Breads and Biscuits

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Perfecting the French Croissant

I wrote a tutorial for French croissants last year. About a month ago I received a comment that pretty much said that I was doing it all wrong. After doing some more research, I realized that my croissants didn’t come out very well at all. I apologize for sharing a less than stellar technique.

Homemade French croissants on a baking sheet. Click to see the full photo tutorial and recipe!

While the recipe was fine, I did not chill my dough sufficiently and so my own batch didn’t come out very well. I spent the last few weeks working on improving the recipe, photos, and adding troubleshooting tips. I think it’s much better now. Check it out, if you’d like, by clicking here.

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Raspberry Coconut Bread

It’s nice to cook with seasonal ingredients. Luckily for me, coconut is in season now in Canada so coconut bread is a good idea. By in season I mean a few packages of coconut flakes were being sold at my local grocery store, of course. Unfortunately, since the last ice age, coconut trees have not grown in Canada. If you’re in a tropical country you probably don’t even have to go buy coconut for this recipe, just walk outside and look around – it seems that tropical countries have coconut trees everywhere. Just open the coconut (you want a brown one) and hit it with a hammer so that the coconut “meat” separates from the shell, shred the “meat” in your food processor, and then dehydrate it. If you’re not lucky enough to live near a coconut tree then just buy some coconut flakes in the grocery store.

Coconut bread with raspberry-lime compote and fresh whipped cream

I used frozen raspberries for this recipe because I still had a lot left over from my raspberry hazelnut torte. While I was waiting for them to defrost I was reading the plastic bag they were stored in and found out that the raspberries were imported all the way from Lithuania.

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Challah Hamburger Buns

Sandwiches range from really good to really bad. From chipotle chicken and juicy pineapple chunks smothered with tomato sauce and stuffed between two pieces of foccacia to, well, something far less exciting. The secret to a great sandwich is not as much the filling as the bread. Bread can make or break a sandwich. Bread shouldn’t just be a vehicle for tuna salad.  It should be a fully equipped sandwichmobile.

Homemade challah hamburger buns with butter and chives

Sandwiches are named after John Montagu, the fourth Earl of Sandwich. Although it’s debatable about how the sandwich was invented, most historians believe that the Earl would ask servents to bring him slices of meat inside two pieces of bread so that he could eat while playing cards with his friends. His friends often asked for the same snack and later served “sandwiches” themselves at their parties.

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