FAQs

Are all of your recipes written in weights? Yes.

Since you are a pastry chef, why does your blog sometimes feature savory food? Actually, I cooked for five years in the savory kitchen for five years before I settled on a career in pastry. And working in both “sides” of the kitchen has taught me that pastry skills can (and should) be applied in the savory kitchen. And vice versa.

Along the same lines, why don’t you focus more on pastry techniques? I don’t devote a lot of my blogging resources to discussing pastry techniques per se because there are a lot of excellent books and blogs that already cover these techniques. Check out the resources section. If you would like to see a specific topic covered, send me an email.

Do I need a bunch of fancy tools to make your recipes? No, but I would suggest that you invest in good quality tools that will hold up to regular use in the kitchen. Besides a digital scale, all you really need is a cutting board, rolling pin, a set of heavy-duty pots and pans, bowls, knives and basic hand tools (a spatula and a whisk are a good start). The choice of pans is up to you—if you plan on baking mostly cakes and pies, then you should invest in sturdy cake pins and pie dishes and hold off on the cookie sheet pans. Frou-frou gadgetry like silicone baking pans are completely unnecessary.

Do I really need to buy that particular brand of cocoa powder? In some recipes, I’ve specified an ingredient’s brand (like Valrhona cocoa powder) because I’ve  the recipe will not work properly with a substitute. This is particularly true in recipes for chocolate cake where much of the flavor relies on the quality of the cocoa powder.

Can I send products for you to review? I buy what I like and talk about it here. Period.

Why don’t you have a Facebook page? It’s difficult to keep up with multiple social feeds so I limit my contact options to email, Twitter and this blog.

Any downsides to writing a blog? Yes, my food is usually cold (or melted) by the time I get around to eating it.