Hello peeps and welcome to your extremely informative and very snackable late January newsletter. I’ve had a relatively slow start to the new year. I turned in the first pass of the manuscript for my new easy-peasy savory baking book (which hits shelves on 9/23/24!!) at the beginning of the month; worked on a couple of recipes for the Washington Post that I will share with you once they are live (spoiler alert: the recipes are both for cheesecake of the burnt variety - but one is baked in the oven and one in an air fryer); and the Cherry Bombe team and I have begun to lay out the first season of the second year of She’s My Cherry Pie (my baking podcast, in case you missed the memo). The line-up this season is so darn good (I mean, okay, you’re right, it’s always good) and I can’t wait to begin interviewing all the fab bakers and going deep with them on their signature bakes. On the off chance you have not subscribed to the pod (hip lingo for “podcast”) and happen to dig baking, might I suggest you do so?
I’ve also spent a little time recently setting up my Amazon “shop.” Now, I know not everyone is an Amazon fan, and I, too, have some ambivalent Jeff Bezos feelings, but it is a super easy place to create a “store” where you all can check out all my fave baking tools and I think that’s kind of cool . . . yes, I get a small commission if you buy something from my “store” (as it were) but you can also just see what I like, and then go buy it elsewhere - that’s super cool, too, IMHO.
Alright, now it is time to talk recipes and wowza, do I ever have a treat - okay three treats - for you. Essentially I am sharing a few recipes with you today that I wrote for the Washington Post in 2023. And I picked these particular ones (as opposed to some of the other fab recipes I developed for WaPo this past year) because they all ended up on the Post’s Top 10 Baking Recipes of 2023 list - which is of course all sorts of thrilling, etc.
The first recipe is for Cream Biscuits. Cream biscuits are made without butter, but shockingly, not only do you not miss the butter, but the richness and flavor the cream imparts is pretty addictive - like maybe “never-make-biscuits-with-butter-again” addictive. And they couldn’t be easier to make. The recipe for them perfectly illustrates the definition of a snackable bake: a short ingredient list of pantry-friendly ingredients, assembled in 20 minutes or less (in this instance we’re talking five) and requiring nothing more than a bowl, a whisk, and a spatula.
1 cup (130 grams) all-purpose flour
1 cup (120 grams) cake flour
1 1/2 tablespoons granulated sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon fine salt
1 1/2 cups (340 grams) heavy cream
Egg wash
1 large egg
1/8 teaspoon fine salt
Heat the oven to 425°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Whisk the flours, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Pour in the cream and stir with a flexible spatula until no loose flour remains. Scoop the dough into 9 biscuits, using a ¼ cup portion scoop or measuring cup, and evenly space them on the prepared pan. Whisk the egg and salt together in a small bowl and brush over the biscuits.
Bake for 20 minutes, rotating at the halfway point, until the tops and bottoms of the biscuits are nicely browned. Let them cool on the baking sheet for about 5 minutes before serving with loads of salted butter and jam. Biscuits are best eaten warm, soon after they are made, but will keep tightly wrapped on the counter for up to 3 days.
The second recipe of mine that just happened to be one of WaPo’s top 10 of 2023, is for my Cinnamon Pull-Apart Muffins. These muffins are like mini monkey breads. They call for the above mentioned cream biscuit dough, but rather than scoop it and make drop biscuits with it, you knead the dough a bit, cut it into loads of little pieces, dunk the pieces in melted butter, roll them in cinnamon-sugar and then evenly divide them amongst your muffin tin cavities. Bake and voila. Deliciously adorable cinnamon sugar muffins are yours for the pulling.
Makes 12 muffins
Biscuit dough x1
For the cinnamon sugar coating
1 1/4 cups (250 grams) granulated sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter melted
Heat the oven to 425°F and line a 12 cup muffin tin with paper liners.
After assembling the biscuit dough, but before scooping it, dump it onto a generously floured work surface. Using a rolling pin, or your hands, shape it into a rectangle with the long side facing you. One at a time, fold the two short ends into the center of the rectangle, overlapping them, as you would when folding a letter. Reflour your work surface if things get sticky. Rotate the rectangle so the long side is again in front of you, roll the rectangle out again and repeat the folds twice more, for a total of 3 complete letter folds.
