Bake from Scratch March/April 2021

SPRING IS THE SEASON OF OPPORTUNITY. Bakers have the opportunity to grow and harvest fresh herbs, work with the first of the season’s sweet strawberries, and organize their enormous pan collection during spring cleaning. I say “organize,” because I can’t part with a single Bundt pan, copper mold, or mixing bowl—it all sparks joy. We embrace this period of renewal with some truly inspired recipe features. From a cheesy recipe roundup to a buttery Parker House roll revamp, this issue offers plenty of comfort food. On the sweeter side of things, we’ve got a mega-meringue tutorial, free-form desserts, and a Four Ways with Strawberries collection that will have you prepared for berry season. It’s my great pleasure to welcome back some beloved bakers to the pages of Bake from Scratch. First, we have…

RECIPE INDEX BARS AND COOKIES Biscochito Cookie Bars 32 Cheese Thyme Cookies 98 Chocolate-Orange-Pistachio Forgotten Cookies 112 French Meringue Kisses 40 Italian Meringue Kisses 42 Swiss Meringue Kisses 41 BREADS Basil Sour Cream Scones with Macerated Strawberries 48 Cheese Breadsticks 95 Chocolate Scones 104 Cream Cheese Bread with Cinnamon Sugar 57 Dutch Oven Bread 6 Ensaymadas 109 Folar das Rosas 25 Honey-Orange Parker House Rolls 88 Parker House Rolls 85 Parker House Round Rolls 87 Parker House Square Rolls 87 Parmesan-Herb Buttermilk Bread 98 Sour Cream Fantails 15 Spinach Khachapuris 97 Sweet & Sticky Orange Cardamom Rolls 31 CAKES Banana Pudding Hummingbird Cake 69 Chocolate Pudding Cake 68 Coconut Pecan Cake 64 Darina Allen’s Simnel Cake 102 Orange Cream Cake 65 Strawberry and Almond Buttermilk Cake 49 Vanilla Pudding Cake with Mascarpone Buttercream 11 FROSTINGS, FILLINGS, GARNISHES, AND GLAZES Balsamic-Roasted Strawberries 52 Chocolate Glaze 104 Chocolate Pastry Cream 57 Chocolate Pudding 68 Chocolate-Hazelnut Filling 77 Coconut Filling 64 Creamy Buttermilk Frosting 65 Crème Anglaise 64 Creme de Ovos Com Côco 26 Frangipane…

KITCHEN SWITCHES JUST ROLL WITH IT These handcrafted French rolling pins from the Wooden Palate are turned and shaped from a solid block of reclaimed Atlantic City Boardwalk South American hardwood. Their beauty and craftsmanship make them worthy of display—but don’t worry, they are definitely usable art. Each pin is food-safe and unique, varying in color and grain. Available at thewoodenpalate.com, $50 BLUE JEAN BABY This simple yet chic apron from Wild Minimalist is the perfect uniform for the home baker. Made from upcycled 100% cotton denim fabric, this waist apron is as beautiful as it is functional. With three large pockets, you can store a whisk, some measuring spoons, a ruler … whatever your baking endeavor requires! Available at wildminimalist.com, $29.99 A RISE ABOVE Our friends at Flourside aim to excite craft bakers with unique, high-quality tools…

The Fenyves family cookbook, prepared by mother Klara Fenyves, was a very special book. Members of the Fenyves family, thrust into wartime, were forced to leave their apartment in Yugoslavia in 1944. The Fenyves family cook, Maris, saved their prized cookbook from looters, returning the heirloom to the surviving family members after the war. Klara—a victim of a concentration camp—would not see this book again, but the cookbook would find its way back into the hands of her son, Steven Fenves, who shared the cherished book with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Thanks to a project inspired by Alon Shaya, award-winning chef, cookbook author, and founder of Pomegranate Hospitality, these recipes are coming alive again for the world to see. How did you first hear about Steven…

As far as taste is concerned, salt (sodium chloride) is the proverbial Goldilocks of baked goods. Too little and treats taste flat. Too much and they are deemed inedible. Just right and our taste receptors ignite. Besides an intense salty taste on its own, salt interacts with the other basic tastes, acting as both the crescendo and decrescendo of the flavor concert. Specifically, salt can enhance sweetness, mask bitterness, and complement umami (or savoriness). Think of the ever-so-popular salted caramel, which harnesses this combo to change the perception of sweetness, or the iconic sprinkling of flaked sea salt on dark chocolate that causes bitterness to magically abate. In other words, without salt, all baking becomes one-note. The relationship that salt has to flavor may be a more recognizable concept, but salt…

I was 23 when I visited the Azores islands of Portugal for the first time. My grandmother Maxine called me brave for going to the remote archipelago in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. I reminded her it was brave of her parents and all of my maternal great-grandparents to immigrate to the United States. I tried to explain that the islands were calling me. It was an inexplicable longing—in Portuguese, it’s called saudade—a longing that began with the stories she would weave for me as a child, stories of our family and the beautiful volcanic islands they left. It surfaced the strongest in the desire to make and eat bread. Bread is like a religion in our family. But not just any bread. Like most immigrant families, as the generations…