Another lesson that life's mysterious, coincidental turnings follow you wherever you go. Via an odd chain of events we were invited to help a family here in St. Louis with their annual Christmas tradition: pierogi making. Seems their German-Polish Oma is 100 years old this year, and at long last just a bit too tired to make them. How do you say no to that? Oma had her (mother's) recipe committed to memory. Without her handy we had to put together our own (with many nods to family tradition, obviously). The end result was great. Recipe and photos up shortly ..read more

I’m not saying I’m writing a book, but I’m not NOT saying I’m writing a book, which is actually a change in my stance toward book writing. Scores of readers have asked me to write a cookbook over the years, and my answer is always the same: nobody wants cookbooks. Publishers especially don’t want cookbooks, because they never make any money on them. Not unless the cookbook’s author has a big TV show, a well-known food column, a cooking school, or a chain of restaurants, and even then the books by those people don’t generate much revenue. There are one or two exceptions to this rule, Dorie Gree ..read more

Oak Park, Illinois is a regular destination for the Pastry clan, especially around the holidays. While there we never pass up an opportunity to stop at The Book Table, one of the handful of independent bookstores still left in the Chicago area. All of us love browsing the crowded stacks, and how often do you get the chance to actually handle a book before you buy it these days? I sure miss that in the age of Amazon, particularly when it comes cookbooks. I also miss discovering a gem versus being served it via algorithm. On which note, I practically fell over when I saw this: the reissued (and ..read more

It seems like every holiday season we have some sort of tech issue. I’m not sure if it’s related to heavy use or just gremlins. Either way, thanks to the concerned readers out there who alerted me to the issue. Be assured that our intrepid tech Wonder Woman is on the case. Be further assured that even though circumstances haven’t allowed for posting, I have no plans to let the site go down. I use it as a baking reference book myself, so I keep all my various bills paid. Any down time is purely accidental ..read more

The Pastry family continues to get the job done here in St. Louis. We're all weary from a longer-than-expected stay, and we have a couple of weeks yet to go, but the hard work is paying off handsomely for the sick one among us, and that's obviously the main thing. We couldn't be more appreciative of the city we're temporarily calling home. I can honestly say: I love this town. The architecture alone could keep a history nerd like me busy for weeks. Walking the different neighborhoods, I realize how much my city of origin, Chicago, lost in terms of its history when it burned down in 1871. Mrs ..read more

If you said there's isn't one! then you're one of those extreme chocolate snobs of the kind I'm married to, and right now you're recoiling before this photo like a vampire before a sunrise. It burns! It burns! But that’s a nice question, reader Walter! Let's get to it. The main difference between a high quality white chocolate and a lower quality white chocolate is the percentage of cocoa butter the chocolate contains. Of course other factors play into it: the care with which it’s formulated and processed and so on. However if I had to boil it down to any one thing, cocoa butter woul ..read more

Reader Robert wants to know what the practical difference is between bright and shiny metal baking pans and dark-colored nonstick versions (other than the fact that one is nonstick of course). The main difference, Robert, is that dark colors absorb more heat. That’s as true of pans as it is of clothes, even in the lightless environment of an oven. It’s why a tent of shiny aluminum foil does such a great job of preventing excess browning in a hot oven. It reflects heat energy. A dark pan does the reverse and that’s not usually a good thing. Dark pans can not only create excess browning on edges ..read more

Bostock has two major things going for it. First, it's head-slappingly easy. Second, it can be riffed upon endlessly. All you really need is the frangipane and the brioche. And while you can go full-bore and make your own brioche, but store-bought makes an already easy pastry even easier. I confess really like to use brioche hamburger bun tops. The round shape makes for a good presentation, plus bun tops are nice and thick, which is what this preparation needs. Component-wise you can really go crazy. You can spike your syrup with spirits or extracts, or infuse it with citrus, vanilla, herbs, r ..read more

The word sounds like a breed of beef cattle, but it's actually a delightful little piece of DIY pastry just right for a minimalist kitchen of the kind we're currently occupying. Pronounce the word "BO-stuck", but you can also call it brioche aux amandes if that sounds more appetizing. I think it does ..read more

This photo is actually a joke, because as anyone who's had any experience with pierogi knows, no one eats just two of these things. My first experience with pierogi left me nearly comatose. One of my high school girlfriends was Polish, and when she decided she liked me enough to introduce me to her mother, she brought me over on pierogi day. Four hours and God knows how many pierogi later I was lying face down on their couch, my entire circulatory system clogged with mashed potatoes. I've never eaten the like since, though I have to say that these are very, very close ..read more