De Baking Psychopath

Every time we go to Philly to visit Jess, I come back with items from the Metropolitan Bakery that 1) are absolutely delicious, and 2) I want to recreate. You'd think it'd be easy to find the recipes to recreate these items since they have a cookbook published, but alas the bar cookie we were swept away by this time is not in the book. Jess and I went foraging in the day-old bin, and the two of us were like giddy little children in a candy store as we rifled through the unusually large selection of discounted items that early Saturday morning. Croissants! Frosted carrot cake! Muffins of all sorts! Loaves of bread! And fatefully, raspberry crumb bars. We didn't get a chance to eat the raspberry crumb bar whilst in Philly, but upon returning home and finding it packed into our food bag by a sneaky Jess, Michael and I shared the bar and liked it more and more with each passing bite. The shortbread crust was sturdy and crunchy on the base, the jam deep-flavo...

I made a recent trip to California, where I had the most wonderful English tea experience: My gigantic pot of tea and my finger sandwich spread with a side salad and one scone Condiments for the scone: clotted cream, lemon curd, triple berry jam Fully constructed scone heaven So you can imagine that when I got home, I was itching to make some more scones to enjoy. The scone is one category of quick rise pastries that I have yet to get over my apprehension for making, and yet I collect scone recipes like it's my job. The recipes look simple and seem to be so tasty, and the sheer romance of having scones with freshly brewed tea makes me search avidly for recipes, and yet I shy away from making them. Partly I think it's the problem that I have not eaten many scones in my lifetime, and few of those were from reputable sources, so I lack confidence that I would be able to recognize home scone-making success in a recipe. So this trip to CA and fateful l...