Ad Hoc is one of Chef Thomas Keller’s restaurants in Yountville, California. The restaurant has an interesting story behind it, but even more interesting is the food, which is high quality, family style fare. They actually have just one menu each day - just like Mom might make (assuming that she is a truly excellent cook) for dinner. Since the food is homestyle, it’s not too much of a stretch to take their food from the Northern California restaurant into actual home kitchens. There is now a line of Ad Hoc food products to choose from, from a Fried Chicken Kit to gourmet cake frostings.

I don’t usually think of canned or jarred cake frosting as being a gourmet ingredient, but Ad Hoc’s Milk and Dark Chocolate Frostings certainly are that. These frostings are made with premium ingredients and are definitely a cut above your average grocery story frosting. Of course, at about $20 per jar - enough jar is enough to frost a 9 inch layer cake - they had better be a big cut above! Both frostings are rich tasting and creamy. I’ve had other dark chocolate frostings with a similar bittersweet flavor, so I wasn’t as impressed with it as I was with the milk chocolate option. The milk chocolate frosting really did have a great milk chocolate flavor to it, like hot chocolate or an actual chocolate bar. I haven’t had too many milk chocolate frostings with a similar flavor, and I know that I haven’t had a premade milk chocolate frosting that was anywhere near as tasty.

Both frostings were easy to spread and there was plenty in each jar to cover a cake well, assuming that you don’t eat a couple of spoonfuls straight from the jar (recommended on the label) before you finish off your cake! I don’t know that it’s worth the price tag when you could make your own frosting much less expensively, but because they are very good, they might be worth a splurge for yourself and would make a nice gourmet gift for a baking friend.

French macarons are a little bit more difficult to make than your average chocolate chip cookie. They’re not by any means impossible, but the light meringue cookies take a bit of time and patience to bake and sandwich together. The finished cookies are well-worth the wait because of their lovely texture, with a crisp shell and creamy center, and how flavorful they are. Another thing about these cookies is that they’re difficult to find in the US, where they’re not too popular at bakeries or restaurants. I found them recenetly, however, in the freezer at Trader Joe’s.

The Trader Joe’s Macarons à la Parisienne come 12 to a box, with six each of chocolate and vanilla macarons. There is a lot of packaging with these little cookies to keep them separated and their shells perfectly intact. It works: the cookies looked flawless coming out of the box. To serve, you simply need to defrost these for about 30 minutes. I have to say that, while they’re not going to top homemade or fresh macarons, these did hit the spot. They had good flavor and really got that balance of crisp shell and creamy filling. The chocolate had a ganache center, while the vanilla was more along the lines of a pudding or custard center. It didn’t take long to go through th box and I’d definitely go back for another - even if I was feeling inspired to make another homemade batch before getting in the car to go back to the store!

I was pretty skeptical when I tried Pillsbury Easy Frost Frostings because I just don’t care for store-bought frostings too much. They may be easy to use, and it is certainly convenient to have a can in the back of the pantry in case of a cake-frosting emergency, but they tend to be flat and artificial tasting. They don’t compare to the flavor of a quick homemade buttercream. That said, the Easy Frost had an unusual can design to it that promised it would make both frosting and filling cupcakes a breeze because it has a built-in decorator tip on top of the can, so I couldn’t resist giving it a shot.

I’m glad I did because it lived up to its promise of being a “no-fuss frosting.” It piped out easily onto the tops of cupcakes (much easier than any frosting that comes from a standard can!) and you can insert the applicator tip into the cupcake to add a squirt of frosting to the center. The frosting also tasted very good - not just good compared to a canned frosting, either. It was fresh and flavorful. The three varieties I tried, Velvety Cream Cheese, Decadent Chocolate Fudge and Vanilla Dream, all had good flavors and the Cream Cheese and Fudge in particular had a lot more depth to them than I have gotten from other store-bought frostings.

One can will frost a whole two-layer cake (as pictured on my cake above), but the best use is for cupcakes because you can’t beat the convenience of the built-in pastry tip. The cupcakes will look perfect every time. Plus, the can will keep any leftovers fresh until the next time you need frosting. This is one frosting that is worth keeping in the pantry (especially if you have kids who like to decorate and bake), because while I’ll stick to homemade frostings for the most part, I wouldn’t hesitate to use a can of Easy Frost if I had some on hand.

