Ever have one of those conversations when someone absolutely puts their finger on the pulse of a universal experience? Phil Jones did that for me in his email last week: “When using cinnamon, e.g., for French Toast, how do you get it to blend in nicely, instead of floating on top of the mixture, and/or making an unmixed coating on the bowl at the edge of the liquid?”

My reaction was visceral: “He is SO right!” Is there anything more annoying?

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Anatomy of a test run, chapter 1.

People contact us all the time looking for long-lost recipes. Not long ago we fielded an email from a customer who was looking to re-create a collection of family recipes. They’d found sources for everything on their list but a recipe called Tweedies, and wanted to know if we could help. (more…)

After my first attempt at bar Tweedies, I did a little cogitating. I knew I had to back off the baking powder for sure. I also realized it was time to use some common sense about the middle layer, and make a confectioners’ sugar frosting that would just plain behave itself. Finally, I wondered what kind of brownie-like proportions could be brought to bear on the base layers, to get something more moist, that would read more like a bar cookie. (more…)

If the rest of the country has a picture of as Vermonters, it probably involves Birkenstocks on our feet, flannel on our backs, and traces of cow manure on our shoes.

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This afternoon our Listen Center community service team is in full swing. (more…)

The last recipe where I tested Granulated Splenda and Clabber Girl Sugar Replacer yielded some of the most dramatic effects. (more…)

After putting Splenda Granular and Clabber Girl Sugar Replacer through their paces with sugar cookies, it was time to move on to muffins.

I used our Simplest Muffins recipe, with the addition of some diced apricots and cranberries for an accent.

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We’ve all heard how overweight we are as a nation. The incidence of diabetes in this country is disturbingly high and headed upward all the time. It’s not surprising that we get a lot of requests from bakers within days of their last doctor’s visit asking for help.
I hear from Baking Sheet subscribers all the time, looking for ways to make healthier, lower calorie recipes. So I decided to do some homework. (more…)

Time to introduce you to the other two baking wizards in the test kitchen. Sue Gray and Monte Petersen perform a very special kind of alchemy every day. They imagine textures and flavors, then bring a fantastic array of ingredients to bear to make those ideas come true. It happens step by step, with all kinds surprising twists along the way. (more…)

Ever make a batch of pizza dough, tip it out of the mixing bowl or bread machine, and have a semi-rectangular blob that completely refuses to be rearranged to anything resembling a circle? Here’s a tip we taught our line cooks in the restaurants I’ve run. (more…)