A Week in My Kitchen
The good, the not-so-bad, and everything in between
Hi there !
This week, I thought I’d bring you behind the scenes of my kitchen. I want to show you the good, the almost-good, and the "okay-but-need-tweaking" bakes.
Every week, I spend a lot of time testing new ideas, adjusting techniques, and letting seasonal ingredients inspire me. Some of it will end up in my newsletters, and some will stay in the recipe file (for now).
So here’s a sneak peek at what I’ve been working on; and what I learned along the way.
1. White peaches and verbena cream bars
Spring has officially begun with white peaches showing up in my kitchen! These days I’m leaning into simpler, fresher bakes. The kind that don’t ask much, but still feel special. With these bars I wanted something sweet, a little bit buttery, but still kinda light. If you don’t know it, peaches work amazingly with herbs. So instead of making simple peach and vanilla cream bars, I chose to add a twist to mines with a pinch of verbena flavor to bring freshness to this bake. It was really good, but the peaches weren’t very flavorful, so the verbena was overpowering. For the next test I will slightly tone down the verbena, and wait for better peaches to hit the local market.
Still: they made the kitchen smell incredible.
2. Mango shortcake
These days I feel like everybody is making strawberry pastries… And I don’t have anything against strawberries, but, something you need to know about me is that I don’t love making things like everybody. You know, sometimes I just like to add some ✨ « glitters »✨ to my bakes to make them a little bit more special. That being said, for this bake I wanted to make a shortcake inspired by Japanese strawberry shortcake. You already know it, the twist was to use mangoes instead of strawberries. And this mango shortcake? It was light, fresh, not too sweet, fluffy… It was like eating a cloud made of mango and vanilla whipped cream. It just worked. I was really happy with how the sponge turned out. It was very fluffy and airy, I’m definitely keeping it for other bakes. Now, for the story, I need to tell you that I had to make this cake 3 times. The first time, the sponge tasted amazing, but it was a bit too flat. The second time was a success… But when I finished assembling the cake, it fell down in the fridge… So I had to make it again. I didn’t complain though; because it meant more cloudy cake to eat lol.
3. Brown butter chocolate chips & pistachios cookies
Classic cookies recipe are too sweet. There, I said it. All the recipes I see/test (made by chefs or home bakers online) are too sweet. — Btw I also have recipes from famous french places I worked for before, and let me tell you something: THEY ARE TOO SWEET TOO— But here’s the thing. With pastry and especially with cookies, reducing the sugar means changing the texture. And nobody likes a cakey cookie! (Well, maybe some people do.. But I surely don’t!) So I’ve been on a quest to make not-too-sweet but still very yummy cookies. I developed a recipe that I already really like (texture & taste-wise), and I wanted to test how the dough reacted to being frozen. It was a success. But with this success, a new problem arose.. Now I feel the need to fill up my freezer with cookie dough… Because cookies ready in 10 minutes? Yes, please!
This week I also baked a lot of shortbreads, brownies, burger buns, bread, chocolate sugar cookies… But sadly, I can’t show you everything in this article as it might be to long. So I’ll stop here for today!
Is there one of these bakes you’d like me to share in full? Just hit reply (or the comment section) and let me know which one—you might see it in an upcoming newsletter!
Thanks for reading this article and for being here. I hope this little peek into my week gave you some ideas, inspiration, or even just made you think: “I hope she will post this recipe soon!”
Until then, go bake something delicious!
— San
the mango shortcake sounds delicious!!