I usually try to make my pie crusts from scratch when I bake. It may seem like a challenging proposition at first, but once you have made a few, they’re easy to put together and they keep for a couple of days in the fridge after making them (longer in the freezer), I can even make them in advance and use them. That said, there are always times where you need the convenience of a premade pie crust. Marie Callender’s has offered frozen desserts at the grocery store for some time (in addition to their fresh baked pies in their restaurants) and also has a line of frozen Deep Dish Pie Crusts available.

The pie crust that Marie Callender’s uses for their own pies is good, and the frozen version didn’t let me down. It’s made with shortening, so while it doesn’t have a particularly strong flavor on its own, it is flakey and extremely tender. In fact, it has an almost melt in your mouth quality to it. It also cooks up to be very crisp - exactly how I want my crust to be to create a contrast with the pie filling. You can bake the crusts from frozen, but I find that I always get better results after defrosting a frozen crust and baked these crusts after they were close to room temperature.

One of the best parts about these crusts is the tin that they come in. It is a solid pie plate, not the flimsy foil kind that you find beneath store-bought graham cracker crusts. This means that it is actually easy to put the pie in the oven, take it out again and serve it without needing an extra baking sheet or serving tray just to support the weight of the pie and prevent the tin from bending in half (yes, this has happened to me with heavy pie fillings).

Anyone who has been in a Starbucks lately has seen Starbucks Via. The coffee company has been promoting their new instant coffee like crazy, so it’s pretty hard to miss. If you were lucky, you might have even gotten a free sample or two in a promotional taste test. I say “lucky” because Via is actually excellent for an instant coffee (and quite a bit better than some regular coffees). Starbucks came up with a new process to produce it, so it is not the same as the freeze-dried instant coffee that populates store shelves, nor does it taste anything like that watery, bland stuff. Via comes in two flavors - Colombian and Italian roasts - and tastes fresh and strong. It also dissolves easily in both hot and cold water, thanks to that new production process, so it can be used any time.

While I actually have taken a big like to taking a few packets of Via when I travel, I have found that it is an excellent baking ingredient in the home, too. Adding it into a recipe that calls for coffee flavoring is like adding a whole cup of  coffee with just a little bit of powder. It definitely packs in much more flavor than regular instant coffee and incorporates much more seamlessly. This means that there is no need to dissolve it in a bit of hot liquid before adding it to a batter; you can stir it into dry ingredients just as you would with any ground spice, and it will blend perfectly into your finished product. The Colombian is good, but the Italian has a darker and stronger flavor, more like espresso. Via is a little more expensive than a generic instant coffee, but definitely well worth the price for the flavor and the convenience. I think that it is actually easier to use than the instant espresso powder that I usually use, and pretty much ties with Trablit coffee extract for flavor. Definitely worth keeping a box around the pantry if you like to use coffee flavoring in your baked goods or other dishes.

Homemade cookies just about always beat store bought, prepackaged cookie doughs. They’re more fun to make - especially if you’re looking for an activity to do with your kids - they’re tastier and they don’t have any strange ingredients, like preservatives, in them. The only advantage of the prepacked doughs is that they’re quicker and more convenient if you absolutely don’t have time to make dough from scratch. Pillsbury recently introduced a new line of prepackaged cookie dough called simply Cookies that give packaged cookies a push closer to homemade. The real selling point is that they are not made with any artificial ingredients. In fact, the ingredient list of the cookies reads just like a recipe ingredient list would (flour, brown sugar, eggs, vanilla, etc.). I had a chance to taste the Peanut Butter Cookies when I visited General Mills a few weeks ago and was quite impressed with them. They were nice and chewy, and they had a great peanut butter flavor. They are made with shortening (non-hydrogenated), so they don’t have a real buttery flavor to them, but that’s not a drawback in a peanut butter cookie where you want the peanuts to be the star.

Now, I’m still going to make my cookies from scratch, but I do think it’s nice to know that there is good store-bought option out there if I need some cookies in a pinch or if a friend who is short on time (or ingredients) needs a recommendation.