Pastry Laboratory

12/20/2025

“Best cookie advice: Toast the sugar, swap extract for vanilla powder or paste, brown the butter, and use good chocolate that you chop yourself. The results justify the effort. — Noah Werthaiser, Ashland, Ore.” via the NYT

10/23/2023

Safe Flour Handling: Know your “Roll”
Wednesday, November 1, 2023 1:00 to 2:10 p.m. Eastern
Based on a consumer study published by the International Association for Food Protection in 2021, 85% of consumers were unaware of the safety risks associated with raw flour. The study also noted the increase in flour use during the months of November and December as consumers were more inclined to bake cakes, cookies, and other flour products for the holidays.
The holiday baking season is quickly approaching! It’s important for families to understand the risks of handling raw flour as well as the safety practices they can use to prevent flour-related foodborne illnesses.This free webinar will highlight the risks associated with raw flour, the perceptions held by consumers in regard to the prevalence of illness, how to safely handle raw flour, and current food safety resources for health and food safety educators to share with consumers.
Guest speakers will include Fanfan Wu, Ph.D. and Sharmi Das with the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration, and Jane DeMarchi from the North American Millers’ Association.
Register now to earn free CEUs from ANFP, CDR, NCHEC, and NEHA!

12/18/2018

01/22/2016

"Sweet" little animation.

Can you take the heat with inventor of the Scoville scale, Wilbur Scoville?!

01/14/2016

12/16/2015

As far back as the Iron Age, people have gathered to celebrate December’s winter solstice and welcome the lengthening days. As part of the earliest Nordic rituals, Yule logs were decorated wi…

10/01/2015

We love Janjou Pâtisserie and our friend Mosh*t. :)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-47EqgTJc5w&feature=youtu.be

05/09/2015

Comments welcome but be prepared for defense.

What sorts of rare, exotic ingredients go into a $15 slice of cake? If you’re talking about a New York wedding cake, try sugar, flour and eggs. Maybe some butter.

01/30/2015

Go pastry chefs! Put your best chocolate forward! # deathbychocolate

12/13/2014

Anyone remember the story I told you about this incredible man and his adventure as a geologist with a global sourdough collection? It's hard to believe that he and his precious starters are right here in Cascade, Idaho!

We sell sourdough cultures. We currently have 17 cultures for sale. They are from all over the world. Our cultures have no commercial yeast in them. Come back to the original way that sourdough was made. Try our Gold Standard of Bread.

12/10/2014

Most of you remember the video of Lionel Poilane's bread and his punition. Here's an interesting update on his daughter Apollonia. In case you missed the original, I'll post it too.

On November 2, 2002, Apollonia Poilâne sat down at her father’s desk and took over as the C.E.O. of the company that for eight decades has made Paris’s most celebrated bread. Two days earlier, her father, Lionel, and her mother, Ibu, had been killed in a helicopter crash. Lionel, a flying enthusiast…

09/30/2014

"Good (long and thorough) read about Maillard Reaction. Might help you understand why our pastries are not blonde but brown - as they should be." ~Mosh*t

How cool it must have been to be present - a fly on the cave wall - at the precise moment humans first applied fire to food and the realization that the transformations due to heat  made their hunt...