Bake from Scratch March/April 2022

WHAT DOES SPRING MEAN FOR BAKERS? For some of you, it means a time to clean and pare down the kitchen, making open space for that beloved Bundt pan or copper whisk to shine. For others, it’s a chance to incorporate the first seasonal strawberries, tender herbs, and alliums into your recipes. But I think for all of us, spring is the time to enjoy renewal and fresh starts. Our March/April issue promises to bring that sense of rejuvenation back to your baking. Just take a look at our gorgeous cover star, Strawberry Cream Cake. Adorned with strawberries and packed with silky cream filling on top of a delicate sponge, this is a spring must-bake. Among the recipes for bright spring roulades and light strawberry-packed desserts, you can also find rich, creamy…

RECIPE INDEX BARS AND COOKIES Carrot Cake Blondies 112 Miso & White Chocolate Cookies 37 Strawberry Shortcake Crumble Bars 59 Vanilla Wafers 32 White Chocolate-Fruity Cereal Cookies 79 BREADS Caraway-Sesame Clover Rolls 29 Cheesy Garlic-Herb Bread 41 Dill-Sour Cream-Potato Scones 85 Hot Cross Buns 110 Small-Batch Potato and Leek Focaccia 85 Waterford Blaa 41 CAKES Apple-Cinnamon Cereal Poke Cake 77 Battenberg Cake 52 Chocolate Cream Roulade 96 Cinnamon Swirl Bundt 77 Cotton Cheesecake 67 Earl Grey, Orange & White Chocolate Traybake 38 Hummingbird Roulade 95 Irish Cream Loaf Cake 5 Käsekuchen 66 Neapolitan Roulade 97 Pay de Queso 71 Pistachio Roulade 97 Strawberry Cream Cake 60 Swedish Cheesecake 70 FROSTINGS, FILLINGS, GARNISHES, AND GLAZES Apple-Cinnamon Cereal Whipped Topping 78 Browned Butter-Cream Cheese Frosting 95 Chocolate Ganache 96 Cream Cheese Frosting 112 Creamy Milk Glaze 77 Irish Cream Glaze 5 Lemon Pastry Cream 62 Milk Chocolate Buttercream 96 Pineapple Simple Syrup 95 Ricotta Filling 98 Roasted Strawberries 61 Simple Syrup 96 Strawberry Buttercream 61 Strawberry Jam 62 Swiss Meringue 32 Vanilla Bean and Strawberry Buttercreams 97 Vanilla…

THE KEY TO A GLISTENING KITCHEN Keep everything from copper to porcelain to stainless steel clean and glistening with this miracle product. A favorite both on set at Bake from Scratch and at home, Bar Keepers Friend is a tried-and-true multipurpose cleaner that we can’t get enough of. Available at amazon.com, around $7 A BENCH SCRAPER BUT BETTER This sleek and stylish stainless steel Innovative Kitchen Bench Scraper and Herb Stripper from Mason Cash is more than meets the eye. Its versatile design gives you the ability to clean your worktops, measure, cut, fold dough or pastry, and even strip herbs from their stalks, all in one multipurpose tool. Plus, the offset wood handle keeps your knuckles from scraping your work surface and allows for a steady, firm grip. Available at bedbathandbeyond.com, $19.99 AN APRON EQUIPPED…

What sparked your early interest in baking and drew you in? Sahana Vij: My parents introduced me into the world of cooking. From a very young age, I grew up around the kitchen filled with spices and new recipes. [When I was] around the age of 5, my mom taught me how to make French toast. I immediately fell in love with the methodology and creativity baking offered. From then on, I began to experiment with recipes online and study cookbooks. I never really repeated the same recipe twice and continued to challenge myself. So, I would say the creative freedom drew me to baking. What inspired you to write Bake Away? SV: As I mentioned earlier, I always loved to bake. However, throughout middle school and high school, I began to love…

As a magazine devoted to making you a better baker, we wish that we were all on a level playing field. But if you live in Denver, Colorado, Santa Fe, New Mexico, or one of the many other mile-high cities, you know you’re working with a different level of pressure—literally. Recipes that are developed at sea level, like those in Bake from Scratch, don’t always make a smooth jump to the land of rarefied air. It’s time we set our sights higher. We’re breaking down the hows and whys behind adjusting a recipe for high-altitude baking, translating the science into practical troubleshooting. Because with baking, the sky’s the limit. High-altitude baking can be chalked up to one main factor: low air pressure. Low air pressure affects two aspects of your baking:…

At the quintessential Southern potluck, the dessert section of the spread represents a treasure trove of secret family recipes, passed from generation to generation through furtive whispers and clandestine instruction. But one dessert you’ll inevitably see is the exact opposite of a secret family recipe: banana pudding. Anyone can guess the four cornerstone ingredients—bananas, vanilla pudding/custard, meringue or whipped cream, and Nabisco Nilla Wafers—as the recipe is etched on almost every Nilla Wafers box in existence. The soft vanilla cookie is so key to the banana pudding formula that it seems impossible that one could exist without the other. In fact, though, early incarnations of the banana pudding recipe predate Nilla Wafers by almost a decade. During the early 1890s, as the once-novelty banana became more readily available, bakers began making…