With so many choices available, I keep a wide selection of flours in my kitchen. Unbleached all-purpose white, whole wheat, cake flour, and even gluten-free. And then there’s pastry flour. But just what is pastry flour? And when should you use it instead of reaching for one of the other flours? Pastry flour has a…
Sweet or savory, puff pastry can be used in a wide variety of recipes. Crisp and light, a puff pastry should rise to several times its thickness, resulting in many layers of flaky dough. But as with practically anything in the kitchen, sometimes, things can go wrong. Either with how you make the pastry or…
No matter what time of year it is, it’s always a great time for pastry! Whether it’s a delicious berry tart, a delicate pastry with custard cream, or a lattice apple pie, they’re all favorites to my family. But to make any of those treats, you need the perfect dough. This is where things can…
You want to make a perfect pie crust. You read the recipe, you measure and mix and everything is looking great. Then, you go to roll the dough out on your work surface, and it just falls apart. The dough is no longer a nicely blended mass but instead a pile of crumbly pieces. You dejectedly…
While it may seem strange to think about baking pastry without an oven, there are many reasons to do so. Maybe you don’t want to turn your entire oven on and heat up the whole house in the summertime. Maybe you want to bake as they did in the days before modern ovens. Or maybe…
Cakes and pastries. Whether home-made or bought from a store or bakery, forms of these sweet treats can be found in cultures across the globe – it seems that the soft spot we have for them is universal. You are not alone however if you have ever wondered what the difference is exactly between cakes…