Pastry Chef John Kraus joined Nordic Ware to demonstrate step by step how to make perfectly crisp and flaky croissants at home. He highlighted the best tools to use like their Perforated Half Sheet which provides efficient, even baking of foods where a crisp outer crust is desired like croissants. John is a baker, chef, founder and the owner of Twin Cities favorites Patisserie 46 and Rose Street Patisserie as well as the Bread Lab which is not only a production facility but a training program for up-and-coming pastry chefs. John is no stranger to bakery accolades and has received many “Best o ..read more

by John Kraus · April 14, 2021 I met Ruth about 7 years ago.  She visited the bakery each week to pick up six loaves of our Levain and always preferred those baked on the darker side.  (In our trade, that’s known as ‘kissed with fire.’)  One day, I felt compelled to ask her, “Why so dark?”  I thought I was the only one who appreciated dark, well-baked bread.  Her response still lingers in my mind: Ruth told me that her husband Nathan was homebound and that as a European, he found comfort in our well-baked bread.  He lived with Parkinson’s but allowed himself one o ..read more

By John Kraus · March 16, 2021 Here is to the future. Spring always feels good. It reminds us that the season of fruits is on the horizon. Excitement arrives at the first sight of a rhubarb frond. Growing up in Kentucky, this happened much earlier than here in Minnesota, but it meant that we were moving on from the days of apple pies –with the exception of my favorite apple and rhubarb pie, which to me symbolized the merging of fall and winter, and the knowledge that we’d finally gone through all of last year’s apples. Of course, these days, we have the luxury of apples year-round, but allow m ..read more

The cultural significance and culinary magic of a 700-year-old tradition By John Kraus · December 28, 2020 January 6th, the 12th day of Christmas, marks the day that the wise men, Melchior, Caspar, and Balthazar reached the manger to pay homage to the baby Jesus. This is known as the Feast of the Epiphany, or for us, the day we eat the Galette des Rois! Legend has it that the cakes were used to lure the kings to the Epiphany, a tradition dating back to the 14th century, and one that’s still going strong. Every year in France, this cake represents the convergence of excitement and history in a ..read more