Roll the dough into a 12 x 12-inch rectangle and cut the dough into 64 pieces. Whisk the sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Roll each tiny piece into a ball, dunk them in the melted butter and then toss in the cinnamon-sugar mixture before evenly distributing them amongst the 12 cavities of the tin - you’ll have 4 left over pieces that you can add to any cavity that looks needy. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes until fragrant and set. Let rest briefly on a cooling rack, about 10 minutes before serving warm.
The muffins are best served warm, right after they are made, but will keep tightly wrapped on the counter for up to 3 days.
Finally, my Vanilla Texas Sheet Cake with Strawberry Glaze 100% needs to be shared with you and then baked by you. It is Texas Sheet Cake in format only (TSCs are large, single layer cakes, baked in half sheet pans), since typically a Texas Sheet Cake is chocolate. But this one is vanilla with the fruitiest and tangiest and fudgiest of crackly sweet frostings. The frosting of a TSC is always of the boiled variety and it is always poured over the cake when warm. And, it is always, always easy-peasy. Oh, and did I mention it would be fab for Valentine’s Day? Well, it would.
1 cup (226 grams) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 3/4 cups (350 grams) granulated sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract3/4 teaspoon almond extract
2 large eggs2 large egg yolks
1 2/3 cups (380 grams) buttermilk2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda1 teaspoon fine salt3 cups (375 g) all-purpose flour
For the glaze
1/3 cup (80 grams) evaporated milk, or regular whole milk
3/4 cup (169 grams) unsalted butter, cubed
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
3 cups (360 g) confectioners’ sugar, sifted
2/3 cup (14 grams) dehydrated strawberries, finely ground
Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees. Grease a 13x8x1-inch half-sheet pan with cooking spray or softened butter and line with parchment paper.
Whisk together the butter, sugar and extracts in a large mixing bowl. Whisk in the eggs and yolks, one at a time. Whisk in the buttermilk. Sprinkle the baking powder, baking soda and salt over the bowl, one at a time, whisking after each. Gently fold in the flour just until the last streak disappears.
Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and place in the oven. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 15 to 18 minutes, rotating the pan at the halfway point. Have ready the glaze ingredients while the cake is baking, so that you are ready to make it as soon as the cake is out of the oven.
Place the milk, butter and salt in a small saucepan and set the vanilla close by. Place the sugar in a large bowl. Once you remove the cake from the oven, set it on a cooling rack and place the saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally until the mixture just boils. Pour it over the sugar and whisk to combine. Whisk in the vanilla and freeze dried strawberries. Pour the warm frosting over the hot cake and spread it with an offset spatula. Allow to come to room temperature before slicing and serving.
Alrighty, folks, hope you enjoy these 3 top-tenners and see you in two (weeks). And just a reminder, if you like what you get every two weeks in my free newsletter, might I suggest you check out my paid one for an exclusive recipe from my new soon-to-be-pubbed cookbook each month, as well as loads o’new cookbook intel.
I'm on a very tight Senior budget, so simple meals are what I make. My equipment is mostly old, nested teaspoons and cups. If it's not broken, it never gets replaced. Pre-made spoils you as well as not being healthy.
Never learned grams. I am trying to relearn simple Southern Buttermilk Biscuits, and so far not one batch has been right. Disposed of all the leavening ingredients as they were pushing expiration dates. Replaced the store brand All Purpose with Lily White 100% Soft Winter Wheat which is expensive by comparison. I prefer real butter, instead of man-made shortenings. Followed the directions to the letter. They are flat or cake-like crumbly. What am I doing wrong? They are my budget-breaker favorites. My mom was the baker for her family, of 6 girls and 2 boys in the latter days of the Great Depression.
Did have to replace my 25-year-old hand mixer this year it finally broke.
Hey there - a quick question! In the Texas sheet cake, you call for dehydrated strawberries in the ingredient list, but specify freeze dried in the instructions. They are very different - dehydrated are almost gummy and wet, freeze dried are crunchy. Which form is the correct one? Please clarify. Thanks! I can't wait to try this.