When we visited our daughter in Washington last April, we went to a cookware shop in Gig Harbor. I found a new pastry cookbook there, and last weekend was my first attempt at the recipes. I tried the dough for laminated pastries, and made croissants and Franzbrotchen.

The book New European Baking is by an American baker, Lauren Kratochvila, who was trained in France and runs a bakery in Berlin. The recipes look wonderful, although are pretty complicated. There were illustrations that were helpful, and the finished dough tasted wonderful. I don’t know how many baboons have made their own croissant dough, but the basic premise is that you envelope a 10 inch square of butter (about 9 oz) in a 10 inch round of dough, and then proceed to roll the dough into a 30 inch length, fold the dough in a specific way, chill it, roll it again to 30 inches, fold it again, chill it, and then roll it out into a 20 X 12 rectangle and cut the dough into rolls. The end product has hundreds of butter/dough layers because of the folds. This all has to be done really quickly so the butter doesn’t get soft in between the dough layers and ooze out. I was so irritable and stressed during all this that Husband was afraid to come into the kitchen.

I have made Julia Child’s croissant recipe in the past. This recipe was more complicated, but I am determined to try it again. My rolls turned out pretty good for a first try, although they didn’t have the perfect shape that the book author showed in the book photos. They were light and airy and buttery. The Franzbrotchen have a cinnamon filling and are supposed to look like squashed bicycle tires. You can see the rolls I made in the header photo. I considered this first try a learning experience, and I am going to try them until I get them as perfect as I can.

What have you tried to perfect and with what success? What pastry would you like to learn to make?

The plan was just to go into my local Aldis, get the shredded cheddar and a half gallon of milk.  I swear.

You know those big cardboard boxes that usually are full of watermelon at this time of year?  Or all those bags of freezee-pops?  Well, right inside the door was a big cardboard box of cherries.  Bag after bag of gorgeous cherries and at a very good price I might add.  I was powerless.

Yesterday I pitted all the cherries from one of the bags – chopped up the amount was exactly what I needed for a batch of cherry freezer jam – 6 and a half jars.  Fairly quick but the messiest of all the jams I make.  I ended up using my Vidalia chopper – it made just the right-sized bits for the jam and it also didn’t spew cherry juice all over the place. 

But here’s the kicker; you all know that I didn’t just buy one bag of cherries.  I’ve never actually made cherry jam before so wasn’t sure exactly how many cherries I needed.  Well now I know.  With YA out of town for work, it’s just me and that whole bag of cherries. I suppose I could make more jam but I’m already pushing the limit of how much jam I can eat in a year.

What should I do with all these cherries?