Croissant aux amandes(almond croissant). A cheater recipe made with croissants purchased at Costco. I had everything prepared the night before and it took very little time to put together this morning. Very rich but worth the calories
https://www.eatyourbooks.com/library/recipes/3100062/almond-croissants
Uh-oh, a PORK SHOULDER EMERGENCY!
I similarly have used Costco croissants for almond croissants, based on this Lune Croissanterie recipe
For desserts and especially cookies, I try to make a recipe once with ingredients as-listed, then reduce to taste. I appreciate hearing about recipe adjustments that people liked.
But for me, it gets tedious/irritating to wade through comments phrased simply as “too sweet”, or the almost religious-zealotry of those intent on converting others to anti-sugar views / ingredient substitutions.
It’s the difference between saying “We like our Tollhouse Chocolate Chip cookies with half the chips and nuts - more batter/to stir-ins for each cookie.” and just dropping a judgmental " too much chocolate" comment.
And for simple fruit pies/cobblers/crisps fillings I tend to use ones we already know we like, with a topping or crust variation from a new recipe, and I’ve noticed the ratio of sugar/fruit in the versions we like are usually lower than listed in older community cookbooks.
In the recipe i made you spread some of the frangipane on top and sprinkle almonds. I thought it would melt while baking but there was a nice baked layer on top. No dusting with icing sugar
Thanks. Enjoyed that video. Will be watching here to see any attempts. Looks delicious!
Would love a short list of your fav baking sites.
Black and blueberry pie. All the pies I’ve made but never blackberry - excellent.
After cutting had the perfect ”slump”.
Sunshine and I are going to a “Labor Day” cookout this afternoon and (as usual) I’m in charge of dessert. Last year I made a red, white and blue cake with three simple sections. In the end, it looked like the flag of France.
This year, I wanted to attempt to do better. Although this cake does not have 13 stripes or 50 stars, there is no way it will be mistaken for the French flag.
I have a lot of channels I love for baking:
Aya Caliva
Masayoshi Ishikawa
Joconde’s Baking
Calorie Restaurant
Old-Fashioned Bakery
Recetas de Esbieta (Cooking and baking. I love how unique the recipes she posts are and how well they work.)
Olga Shobytinskay
Bavette-Gastronomia
J’adore
Maison Olivia
Maison Kayser Academy
Claire Saffitz’s YouTube is also really good.
These are all more general and only a short list. There’s also ones that are more bread and sourdough- focused.
For blogs, I like Ruth Tam’s Cook Til Delicious and her substack, Baran Bakery, The Butter Lab, and some others, but admittedly I mostly stick to YouTube these days.
What a beauty.
A tiny olive focaccia this evening to accompany mom’s dinner.
I mixed bread dough with a little over a cup of flour (2/5 WW chapati atta 3/5 AP) and used 1/3 of it for the foccacia (the rest will become a baby boule in the next few days). Decided to chop up and mix in the olives to distribute the flavor. Topped with brine and olive oil.
The texture this time is really lovely, don’t know if mixing in the olives had anything to do with it, but the brine definitely did.
Thanks for the list of baking video blogs! These will be great for the upcoming winter “cabin fever” days.
Peach season is wrapping up so I made a final, full-sized “crispy peach cobbler” from Smitten Kitchen for our Labor Day cookout. This thing is so enormous! Four and a half pounds of peaches in there!
I told myself last time I would let the next one bake a little darker, and I wasn’t sorry I did that. Even crispier!
Thanks! I always stress over pies but with cakes and cookies I seem calmer.
And there is always the unpredictable consistency of the filling.
Wow! Thanks so much. All these new places to check out.
I enjoy your posts, so informative and descriptive.
Aw, thank you!
Erin Jeanne McDowell’s baby baguettes.
An Asian-pear and brandy cake from previous BCOTM Gateau. Apple jelly for the glaze.
I had some pineapple left, so I baked Flo Braker’s fresh pineapple crumble cake in my neighbors’ oven.
The recipe calls for 270 grams of “medium-sized pineapple chunks” and lists about 38 chunks to give an idea of size. This is something I would change as I feel pineapple in cakes is best in smaller pops, and I even cut somewhat smaller chunks based on the amount of pineapple I had.
The cake calls for ground hazelnuts, but I have none and hazelnuts are very seldom found in this town (and very expensive), so I used pecans, which I think are very nice with pineapple.
I contemplated cutting back the sugar in the streusel a bit, but since streusel with more sugar has a specific texture from the kind with more equal proportions, I left it alone. Well, outside of adding some cardamom because I think pineapple and cardamom are a perfect pairing. And also using salted butter.
I did cut an ounce of sugar from the cake and increased the salt to make it 3 grams. I also used more vanilla because pineapple and vanilla also go great together.
The cake is delicious and the only thing I wish for is daintier bits of pineapple.
I am hoping that you amazing bakers an help me with a couple of baking questions. I just returned from Europe, and I loved the nutty, seedy bread they had for breakfast in my hotel. I’d love to throw together a no knead version. I’m thinking using part ww flour, adding some sunflower seeds, but I’m not sure what else I can do to get the same effect. Any suggestions?
Second question: I have seen some people say that they’re adding malt powder to recipes for cakes, etc. I had never heard of this stuff, and can’t find it in the store. What is it? What are the rules? Does it taste milky or like beer? Sorry if these are very dumb questions.
Thanks for any help!
