A basket full of pastries sitting on top of a counter.

Brioche

04/19/2023

Brioche and croissant are both Viennoiserie (breakfast pastries) but the preparation is quite different. Croissant dough calls for multiple folds of a simple yeast dough and butter (lamination) for its distinctive flakiness, while Brioche owes its softness and tenderness to the butter and eggs that are added directly to the…

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pile of pain raisins on black plate

Pain aux Raisins

04/11/2023

Before opening my retail pastry shop in Vineyard Haven, I baked for an extended summer season out of the porch of my house in Chilmark. In addition to producing desserts for several island restaurants, a daily assortment of Viennoiseries came out of my commercial convection oven. While they were primarily…

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pain au chocolat on marble slab

Pain au Chocolat

04/05/2023

Pain au Chocolat combines two of the world’s best food creations; croissant and chocolate. Pastry shops use a 3-inch piece of chocolate, called a baton, for their pain au chocolat. For the home baker, slivers of chocolate cut from your favorite semi or bittersweet chocolate bar work fine. A warm…

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closeup croissants resting on wire rack

Croissant

04/05/2023

When someone would ask me to name my favorite thing to bake at my Martha’s Vineyard pastry shop Seven Layers, the answer was easy – Croissant. I absolutely loved the process of making croissant as well as the time of day they were produced. I would arrive at the shop…

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crème caramel with sauce on white plate

Crème Caramel

03/28/2023

Crème Caramel is a French baked custard that delights with a silky-smooth texture as well as the wonderful interplay of the caramel with the vanilla infused custard. The smooth texture is the result of its gentle baking in a water bath. The soft caramel on top is derived from lining…

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Hazelnut roulade 2

Hazelnut Cake Roll

03/23/2023

Quite a few years ago my middle brother and I were guests at a Seder hosted by a dear friend of our mother. Margaret was a lovely woman, an Austrian immigrant, very calm and soft-spoken, and the only one I knew growing up with concentration camp numbers emblazoned on her…

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Dacquoise 15

Dacquoise

03/16/2023

For this week’s blog I will discuss the process of designing, testing and refining a cake, from the overall design to the specifics of all the components. Constructing a Dacquoise had been on The Friday Baking Project do-list for some time and with my favorite roasted hazelnut flour around the…

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A pie with whipped cream on top of it.

Lemon Meringue Pie

03/07/2023

Lemon Meringue Pie is an American classic, and an easy choice for this year’s Pi Day (3/14) pie.  In the traditional recipe, where a small mountain of Basic Meringue is spread over a lemon filling, the ratio of meringue to filling is skewed too heavily toward the meringue. Additionally, while…

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