PANTRY « A Woman Sconed

Baked Sunday Mornings: Toying with toffee

By rahoward, on December 2nd, 2018

I was but a wee lass when I started making toffee. My sister, about five years older than I, was in her early days of home ec class (do kids still take home ec class?) and came home one day with some stapled sheets filled with all sorts of candy recipes on them — hard . . . → Read More: Baked Sunday Mornings: Toying with toffee

Bread of the Month: ‘Bubbling’ with garlic and herbs

By rahoward, on November 29th, 2018

In the 1990s, I had the pleasure of frequenting an Italian restaurant in the community where I lived in Southern California. It was a smallish, but lively place near a golf course, with most of its seating in a walled-in, covered patio that stayed comfortable all year long. It was here that I got hooked . . . → Read More: Bread of the Month: ‘Bubbling’ with garlic and herbs

Poaching pears, cranberries for a festive pie

By rahoward, on November 27th, 2018

Every year I try to try out at least one new pie recipe at Thanksgiving. Despite all our warm weather fresh ripe fruits and berries really laying the groundwork for summer to be the season of pie, it is the Thanksgiving holiday, like no other, where pies are the star on the holiday dessert table.

. . . → Read More: Poaching pears, cranberries for a festive pie

Baked Sunday Mornings: Making whoopie pies with pumpkin

By rahoward, on November 18th, 2018

For those of us with limited experience — eating or baking — whoopie pies, we may wonder what all the fuss is about. Sure, they look terribly inviting — plump-soft cookie-cakes sealed together with a creamy filling…a whole lot to love. I had perhaps resisted in making them because they seemed too complicated or . . . → Read More: Baked Sunday Mornings: Making whoopie pies with pumpkin

Baked Sunday Mornings: Dipping in the lightest caramel

By rahoward, on November 4th, 2018

I made the Vanilla Bean Caramel Apples from the Baked Sunday Mornings recipe roster a little ahead of schedule. It was mid-October, and I was in full fall-enthusiasm mode. It had been many years since I had made caramel apples, and I was itching to get to it! And here’s one observation: amid all the . . . → Read More: Baked Sunday Mornings: Dipping in the lightest caramel

Bread of the Month: Finding full fall flavor in pumpkin bread

By rahoward, on October 31st, 2018

We can make fun of the whole pumpkin spice thing endlessly (and we do), but, when we are honest, we really love those tastes of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. It’s just been done to death. There is a time and place and goodie for it, though, and one way to best capture it is with . . . → Read More: Bread of the Month: Finding full fall flavor in pumpkin bread

Fulfilling an apple dumpling destiny

By rahoward, on October 21st, 2018

Why do we prolong the things we want most? I’ve read that fear keeps us at bay from fulfilling the dreams we desire most intensely, and that being fearful of the thing is proof that it is the thing we should be doing.

I don’t know that I have been scared of apple dumplings (really, . . . → Read More: Fulfilling an apple dumpling destiny

Baked Sunday Mornings: Marveling a Marble Bundt Cake

By rahoward, on October 7th, 2018

Marble cake offers the best of both worlds, well, at least the best of both flavors — vanilla and chocolate cake batters are swirled together to bring two favorite tastes in one.

I confess it’s been a long time since I’ve marbled anything — cake or otherwise. I do believe the last marble cake . . . → Read More: Baked Sunday Mornings: Marveling a Marble Bundt Cake

Bread of the Month: Loafing with streusel and scones

By rahoward, on September 30th, 2018

Sometimes I wonder why it takes me so long to get to things. Like recipes. Like a Cinnamon Scone Bread recipe, in particular, which I first saw back in 2014 on the Food52 website, and at that moment declared, “Oooo, I gotta make that!” Just how long could one deny oneself layers of scones sandwiched . . . → Read More: Bread of the Month: Loafing with streusel and scones

Baked Sunday Mornings: ‘Drowning’ in a coffee dessert

By rahoward, on September 23rd, 2018

I can’t remember which cooking maven (it was either Ina or Nigella) I first saw make affogato. But I never forgot this dessert — as simple as they come — where piping hot coffee or freshly brewed espresso is poured over a creamy mound of freezing cold ice cream. The version I saw used vanilla . . . → Read More: Baked Sunday Mornings: ‘Drowning’ in a coffee dessert

“People ask me: "Why do you write about food, and eating, and drinking? Why don't you write about the struggle for power and security, and about love, the way the others do?" . . . The easiest answer is to say that, like most other humans, I am hungry.”
--M.F.K. Fisher

"It was in a yellow limestone church in Stockdale, Kansas, a crossroads town, that I sat dreaming during summer Sunday sermons, not of heaven or hell, but of the good dinner to come."
--Clementine Paddleford