Reach for the peach
Safe and sane are two words associated with the Fourth of July. I'd like to add a third: fuzzy. Not fuzzy as in warm and fuzzy patriotism, but fuzzy, as in the soft, itchy hair of a tree-picked peach.

No Yolk: Vegan Baked Goods are Good
Thanks to cutting-edge pastry chefs with classical training, vegan baking -- baking without animal products or refined sugars -- is now not only good for you, but good tasting.

Sweet memories inspire cherry focaccia
Her name was Alison. Her hair was cherry red. I found out too late we were allergic to each other. Fortunately, my lifelong love affair with cherries has been nothing but sweet. Or, like the cherry plums I used to pick from the trees near my grandparents' graves, alluringly tart.

Outdoor bakers offer tips for cooking by campfire
If you're hiking the backcountry this season and come across two middle-aged guys hunkered around a cooking pot set in glowing embers, fear not. They're not survivalists. They're hedonists.

Traditional tres leches bucks all the trends
Got milk? Got milk? Got milk? You'll need three kinds to make the classic Latin American tres leches cake.

Science is seeking a better-bred bread
The eastern shore of San Francisco Bay hardly inspires images of amber waves of grain. But it's right here in Albany, eight traffic-choked freeway lanes away from a horse-racing track on the water's edge, where a U.S. government plant geneticist may change the nature of wheat plants and commercial bread production.

Home bun! Great hot dogs need winning wraps
Quick: Name your favorite hot dog. A skinless, nitrite-free, 100 percent, grass-fed kosher beef dog? Now name your favorite hot dog bun. Come on, name it. Take another minute. Dog got your tongue? Thought so.

Brioche: bread and butter at its best
Bread and butter. They're a classic combination. So you can imagine my reaction to brioche, a pastrylike egg bread enriched by butter. The Staff of Life baked with beloved butterfat? Pardon me while I have a Homer Simpson moment.

It's not all black, white when building a better brownie
Simplicity isn't always simple. Take brownies: A few pantry ingredients. A bowl or two. Some mixing. And into the oven. In less than an hour, you're staring at a pan of deliciously humble baked chocolate. But before you bite, wait. Did you crave fudgey but bake cakey?You didn't bake them too long or too hot, did you? Will you ice them? Bittersweet or semisweet? Dutch alkalized or natural unsweetened cocoa powder? With or without nuts? And don't cut into them yet -- maybe not today or even tomorrow. Simple? For all the details and rules, you'd think you were making the queen's coronation cake.

Ciabatta: Slip into 'slipper bread'
There's a quote from Winston Churchill on my refrigerator: "Never, never, never give up." I've been repeating it a lot lately -- with great determination. No, I haven't been fighting Nazis. I've been making ciabatta.

Yule log you'll love to bake takes just a dozen easy steps
Although it's associated with the most famous Christian holiday, the Yule Log was born in pagan ceremony. It took a few thousand years and some enterprising French pastry chefs to make it edible.

Fruitcake layered in rich, centuries-old traditions
In monasteries from Big Sur to the Missouri Ozarks, monks are the vanguard of fruitcakes -- a treat that has its roots in ancient Egyptian ovens.

A winter cookieland
There are seven ways to make cookies -- dropped, rolled, bagged, molded/cut-out, ice-box, bar and sliced. There are dozens of ways to screw them up. To avoid holiday cookie disasters, I've prepared a cookie cheat sheet, with everything you and I need to know to keep our cookies from crumbling, or spreading or otherwise being disappointing.

Nog gets the nod, in a glass or popped into a hot oven
On the eve of the American holiday feast, let us give thanks for a potently rich concoction with Old World roots and New World punch. Let us raise our glasses to eggnog. Eggnog is not just for drinking. It's good for baking, too.

A perfect pie crust is no piece of cake
Everyone has a preferred way of making pie crust. While the ingredients -- flour, fat, salt and liquid -- are simple enough, it's not that simple to get perfect pie crust. With the holiday pie season staring us in our pie holes, it's time for a pie-crust primer.

Great pumpkin desserts
Now that jack-o-lanterns have taken their rightful place on the post-Halloween compost pile, we can put pumpkins to seriously delicious uses.

Day of the Dead alive with sweet traditions
Joey and I talked a lot about food and our Mexican ancestors. We wrote songs about ghosts. We lived like we'd never die. Today, two fresh loaves of pan de muertos rest on my kitchen counter. They are bound for Joey's altar.

Here comes the pride
"I do." Regret set in as soon as the words left my lips. The question? "Do you think you could help me make a wedding cake tomorrow?"

Go bananas! This cake story has sweet ending
If you identify with the F-word -- foodie -- a good dish just isn't enough. Everything you cook or bake must have a back-story. So it is with my favorite banana cake.

Oh my! Galette is easier than pie
Perhaps the oldest known pastry, galettes are also the most widely interpreted. From buckwheat cakes of Brittany to crisp sable butter cookies of Normandy, just about any round, flat pastry is called a galette. This includes open-faced fruit pies with pleated edges; double-crusted pies with either sweet or savory fillings; sheets of sugar-glazed pastry; or fried potato cakes topped with meat and cheese.

