hi friends. welcome to foodstuffs, my new blog!!! i hope you’re eating something good today.
it’s been a while since i last wrote and i’m so happy to be back at it. why don’t we play a little catch up…
my old blog chronicled six months spent abroad eating in peru. it was there that i took my first cooking classes (in spanish 🙈), ate guinea pig, and told my friends and family all about peruvian cuisine via the interweb. i loved it! every sunday, i’d sit criss-cross applesauce on my bed and start typing and translating a peruvian recipe.
when i left peru, i went back to finish college in davidson, north carolina. to liven up the food scene there, i started working at summit coffee, baked my tail off, ate too much milk bread, and wrote a food column for the student paper. i even took a course in nutrition, which explains some of the way-too-damn-healthy recipes i have in my archives. i was lucky enough to land a summer internship at food52, the james-beard awarded culinary website, which led me to my first job out of school on their marketing team.
upon moving to new york city and starting life in the real world, my blogging fell off the wagon. i was busy! too busy! really, ask anyone who saw me my first six months in nyc. this was me. but now life has changed a bit! i just wrapped up two very full years in new york, and am living in washington, dc for the summer before heading to culinary school in paris this fall. you could say i’m excited.
i’m sure you’re wondering why dough pictures are just creeping onto your screen without any acknowledgment or explanation. that dough is the beginning of my very first croissant bake! in preparation for my summer job at bread furst, a fabulous, james-beard winning bakery in d.c. that you must visit, i made homemade croissants! jokes on me though because i am now weeks into my work at the bakery and i don’t actually bake the croissants. instead, i bake loaves and baguettes all day with the bread bakers (pastry bakers cover croissants).
regardless, i’m happy i made croissants from scratch because i learned that they take a very very very long time and are a hard thing to get right on your first try (#learning). i spent little time deciding on where to pull a croissant recipe. it was to be julia child’s croissants, the queen of french cooking (with english translation).
a quick google search pulled up this throwback video that made me appreciate how informational The French Chef was and what today’s cooking shows truly lack.
i followed julia’s recipe to a tee and recommend that if you want an authentic and true french croissant, you do the same. making the croissants took a full day so i’d bookmark this adventure for a rainy weekend. the actual mixing of the dough is simple and straight-forward, with the most difficult part of the recipe coming towards the very end of your day (after multiple hours of folding and waiting). this part is the forming of the isosceles triangles, which you immediately roll into crescent shape. they won’t be perfect but if mixed and folded correctly, your croissants will be truly impressive. not to mention, buttery and flaky upon opening. what’s better than that!
below you can find the recipe fixings, special tools, and link to instructions for making julia child’s croissants. i also included a couple quick croissant recipe suggestions in case time isn’t your friend these days.
and as you could guess from the title, this blog, while mainly about food, will also include snippets and tangents on other random happenings. here’s this week’s other stuff:
obsessed with (and basically want to eat) this lip balm in coconut (h/t my friend kate)
clicking spotify repeat button on this
currently reading A Revolution in Taste by Susan Pinkard. fun fact: Susan is my mom’s best friend and her use of the word foodstuffs was an inspiration for my blog name!
and for your information:
-
: a substance that is used as food
okay, that’s all for today!! 👋
julia child’s croissants
makes 12 medium croissants
fixings
1 package active-dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water
1 1/2 teaspoon and 1/8 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon and 1/8 teaspoon sugar
1/2 cup tepid milk
2 cups all-purpose flour, leveled (plus more for shaping)
3 tablespoons tasteless oil (vegetable, canola)
1 stick, chilled butter
1 egg
1 teaspoon water
special tools
plastic wrap
scissors
rolling pin (a wine bottle works too!)
baking sheet
instructions
for the full recipe and instructions, see Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. 2, or follow along with The French Chef video above.*
some quicker croissant recipe ideas:
croissants, martha stewart
homemade croissants, pure wow
and when all else fails, my friend caroline swears by Trader Joe’s overnight croissants
*most of my recipes are original or adaptations. for those that aren’t, i refer you to the original source where you can legally access them!
**i’ve transferred all my peruvian and nutrition recipes and blog posts over to foodstuffs. (hence this being post 34). have fun looking through the archives!
photography by catherine o’donnell/foodstuffs
CATHERINE KATE MARGARET 