everybody ’round the bend. Personally, I think you’d be hard pressed to find anyone, anywhere in the world these days who […]
READ ONA reader and very good friend wrote in yesterday to ask: Hi [Joe], With the Kentucky connection and the food/farming focus, I’m just curious what you think about this interview: http://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/391/digging_in The man featured in the interview is of course the irreplaceable Wendell Berry; farmer, poet, essayist and Kentuckian who lives roughly an hour east […]
READ ONFor those of you who find it impossible to believe that tomatoes can work as a sweet, I urge you to try this recipe. Not just because it’s delicious, but because it unfailingly simmers down to just the right consistency…no need to check for “gelling” like you do with standard fruit jams. Believe me, you […]
READ ONGet creative with how you serve it! My original intention with this series of ice cream posts was to get into cone (and other ice cream vehicle) making. However I’ve run my fingers long enough on this topic — it’s time to move on! I’ll save ice cream carriers for another day…but thought I’d at […]
READ ONVanilla is the world’s second-most expensive spice? It is, the number one honors going to saffron.
READ ONReal vanilla beans are so expensive (though thankfully less so than they were a few years ago, after a typhoon wiped out most of the Madagascar vanilla crop), that you want to be absolutely certain that you’re getting freshness and quality when you set out to buy them. Good, fresh vanilla beans should not only […]
READ ONThe weekend’s mailbag contained this interesting question from regular reader and commentator Hans Fugal: You brought up vanilla (briefly) which reminded me of a thought I’ve been entertaining. I heard about vanilla sugar at http://www.saunalahti.fi/~marian1/gourmet/i_vanill.htm and started working the math in my head. A couple of beans will make a jar full of vanilla sugar, […]
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