- Some people prefer chocolate cake, others prefer vanilla – and fans of vanilla cake know that “plain vanilla” is often anything but plain! Lick the Bowl Good recently baked up a Very Vanilla Bundt Cake for a family birthday. The buttery cake has a whole vanilla bean scraped into the …
How long do vanilla beans last?
Vanilla beans are a pricey ingredient prized by bakers and cooks because nothing imparts vanilla flavor like seeds scraped straight from a fresh vanilla pod. I usually have a few vanilla beans on hand and, like so many other deal-hunting bakers, I try to replenish my supply when I find a good …
Breville Personal Pie Maker
There are counterop appliances that will cook waffles for us, grill our paninis and even bake mini cupcakes – why not add an appliance that will bake up some pies to the collection? The Breville Personal Pie Maker is a countertop gadget that bakes four individually sized pies at …
Raspberry Streusel Muffins
It has been a while since I used raspberries in a recipe – not because I haven’t been buying raspberries, but because I’ve been unable to resist eating them right out of their box when I get them home! A bag of frozen raspberries is what it took to get me to break …
Southern Biscuits
There are quite a few different foods that people associate with Southern cooking, but biscuits stand out as one of the constants that you’ll find in any restaurant and in just about every kitchen in the South. Biscuits are a quick bread and a side dish, and there are a tremendous number of variations …
Ricotta and Cream Cheese Tiramisu
Tiramisu is traditionally made with ladyfingers dipped in coffee that are layered with a rich mascarpone cream. I like it because I love the coffee element of the dessert, and I also like the fact that it is so easy to put new flavor variations on it that it’s hard to get stuck …
Branch Skewers
When you think about roasting hot dogs or marshmallows over an open fire, as you might do on a camping trip, you probably picture someone holding a rustic looking stick with which they have skewered their goodies. I know that this is what I picture, probably due in large part to what I …
What is tunneling?
In baking, the term “tunneling” refers to tunnels and very large air pockets that form inside of muffins and quick breads as a result of overmixing a batter. The muffin pictured above gives you an idea of what tunneling looks like. Generally, you want muffins, cakes and cupcakes to be fairly uniform in …
