2018 was the year of the Focaccia. Outside of a couple of different types of cinnamon rolls, bread baking wasn’t really on my radar. Then, my brother turned into a bread-making savant and I took class on pizza-making. Automatically hooked. Bread making is supremely satisfying. You start with simple ingredients of flour, water, yeast and salt and along with a bit of patience and end up with something quite amazing. …
Sweet. Potato. Biscuits. I need them in my life way more often. Growing up in Charleston, you would think that these were on the menu all the time. But I honestly don’t ever recall my grandmother making sweet potato biscuits. Sweet Potato Pie- definitely! Sweet Potato Biscuit- Nope. When my bestie got married in Charleston almost 9 years ago she served sweet potato biscuits at her reception. I can’t remember anything else about the food at the wedding, but those Sweet Potato Biscuits were everything. …
Ever have browning bananas in the fruit bowl with a plan to make banana bread? This happens to me frequently. Good intentions- I always have them. Even still, a lot of times those bananas end up in the trash. This particular week, my husband was throwing not so subtle shade about what should happen with those bananas. “What could we possibly do with these bananas besides turn them in to compost? If only there was someone in the house with the talent to turn these bananas into anything else?” Did I mention my husband is a lobbyist? Yeah, he does that shit to me too. So after several hypothetical questions posed out loud, I made this healthy banana bread. But instead of my normal recipe, I lightened them up a bit. …
DO NOT TRY TO MAKE A KING CAKE OVERNIGHT. Leave that sh*t to the professionals! I thought that since a king cake is essentially a cinnamon roll that I could abide by the normal– slow rise in the fridge overnight. Let me tell you what happened. …
{Progress Posts are a chance for me to look back and acknowledge my baking development. For these posts, I won’t share a recipe, but I might discuss a technique or strategy behind my baking. In an “insta perfect” world, I think it’s important to show the completely failures and the resulting growth from the lessons learned. }
12 years ago (it feels just like yesterday), Jamie and I spent a week in Paris. It was my first time out of the country. We did all of the “touristy’ things: the Louvre, Eiffel Tower, etc. But what I remember the most was the little patisserie around the corner from our low-budget hotel. I ate a plain croissant from that patisserie every single day. It was a carb/bread-lover’s dream. …
Bread bowls are the best bowls. It’s a win -win. I have bread and a bowl and there are fewer dishes to wash. What’s not to love? Clearly, I am not going to be starting the Keto diet any time soon. How many people in your life are doing Keto? It’s literally everywhere. Someone began to tell me what you can’t eat and I stopped them pretty quickly and asked them to tell me what they CAN eat, things went much faster then. Big props if you can stop eating carbs and fruit, seriously. I just love bread too much y’all and fruit (also known as pie)….
These are the best biscuits in the world. They aren’t made with buttermilk or even butter. These are the best biscuits because they are the ones my grandma made for me growing up in her tiny Ladson, South Carolina kitchen. When I was maybe 8 or 9 years old we moved in with my grandma. I would come home from school and she would be in the kitchen making dinner– usually stewed chicken with carrots and potatoes, white rice, and if she had time, biscuits. She made dinner every single day and my cousins (who were much older) would drop by from whatever they were doing and grab a plate of food….
Any decent southern baker has a cornbread recipe. And every southern baker has an opinion about whether or your not sugar belongs in cornbread. Team Sugar, over here. Cornbread made in a cast iron is a staple. It’s iconic. It’s a classic. I’ve made this particular recipe so many times that I have it memorized. …
Did you do all of your holiday shopping online this year? I am usually the person who figures out exactly the last moment Amazon can deliver before Christmas. Then I wait until that very last minute to order gifts. Amazon isn’t as reliable as they used to be. “Two Day Shipping” sometimes means a week. So this year I went old school and actually went shopping. In person. At the mall. It wasn’t the sea of humanity that I’d remembered. Yes, the parking lot was a travesty, but overall it wasn’t that bad. In some ways it felt festive. People standing in lines to purchase Buy One Get One Free merchandise. everything at Gymboree was on sale. People out and about trying to make some Christmas magic happen for their loved ones. …
My baking is mostly based on whim, which I admit is weird, but I really just bake whatever comes to mind. Not a whole lot of curating happening over here. I like a challenge and when I have time to dig in, I do. For whatever reason, when it comes to baking I am 100% confident that whatever I try will work out the first time, which almost never happens, but nevertheless I persist. The beautiful brioche doughnuts you see here, took out how to took a ton of research and three attempts to get just right. As usual, the third time was the charm…
