everything is brown, some things are nutty, and it’s all just, so delectable.
new on bbs
Brown Butter Brioche
Super soft brioche made milk bread style and with brown butter. This is deeply flavorful and pillowy tender. Unlike many a brioche, this one takes more than a few days to dry out.
brioche embellished
Chocolate Chip Cookie Brioche
The new brown butter brioche recipe is based off of this one (a year of testing and retesting it as a standalone had me making a ton of adjustments so there are major changes). I hope I already had you convinced to try a super tender bb brioche but if not, let me add to it with this: chocolate chip cookie baked between the layers! The middle stays a bit soft like a ccc dough and the top bakes up into a crunchy texture - against the soft bread it’s really something.
more brown butter
Brown Butter Scones
I can’t remember if I told you I updated this post but I worked on it a few weeks ago and well I just want you to know they are as ridiculously delish as ever. Also, it doesn’t have to be chocolate chips: I think some strawberry chunks or wild blueberries would be fantastic in there.
reader review
“This recipe is a new favorite for me (and my husband). Turned out perfectly and we loved it with the milk chocolate. Thanks again! We found these bake up nicely after being frozen as raw dough balls too, just a few minutes extra in the oven… keeps you from eating them all at once.” - Gwen.
weekly reads & notes
“ “Chili crunch has a history that long predates Momofuku’s product and is culturally common throughout a variety of cuisines from China to Korea to Malaysia, where I grew up,” (Homiah’s founder, Michelle Tew) wrote, citing the product is based on a family recipe that goes back “at least five generations.” She joins others in their anger over Momofuku trademarking the name for what they see as a category of products, homing in on the semantics of language to stifle other crisps and crunches from small, independent, Asian-owned companies.,” - Should Momofuku Own the Term ‘Chili Crunch’? - Eater.
“…it appears to be an open secret in the consumer packaged goods industry that Trader Joe’s outsources inspiration for new products by targeting emerging brands under the guise of recruiting them to manufacture private-label items…According to these sources, Trader Joe’s commonly solicits product samples and even asks for potential recipe adjustments—a revealing and time-consuming exercise for bootstrapped founders—before inexplicably abandoning the negotiations and releasing its own private-label versions of similar products at lower prices.” We Need to Talk about Trader Joes, Taste Cooking.
“It is next to impossible to buy legumes or grains right now, and spices are a luxury item. But living in Beit Lahia, once considered the breadbasket of the Gaza Strip, I recognized an opportunity in our local farmers. With a list of old contacts, I set out to source basic ingredients like potatoes, carrots and onions — now rare commodities that most residents of the north can only dream of. I secured and paid hundreds of dollars for bundles of firewood — difficult to find since Israel has prevented cooking fuel from reaching us — foraged for seasonal edible greens like common mallow and wild chard, bought canned mushrooms for added protein at seven times the old price, purchased a few bags of smuggled tomatoes at $27 a pound, and found some overgrown zucchinis that looked like pumpkins — zucchinis that should have been picked weeks ago.” - Our northern Gaza family will feed our neighbors — until we can’t, Washington Post.
For ‘national unicorn day’ earlier this week I remade my Small Birthday Cake as a surprise for my girls when they got home from school so that page is now updated with some adjustments, a video, and step by step guidance. And, ahem, I did not really get any inside shots (video or stills -save one!) because there was just no getting the girls to wait while I would carefully slice into the cake on the other side of the house where the lighting is better (how my stuff is usually created) so anyway, y’all get just until the cake is frosted and that’s it bc it was very quickly demolished 😄
I film recipes near a window that faces our deck, and over the past few days I started to notice some activity near and in a raspberry bush I was trying to grow last year. It’s already gotten quite a few green leaves which made me hopeful for fruit this summer, but (while testing a pistachio pavlova!), I started to notice birds going back and forth, carrying bits and bobs from our yard. It turns out we’ve got two Carolina Wrens building a nest in there:
I might not get berries but maybe we’ll get some baby birds?! 🥺 I will be watching closely while I bake for you and will keep this space updated =)
and for members
Brown Butter Hazelnut Blondies with Hazelnut Glaze
Soft and chewy blondies made 10x more flavorful with the addition of a homemade hazelnut butter (hazelnuts toasted and processed until they become a paste). These get chunks of two types of chocolate and the bars are optionally adorned with a smooth, nutty hazelnut glaze.