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The Sweet Potato

The Sweet Potato

Not many of us can remember a time when the Southern Sweet Potato Pie was not adorning our holiday table.  Poor or rich, the dessert table held in aluminum pan holding perfectly made pie crust with the prettiest orange custard in the center.  If you were lucky an elder person made your pie crust from scratch and your home was filled with the scent of history and love.  Children, both boys and girls watched as sweet potatoes were brought from the field, washed and cleaned, peeled, boiled or baked.  Eyes wide, potatoes were smashed and lovingly mixed with sugar, spices,...

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Candy Coated Cookie

Candy Coated Cookie

It's something about a candy coated cookie. Maybe it's just the rainbow of colors poking out through the delicious cookie dough. It's exciting and makes the inner child in me smile. Perhaps it's knowing you get two treats in one, the cookie, of course, and the candy. If your feeling adventurous you made yours with the chocolate peanut candy. My eyes twinkle, dance and with each bite I feel all of the pot of gold inside me. How lucky I am to be the baker and the kid who licks the bowl that gets the first cookie.  

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Tempering

Tempering

To Temper Chocolate or Not To Temper Chocolate is always a question of the novice.  Chocolate is sweet, bitter, creamy, satisfying and very temperamental.  A splash of liquid causes it to seize, get thick, clumpy, unmanageable.  Too much heat and the chocolate is burnt.  So what do we do with this tempering thing?   The FAT in Chocolate is called Cocoa Butter.  When you purchase a chocolate bar it is shinny, smells of chocolate, breaks with a snap and all the cocoa butter strands are solid, stable.  When you carefully melt chocolate the FAT Cocoa Butter becomes unstable.   Tempering...

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