Miscellaneous Baking

Gar, is this good! Nippy cheddar, a packet of dry cheddar powder from a pantry box of Mac ‘N Cheese, beer, Dijon and a shot of Tabasco make these the perfect foil to holiday cocktails, ale, or simply Perrier and cranberry juice. If you slice thin shavings of the log and bake it the second time to crisp – the shavings do nicely as crostini (instead of dry toasts). I used a sharp Vermont Cabot Cheddar for these gift-able, savoury biscotti www.CabotCreamery.coop

A light, sweet and buttery, easy yeast pastry dough that looks European gorgeous and isn't detained by a trans Atlantic flight stall. All you add is a touch of sugar, a smidge of butter, top with diced apricots and wow! If this is Tuesday, this must be Belgium all right. This is delicate, easy, and tastes like someone flew it in from a European bakery before you got up this morning. It is one for the books. It is sophisticated but as easy as brownies, and just nice to do something different but pleasing.

These are extraordinary waffles (now inducted in my new cookbook, When Bakers Cook, 2013) Make the batter an hour ahead or preferably overnight to have waffles the next morning. These bake up deep golden, buttery and with crisp exteriors featuring a  soft, almost pudding-like interior. Great with maple syrup or topped with whipped cream, or ice-cream and fresh strawberries. Waffles are special so make sure you invest in a waffle maker that lasts a lifetime and is only as pretty as it is high-performing. The BB Test kitchen relies on our All Clad Waffle maker, www.All-Clad.com

This dough, made with shortening and butter, yields a light, cookie-like pastry which is similar to the hamantashen you might expect to find in a commercial bakery. If you require a dairy free dough, simply use all shortening or non-dairy margarine (instead of butter and shortening). Apricot filling follows. You can fill these with prune, poppy, or sour cherry filling (recipes in Archives) but this to me, is the quintessential Purim pastry and an argument for serving hamantashen all year.

Easy to handle, and adaptable to all sorts of handling and additions (miniature chocolate chips, different extracts, finely ground nuts, spices, etc.) this is another 'little black dress' of cookie recipes to have around. If you want a really sandy texture, use a small proportion of shortening to replace the butter.This does double duty as an Xmas or Hanukah cut out cookie.

This handy scratch mix tastes terrific and delivers a wallop of breakfast nutrition.  Pack up some extra mix in a pretty jar and you have a instant housewarming gift - don't forget to include the recipe.  Although the recipe calls for some seemingly exotic ingredients (malt powder) the final result is a perfectly balanced pancake and waffle mix that a Vermont Bed and Breakfast would be proud to serve. Incidentally, malt seems to be the secret ingredient of the commercial pancake and waffle makers.

If you want a dough that is a joy to work with, this one egg pastry is a must. The recipe yields a large batch of easy-to-work with pie dough - flaky but trouble free rolling and handling. Lemon juice tenderizes the dough a tad, and the inclusion of an egg adds a bit more body, flavor, and assists with browning but is optional.. I actually prefer all butter for its incomparable taste but the part vegetable shortening, part butter approach makes for a flakier texture. Do opt for the no trans fats Crisco -it works as well as regular and is better nutritionally. This is a perfect pastry for almost any filling, from apple pie, to pumpkin pie to quiche. It handles like a dream. Makes enough dough for 2 9 inch double pie crusts plus one 8-9 inch single crust pies. Use half the recipe right away and freeze the other half.

A classic treat - any time.Use a small to medium sized apple. I  use red food coloring and tart, hard MacIntosh apples. Green food coloring pairs up with Granny Smith apples for another spin on this Halloween favorite. Opt for  food coloring in paste form (most kitchen shops sell this) for a more vibrant color. Your friendly local florist should have just the right cello paper to wrap each apple individually - which is the final professional touch of these treats.  Make these classic (no flavor, just sugar coating) or flavor them with cinnamon, vanilla, strawberry or cherry, with extracts and/or oils from www.boyajianinc.com.

You can use pre-cooked lasagna or par boil regular lasagna. If you can find a more ambrosial tasting lasagna, please share it. It is lite, has an additive garlic bechamel going on, and makes use of surplus zucchini. This is sumptuous and despite the steps it takes: easy; despite the rich flavor – it is also somewhat lower fat. Using zucchini thus saves you from one more zucchini bread. Spinach can also be used in this recipe with the zucchini or instead of (steam, drain and chop it fine).