All too often, busy people who get the urge to bake seldom think beyond boxed cake mixes and slice-and-bake cookies. While these conveniences do fill a niche, baking from scratch is a healthier and tastier way to present baked goodies to family and friends. The perception that “scratch” baking is more difficult and takes more time is dispelled with the recently released book, Making Dough: Ratios and Recipes for Perfect Pastries by Russell van Kraayenburg. Using five basic dough ingredients - flour, butter, water, sugar, and eggs - the author shows bakers how to mix 12 basic pastry doughs that can be used to create biscuits, tarts, Danish, pie crusts, croissants, Éclairs and more from scratch. Van Kraayenburg claims the secret to producing wonderful pastry products is the combination of the five basic ingredients in various proportions and how the dough is mixed. Baking terms are defined and measuring techniques discussed. Instructions are easy to follow.
If you have been thinking that you’d like to explore baking a bit more this autumn, Making Dough is a good starting place. Before long, you’ll be baking perfect pastries too!

 Today is International Beer Day (IBD). According to the International Beer Day Web site (www.internationalbeerday.com) IBD, which was founded in 2007 by the Association of California Brewers, and which has been celebrated on the first Friday in August since 2008, is a day to mark the contributions that beer, and the people who provide it, make in our lives. Hundreds of bars, restaurants, pubs, breweries, as well as backyard parties worldwide observe this holiday, whose mission is to unite the world through beer.  

The IBD Web site provides recommendations for celebrating today’s holiday. So get together with friends and find a pub or brewery that’s celebrating IBD.  Want to keep the festivities closer to home?  Kick back with some friends in your own backyard or living room and enjoy your favorite brew. And don’t forget to try something new, like a beer from another culture. One never needs an excuse to enjoy a cold one. Today there is a reason!  Happy International Beer Day!