Finger in the Pudding

How the Muffin Crumbles…

Contrary to the above title, this is not a blog post about what to do when your muffins bake up dry and crumbly (though I’d suggest you repurpose them into crunchy bits for topping). Rather, it’s simply a meditation on improvisational weekend baking motivated by nothing more than my insatiable appetite for carbs, more often…

Just roll with it…or my (holey) bagel obsession

Anyone who follows my Instagram feed knows I’ve become a little obsessed lately with making bagels. No, I haven’t completely abandoned baking other forms of carbs–last night I experimented with steamed buns filled with flavored custards–but I just can’t seem to stop making bagels. It’s probably a phase, I know. I get fixated on perfecting…

Winter Citrus…or my lemony post-holiday adventures

Yes, I know. How can anyone think about baking once January rolls around, having waddled our way past the last holiday buffet? Aren’t we all supposed to be “cleansing” our systems…sipping hot lemon water instead of peppermint macchiatos in the morning? I guess if chugging lemon water all day makes you feel better, I say…

How the cookie crumbles…or the challenges of holiday baking

I made it through Thanksgiving this year with nary a scrape. Quite an accomplishment considering the near-disastrous mishap with my knee back in October. I limped my way back to bake again! Not only did I manage to crank out two pies for dessert–delightfully airy pumpkin chiffon and a zippy riff on the classic lemon…

(Baker) Down Time…or when life forces you to fall back.

You know how we used that phrase “spring forward, fall back” to remind us to set our clocks an hour forward in the spring and an hour back in the fall? Well, I took the “falling back” part literally…as in twisting my knee and falling back on my bum coming down some janky (as in…

A Trip Down the Spice Road…or what I learned at work.

One of the great perks of my job as a content editor for Serious Eats, which I’ve come to appreciate lately, is that I get paid to read food articles and recipes for a living. Imagine that! Granted, I don’t find all the content fascinating. I mean I love pizza, but there are just so…

Great Newton! When fruit and cake become a breakfast snack.

If you’ve read my previous posts, you know I love snacks…particularly afternoon tea snacks. I don’t discriminate between fancy (finger sandwiches and mini pastries) and casual (cookies and crackers)–I’ll happily eat them all. Long before I learned how to bake my own treats, I satisfied my after-school snack cravings with a plethora of pre-packaged cookies….

Foraging for Inspiration..or freezer deep dive

Invariably after every bake sale, I’m left with a hodgepodge of odds and ends I can’t seem to bring myself to toss out–call it the “Chinese hoarding instinct” (oh, it’s real people)–forcing me to play freezer Jenja until a frozen quart container drops on my foot or bonks me on the head, violently knocking me…

And now we return to our regularly scheduled programming…

I’m back from my self-imposed hiatus…sort of. I know I’ve been M.I.A. from the blog for several weeks. I’ve got a good reason. You see, I’ve finally found a full-time job! No, I don’t mean in a kitchen–that professional chapter has more or less run its course sadly. My body (specifically my poor feet, ankles,…

Recipes tell a story of my life

My bookcase is crammed full of books covering essentially one subject: food. More than 60% are cookbooks, the rest a combination of reference books, memoirs by food writers like M.F.K. Fisher, Anthony Bourdain, Ruth Reichl, and Nigel Slater. I should clarify that when I say my bookcase, I mean the big tall one that dominates…