Triple Chocolate Cream Scones

Before last week, I had never made scones before. In fact, I'm not even sure I'd even eaten a scone. In my mind, scones were a dry, stale pastry that people with no imagination ate along side their latte at Starbucks. Now don't ask me where that mental image came from, I haven't the slightest clue. But either way: scones! Light, fluffy, rich, delicious scones. And if that weren't enough, I threw in three types of chocolate as well.

Challah and Whole Wheat Lean Bread

I promised a few weeks ago that I would share some recipes for the breads that I learned in the first unit of pastry school. I've been a bit delinquent, but here are two:

1. Challah, on Cookkosher.com

 

2. Whole Wheat Lean Bread on The Nosh Pit at the Jewish Week

Follow the links for recipes and more, by yours truly. Happy baking!

Lime Macarons with Strawberry Curd Filling

French macarons are a terrifying dessert. You didn't think dessert could be terrifying, did you? Well they are. I just spent a week on them in pastry school, and I'm still not sure I mastered them. I mean, I'm quite sure I didn't. Have I scared you yet? OK well relax, you really can make them, if you follow the instructions to a T and don't mind the occasional imperfection. Better yet - if you eat the occasional imperfection. So you too can tackle lime macarons with strawberry curd filling! (P.S. read to the end of the post for a cute bonus!)

Pecan Tartlets

Y'all are lucky I'm in pastry school. See, until now, you've gotten recipes chock full of things I love, like chocolate, coconut, raspberry and... chocolate. Since I rarely bake things I don't like, you haven't seen really any nuts (except ground), mangoes, coffee or marshmallows. But when you go to pastry school, you don't get a whole lot of say in what you make, so despite my distaste for them, we made pecan pies last week.