Standing at my stove, flipping crêpes for my kids, I wonder why they have garnered the reputation of elegant and poised, while the poor American pancake is relegated to delicious, but lowly brunch food. Is it simply the air that all French foods bring along with them? The sense that, because a country made most…
Category: Dessert
Spanish Churros
Churros. The delightfully crispy on the outside and pillowy soft on the inside snack. Many cultures around the world have their version of fried dough. Fritter, cruller, doughnut, beignet, porra, youtiao, elephant’s ear, funnel cake, and buñuelo are just a few examples. There are also many different versions of churros across the globe. Churros in…
Sweet Orange Rolls
We made these rolls during our Outstanding Orange course. There is something so delightful about a sweet roll. The whole house smells amazing, they are so soft and sweet, and the it’s almost impossible to wait for them to come out of the oven. That being said, I don’t have time to wait hours for…
Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
Use this to top our Vanilla Cupcakes. This is a great, easy to accomplish, recipe for chefs starting out in baking. Make sure it is thin enough to be easy for them to pipe (if you are going that route). If you need to thin it a bit, just dump it all back into the…
Classic Vanilla Cupcakes
These cupcakes are a classic crowd-pleaser. There are so many skills to learn when making cupcakes. You have to cream butter and sugar together, scoop and swipe your flour, make a proper buttercream without over mixing, and then pipe that buttercream onto your gorgeous, fluffy cupcakes. There is not much that excited a room full…
Vanilla Madeleines
This recipe was used during our Cakes Course last year. I had such fun picking out perfect tiny cakes that we could make in the hour and a half classes. Bake time can be quite constricting for cooking classes. I am so glad this led to a deep dive on madeleines and madeleine baking for…
Sheet Pan Peach Cobbler
I developed this recipe out of a need for a quicker, out of season peach cobbler for our Outstanding Orange course. We only have an hour and a half from start to finish, which can be tricky when baking with 10 student chefs. Often cobblers will have you bake it for 45 minutes to an…
Sugar Cookie Fruit Tarts
I still have vivid memories of eating a fruit tart for the firsts time. My mom and I had traveled to the larger city near us for a soccer tournament, and we went out to eat at La Madeline with a few friends from the team. Because we were with other people, I was allowed…
Chocolate Pomegranate Drops
These little chocolate bites remind me of something you can get from a large store in the individual packaged snack aisle. I like that I am creating less plastic and it’s a fun activity for the kids! They will know what a pomegranate looks like and how to get the arils out. For older kids,…
Lemon Custard Tarts
Frozen puff pastry is one of the greatest gifts ever given to the home cook. With very little effort, we can include our kids in the making of extremely fancy feeling desserts. I keep some in the freezer almost all the time, especially during the summer when we often have last minute get togethers. When…
Lemon Creme Patissiere
If this sounds too technical for you to attempt with your kids, don’t be fooled! We made this in a class designed for 8-11 year olds, and I would bet most kids within that range can easily make this with light adult supervision. If you aren’t familiar with creme patissiere, it is basically fancy French…
Easy Strawberry Shortcakes
This shortcake recipe takes my super easy 2-ingredient biscuit and adds a little sugar and lemon zest to perk them up. We macerate the strawberries to pull out their juice and make the whole mess syrupy. Let that sit and get juicy while you bake up some fluffy, crispy biscuits, and then get ready for…
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