Pastry chef Pierre Hermé did a masterclass during the holiday baking season, demonstrating his recipe for Viennese Shortbreads or Sablés Viennois. This simple cookie looks fancy just by the way the dough is piped onto the sheet pan. In his Instagram Live here, he shows different ways to pipe the shortbread but my favorites are in the above photo.
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I’m excited to share the banana bread recipe, from Chef Dominique Ansel’s new cookbook Everyone Can Bake. It’s the follow up to his debut book, The Secret Recipes, which featured many of his signature bakery items. I made the Cronut, Frozen S’more and Cookie Shots, but the recipes were definitely more technically involved. In his latest offering, the recipes are geared for the home cook, which is very appropriate during this pandemic. He shares takes on classics including pound cake, banana bread, brownies and more. I like how the book is structured. There are base, filling and topping recipes, and within each of those, he offers easy tweaks. Ultimately, I decided to top mine with streusel.
I have been wanting to try Flour Bakery’s sticky buns recipe. I first discovered the iconic pastry watching an episode of Throwdown with Bobby Flay and Chef Joanne Chang won. I have yet to visit the Boston bakery, so, until then, this recipe will give me a taste of what I’m missing.
Dumpling making is the perfect weekend activity. Grab a friend, set up an assembly line and put on your favorite music. I enlisted my mom to help. She made Chinese food while I was growing up, so naturally, she had some thoughts about what should go in the filling. She helped with the seasoning and I added all the stuff (Lots of green onions! Mushrooms!). The resulting recipe is a hybrid of our experimentation.
