Rachael from pizzarossa was our lovely June 2013 Daring Bakers’ host and she had us whipping up delicious pies in our kitchens! Cream pies, fruit pies, chocolate pies, even crack pies! There’s nothing like pie! 🙂
I think pies have to be tied with bread for being my favorite things to bake, so I was totally down with the challenge this month. Rachael required us to make all the pie pastry ourselves, and gave us four different kinds of pies to choose from this month: the infamous Crack Pie from Christina Tosi of the Momofuku Milk Bar (kind of like a massive buttertart or pecan pie (without the pecans) in an oatmeal cookie crust), the Italian crostata di marmellata (a jam-filled affair made with an Italian pie crust called pasta frolla), a sinful chocolate and caramel tart (with an egg yolk- and sugar-enriched pâté sablée crust), and a good old double crust fruit pie (with a tender, flaky pâté brisée). I ended up making a blackberry-maple crostata, a strawberry rhubarb pie with a buckwheat-sourdough pâté briseé, and a chocolate caramel tart with hazelnuts. The Crack Pie is on the menu for the next barbeque or gathering I am invited to!
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Baguettes have been on my to-do list for a long time, but the 
I’ve been making crêpes since I was a kid – they were one of the things along with cheese sauce (for macaroni) and chocolate sauce (for ice cream) that I learned to make without a recipe. My mum called them “
While I’ve definitely made my fair share of regular chocolate chip cookies, the reverse chocolate chip cookie – that is, chocolate dough studded with white chocolate chips – has eluded me. Until now.
Last weekend I spent a few days on 
This is a cookie recipe that I came up with when I was about 12 years old, and I tell ya, I was onto something! It’s been a while since I last made them but they’re just as good as I remember: buttery, chewy oatmeal cookies with a hint of caramel from brown sugar, loaded with chocolate chips, nuts, and dried fruit. They are thick and almost cake-like in the middle, and thin, lacy, and crisp around the edges. Seriously delicious.
This is the only cornbread I’ve ever made, but it’s so awesome I’ve never felt the need to try another recipe, so it automatically gets the “favorite” label. Plus it’s made in a cast iron skillet, which is my favorite pan.
Summer is almost here, I can feel it. The first half of May was a big tease, followed by nothing but cold and rainy disappointment, but I have high hopes for June. So far it’s been pretty nice and we’re been doing a lot of barbecuing to take advantage of the warm evenings. Which brings me to probably the most well-known item of the summer barbeque: the hamburger. Many people go to great lengths to doctor up the beef patty, but in this case, I decided to focus my energy on the bun instead. It was a good idea!
While perusing the delicious brownie and blondie offerings from 
Korena of 