Baking and Chocolate

Laura C. Martin wants you to have your cake and eat it, too. That is, only if it's baked with all-natural, preferably locally sourced ingredients. Think it can't be done? Martin proves it can in her new book, Green Market Baking Book: 100 Delicious Recipes for Naturally Sweet & Savory Treats. 

The recipes, some created by Martin and others by influential chefs and food writers including Alice Waters and Dan Barber, are made with all-natural, organic, sustainable ingredients. Refined sugar is out. Brown rice syrup, agave nectar, and barley malt syrup are in. White flour is used, but many recipes suggest substituting at least part of the flour with whole-grain alternatives such as rye or spelt.

This is the type of the cookbook that you really must peruse first before delving right into a recipe. Otherwise, you'll likely find that you don't have many of the listed ingredients in your pantry. Here's where Martin helps: In the book's opening, she explains unfamiliar ingredients, suggests sugar substitutions, provides guidelines for using oils and dairy in baked goods and even tells you how to stock your pantry.

I have purchased a lot of cookbooks over the years and most of them are worn out.  I have all sorts of books; baking (obviously), lots of ethnic books, books by famous chefs, including Nancy Silverton.  I used to frequent her “grilled cheese” nights at Campanelli, back in the early 90′s and oh do I miss those early morning breakfast’s before heading off to create in my first furniture studio.  Tartine in S.F. reminds me of what Campanelli used to be; intimate, delicious and casual.  

I like the food at Mozza (not the wait or the crowd) and I have saved every Food and Wine Magazine that she contributed to (a particular Thanksgiving meal in 1994(?) was one of my all time favorites).  My most favorite marinade for flank steak is in her book Mark Peel and Nancy Silverton at Home.  Also in that book is one of the BEST Meyer Lemon Tarts, ever!!!!  I have a meyer lemon tree for this very recipe.

I recently got Nancy Silverton's Pastries from the La Brea Bakery.  I read it cover to cover before deciding on what to make first.  I started with her scone recipe.  I love making scones and have made all kinds.  I like to make lots of different flavors at once and then flash freeze.  This way, my kids have scones on any given morning and scones are only good when right out of the oven.  

What is life without a little bit of the whimsical? The magical? The fanciful?

I think that is perhaps what I love most about the idea of decorating a wee cupcake: it’s an opportunity to let your creative heart out.

Call me silly, but I just can’t help but feel a bit of whimsy these days. Life is crazy as ever and the world is as strange as ever but some things never change.

I can smell spring in the air.

The other day I saw a few brave daffodils insistently pushing their way through the soil. Today I saw the most perfect pair of summer sandals.

Ah, whimsy! But whimsy also comes in other forms, namely a cookbook by the name of Little Cakes from the Whimsical Bakehouse: Cupcakes, Small Cakes, Muffins, and Other Mini Treats by Kaye and Liv Hansen.

Biscotti comes from the Latin word biscoctus meaning ‘twice cooked, or baked.’ Baking them twice makes them dry, so they’re easy to store for long periods of time. This was highly advantageous at one point in time. Twice-baked breads were useful during long journeys and wars, and were a staple food of the Roman legion. Now, it’s simply a lovely left-over result of the original recipe that we’re still enjoying today. From the kitchens of the American Academy in Rome, ‘Biscotti’ is a very special cookbook, a small love letter to one of Italy’s most famous sweets.

The book is the first in a series of small hardcover cookbooks on single subjects to be published by the American Academy in Rome in conjunction with the Rome Sustainable Food Project, a program devoted to providing organic, local and sustainable meals for the community of artists who work and study at the AAR. Author, Mona Talbott is the American born, Chez Panisse-trained Executive Chef who oversees the kitchens of the Academy. Alice Waters is also part of the collaborative dining program advising on menus, and food choices. The program was first implemented in 2007 when the Academy remodeled and revamped the AAR kitchens. The Rome Sustainable Food Project facilitates the AAR’s move towards sustainable, and local cooking and eating.