When it comes to almonds, this baker's a real nut case
Call me nuts, but the best stone fruit I've eaten all season has been an almond. Peaches? Hard or mushy. Plums? Unpredictable. Cherries? Too expensive to be enjoyed. Almonds: always consistently sweet and buttery. Yes, almonds are a stone fruit, a cousin of the peach. Botanists have even given them a fruity Latin name to make it official: Prunus dulcis.

Clean-up campaign begins in the kitchen
A health inspector walks into my kitchen, glances around and walks out. He hands me a form to sign, gives me a copy and leaves. Time elapsed: about 46 seconds. Of course, there weren't any major violations. An aching back and bleach-seared hands saw to that. But an official health inspection in less time than it takes to melt chocolate?

Step up from ordinary pies to intriguing world of tarts
It's like a pie but it's not a pie. Its name suggests a lack of sweetness, but you'll rarely pucker over a tongue-popping tart. Tarts are one of the broadest categories in pastry. You can make them sweet or savory, large or small. You can fill them with custard, fruit, cheese, eggs, meat, vegetables or simply spread them with jam and sprinkle with sugar.

'Sauce that took a breath' billows with possibilities
The perfectly baked souffle has been described with perfectly French poetic license as "a sauce that took a breath." ("Souffle," after all, translates from the French as "to fill with air.") At its most basic, a souffle is a mixture of whipped egg whites, sugar and flavoring, sort of a moist, billowy meringue that's baked until it rises like a golden brown cloud.

Petits fours: Diminutive cakes will elicit broad smiles
The last installment of this column concerned a big baking project -- a wedding cake. Today's column scales way down for petits fours -- tiny cakes that make big impressions. Petit four actually describes a broad range of baked treats -- from cookies to cakes to pastries to tarts -- that can be eaten in one or two bites.

Who doesn't dig nutty carrot cake?
It's said that the man who gave Bugs Bunny his voice didn't like carrots. What's up with that, Doc? Mel Blanc probably never had carrot cake, at least not the dense -- almost meaty -- kind that's turned Feb. 3 into National Carrot Cake Day. Published Feb. 19 2003.

Whip up some tasty, tender biscuits
They seem so basic that I shouldn't be writing this and you shouldn't be reading it. And yet many biscuits turn out like hockey pucks. Despite their seeming simplicity, biscuits are almost as fussy and complicated as puff pastry. Published Feb. 5, 2003.

Focaccia's gotcha rolling in dough
Focaccia is one of the oldest, simplest and most versatile breads. It's a wonderful introduction to bread-making, as it doesn't require a lot of kneading. You start with a simple yeast-water-flour-salt recipe and let the dough ferment slowly. Spread it out with your hands in an oiled cookie sheet, top it any way you wish and bake it in the oven. Published Jan. 22, 2003.

It takes little effort to make great crepes
No matter which way you make them -- sweet or savory, rolled or folded -- crepes are classic French pancakes that'll move like hot cakes. Published Jan. 8, 2003.

It takes patience and care to create a spongy, moist genoise
The perfect cross between light and dense, genoise is a buttery sponge that's the ultimate custardy cake. No wonder it's the popular building block for so many filled cakes, from the Swedish princess cake to the Mexican tres leches cake to the yule log. Published Jan. 1, 2003

Put a new spin on homemade ice cream
I scream, you scream ... yeah, yeah, yeah. Just make sure it's got at least 10 percent butterfat content or don't call it ice cream. (Below 10 percent, it's called ice milk; above 24 percent, it's called unappetizing globs of pasty fat.) Published Dec. 25, 2002

Real bakers are cream puff pros
The basis for towering croquembouche, delicate eclairs and perfectly puffy profiteroles, pate a chou is an easy and handy recipe to master. A basic roux (butter, water and flour) with the addition of eggs, pate a chou can be made, baked and served in less than an hour.
Published Dec. 18, 2002

When life gives you Meyer lemons, make merry
Christmas is almost here -- so pucker up. This isn't about stealing mistletoe kisses, it's about plucking Meyer lemons. Now available in finer produce markets and on backyard trees from Valley to Bay, Meyer lemons offer winter bakers an abundance of perfumed possibilities.
Published Dec. 11, 2002

Cheesecake, for many, is the creme de la creme
Popular ancient Greeks, cheesecake has evolved into many moist, creamy and deeply coveted incarnations over the millennia. Romans offered cheesecake to their gods. Olympians were feted with cheesecake. New Yorkers fiercely defend it.
Published Dec. 04, 2002

Let's get to the nitty-gritty of baking
The sweetest of sciences, baking relies on specific ingredients, accurate measurements, adequate time and temperature and blind faith in the baking process.
Published Nov. 27, 2002

Heed the how-to harangue to get the best meringue
A luscious whipped foam of egg whites and sugar, meringue is one of the most essential -- and easily abused -- pastry items. "Meringue" refers to the infusion of sugar into the whipped whites. Without sugar, you've just got a bowl of air and eggs.
Published Nov. 20, 2002

Simplicity and care are secrets to creme brulee
A rich, baked custard, creme brulee is both simple and versatile -- as witnessed by its presence on so many Bay Area restaurant menus.
Published Nov. 13, 2002

When it comes to pie, just dough it
The perfect pie crust is no piece of cake. While the ingredients -- flour, shortening, salt and water -- are basic enough, the key to a quality crust depends almost entirely on mixing techniques.
Published Oct. 30, 2002