Baking Bites An award winning food and baking blog featuring recipes, tips and more

I am a big fan of Paul Hollywood. Not only is he a fabulous baker with some amazing recipes, he is great at explaining techiniques and method. On camera, he virtually always mixes with his hands, not using so much as a spoon, let alone an electeic mixer. His kneading is impressively and skillfully done – sometimes one handed! Paul must have been one of ... Read More »

When the holidays come around, like many people, I find myself riding waves of excess. Specifically, excesses of sugar and salt. I don’t find that I have this problem when I am chiefly eating things that I have made myself, even when those things are cookies and cakes. Eating lots of very sweet things – like leftover Halloween candy – makes me crave salt. An ... Read More »

Sugar and spice are exactly what is nice about pumpkin butter. Well, maple syrup and spices. Pumpkin butter is my favorite, but apple butter is a close second. Some stores carry jarred fruit butters, including pumpkin, apple, cherry, apricot and others, if you don’t want to make your own. Fruit butter is smoother, creamier and less sweet than jam. more concentrated fruitiness. It is a ... Read More »

The best part about being, say, under the age of 11 is that you get to order off the kid’s menu in restaurants. The main course offerings of kid’s menu are not the terribly exciting. In fact, many such menus are limited to plain hamburgers, grilled cheese and french fries. No, the thing that makes me nostalgic is the free dessert that comes along with ... Read More »

When you’re celebrating a cat’s birthday, like Clare is celebrating Kiri’s birthday this weekend, it is probably a good idea to put fish on the menu. I love my cats, but I’m not about to go out and purchase a big piece of sushi grade Ahi tuna for them. I bought this for human consumption, but in the spirit of Kiri’s birthday, I did give ... Read More »

Having recently acquired some seasonal cookie cutters, it was not a big leap to decide to use them to cute something other than dough, although you might not suspect that if you’ve been paying attention this week. I layered some fresh pitas and pressed the butters through them to make lots of thin chips. There is no magic number here, simply make as many as ... Read More »

Halloween is a fantastic holiday. It is low pressure and all of the individual elements are fun: dressing up, carving pumpkins, eating treats. For anyone who doesn’t celebrate it, kids dress up in costumes and people give them candy. I practically lived for the holiday when I was little; I didn’t get much candy at home. Of course, as I got older I learned to ... Read More »

Brachs Candy Corn are one of the great things about Halloween. They are small, sugary lumps that vaguely resemble corn kernals (think of the yellow end facing outward) and I, for some unknown reason, can’t seem to stop eating them. Oh well. They only come out once a year, so I can’t feel too bad about bringing a bag home. I picked up another bag ... Read More »