My sister and I have always had a theory that every man has an ideal cookie (or maybe just every man in our family). Ben’s favorite cookies are oat free, very blonde, and tall. Bekah’s cookies never ever run into each other on the baking sheet, preserving a barely baked likeness to the dough balls that went into the oven.

My Uncle Gordon adores the kind of cookies that can’t be stopped from running into each other – the kind that leave greasy rings on a napkin. He even goes so far as to call other people’s cookies demeaning names, like “cakeys.” Read More

I know, it does seem a little MacGyvor of me to recommend that you bake bread using your food processor. I am not kidding though, it is the best bread you will ever make at home. Read More

My life has been peppered with bad sugar cookie experiences. I love a good sugar cookie, but they seem like a holiday kind of cookie, so it took me many years of unsatisfactory holiday baking to come across my favorite sugar cookie. Usually it seems that they either break easily, puff too much to decorate well, run straight out of the shapes you cut and bake into one big blob-tag cookie party, or just don’t taste good.

This recipe is a combined two Christmas effort. Last Christmas I made cookies out of Gourmet magazine and hated the cookie, but loved the frosting. I saved the frosting recipe until this Christmas I combined it with a modified cookie from Country Living. Now I am happy. So happy that I make sugar cookies for all holidays now. For Valentine’s Day we made a batch of these and splatter painted them with neon pink and white frosting (we called them eighties revival cookies), and for Christmas I make half the dough red, and decorate them with a little more care. So… the moral of the story is that armed with a great recipe and a decent arsenal of paste food coloring you can achieve almost anything you set your mind to. Read More

This recipe requires a bit of an intro. All through my childhood years my mom baked bread. I got the best part of this tradition, because as the youngest, I was home to help her while my siblings were off at school. I had my own baby loaf pan, and helped her roll out the dough and shape it. Sometimes I made bread men who were never very good because they were mostly crust.

Anyway, this wasn’t just a fun time, it was great bread. The kind that makes pbj’s worth eating (especially with raspberry freezer jam!). When mom made it on Saturdays, she always had Dad do the kneading.

The funny thing was that she just sort of stopped making it when we were a little older and she was a little busier. As I recall we were also going through a poorboy phase that lasted several years. Much later, when I wanted to make it, we found a little problem. Mom had had the recipe memorized, apparently lost the hard copy and didn’t notice. But, after a long sabbatical, she no longer remembered any details.

I tried to pioneer my own favorite loaf bread, but never liked anything I made as much as what I had grown up on. Eventually, I had a brilliant idea – I called my childhood friend’s mom, who had been our neighbor in that era, and asked if she had the recipe. I remembered that she made it too, but hers was all wheat and crunchier. Anyway, she did have it. It was called “Jane’s hardly ever fails bread”. I got the recipe Read More

I was talking to my sister the other day before I posted the cinnamon roll recipe, and we were laughing about the desire we both have to develop our own “best” recipes. Basically, if I want to make cookies, I want to know exactly what they will be like when I start. I want to know what I am going to get if I start out to bake bread. Cinnamon rolls had long been in that group for me, but a number of other recipes have joined in as “these are the ones I make” favorites.

Biscotti is a relative new comer in our family, but it has made its way to the top of the charts! Anyway, I have launched a campaign to share all these favorites with you as I make them. Don’t worry, there aren’t too many – it won’t take long.

Upcoming favorites include sandwich bread, baguettes, bagels, sugar cookies, chocolate chip cookies, and pitas. Afterwards or during, or whenever I feel like it there will be some non-baking recipes, but we will see when that happens, the dinner time rush being what it is and all! Read More

There really isn’t much more to say about these. They really are as good as they look. I am a big cinnamon roll fan, and always have been, even after fainting in the bathroom in 5th grade because that was all I had eaten for breakfast. But, through the years I have had some trouble with executing what I thought was the perfect cinnamon roll. Sometimes I think they are too greasy (I don’t like dark and oily undersides), sometimes too much work for too little results (anything that involves a saucepan for the filling), and I generally disapprove of cream cheese frosting. Yes, I hear all of you gasping, but really, I think that the light icing is way better here. Just try these out at home, and I think you will agree!

Cinnamon Triumph Rolls

Combine 3 c. warm water, 2/3 c. sugar, and 1 1/2 t. salt in the bowl of a kitchenaid. Add 2 Tbs. yeast and stir until dissolved. Add two beaten eggs, 2/3 c. shortening, 1 t. vanilla and stir. Add enough flour to make a soft dough (7-8 c.). Mix until smooth dough forms, and the dough pulls together. If it interests you, I never use the dough hook as the beater bar does great. Knead it a couple of times on a floured surface, and pull together into a beautiful pile of smooth dough. Put a little oil in a large bowl, and drop the dough in, smooshing it to lightly coat the dough in the oil, and turn it over. Cover with a tea towel, and let rise until doubled (I don’t time it, but my guess is somewhere around 40 minutes). Punch it down, and divide into two pieces. Roll each piece out into a rectangle about 12×16 inches. Smear with a light coating of soft butter(about 1/4 c. per roll), sprinkle with sugar (somewhere in the neighborhood of 1/4 c. per roll), and then dust it up with cinnamon (not too thick, and not too thin). Do not even think about raisins. Roll up the rectangles, and pinch the seam shut. I use a bread knife, and cut each roll into twelve slices. Lay them on an ungreased jelly roll pan, and pat lightly to get a uniform height and spread them together a bit. Cover and let rise slightly while the oven pre-heats to 375 degrees. Pop them in the oven and bake for 20 -25 minutes, or until perfect. While they are still mildly warm, but not hot, drizzle with a thick mix of powdered sugar and milk. These freeze beautifully, making you everyone’s favorite mom on a Sunday morning.