Christmas cookie trees

How to Make a Christmas Cookie Centerpiece

Standing a foot tall, this Christmas cookie tree is a show-stopper for sure. To start, you need a great sugar cookie recipe, like the recipe used in Chef Penny's gold covered sugar cookies (gold leaf

Chef Penny's sugar cookies

Gold-Covered Sugar Cookies

Chef Penny doesn't mess around with her sugar cookies. She begins by using the creaming method, the process of combining sugar into butter to create a light, fluffy mixture. "The sugar is beating

chef penny's custom chocolate mold

How to Make a Mold

If a bride wants the lace from her veil to be replicated on her wedding cake, or I find a gorgeous trinket at an antique market that would be a perfect adornment for a cake, I have to find ways of

Chef Penny's pro birthday cake

The Ultimate Birthday Cake Techniques

Chef Penny has more than 15 years of professional pastry experience. After graduating from the Institute of Culinary Education and working at Spice Market, she opened custom cake bakery Sugar Couture

Sweet Crepe

Chef Penny's Passion Fruit Champagne Crepes

Chef Penny says anywhere water is called for, you can replace that with a flavorful liquid — like Champagne, which in the case adds a little bit of lightness to the final dish thanks to the

Kale clover and pineapple tart

A Puff Pastry Recipe Perfect for Mother's Day

There are four key guidelines to making proper puff pastry like a pastry chef. They are: Keep it cold. The beautiful layers will only stay layers if you work with the dough cold and keep it cold

Three choux pastry puffs with custard filling sit on a wooden surface

Pâte à Choux's Potential

As a chef who is obsessive about technique, I’m enthralled by these types of recipes that seem to have endless variations and uses. By having a solid pâte à choux pastry recipe in your tool kit, you

A cake decorated with string work

The History of Royal Icing String Work

The traditional technique is one perfected over a century. It involves delicate piping of royal icing, through a very small piping tip, built up upon itself to reach breathtaking gravity-defying

Slice and bake pumpkin cookies

Halloween Cookies Recipe

Slice-and-bake cookies combine convenience and nostalgia into a delicious, themed bite. These particular cookies have a pumpkin in the center for decoration, making them perfect for Halloween, but you

Chef Penny's Chai Apple Pie

Chef Penny's Chai Apple Pie

"The secret ingredient in this recipe is caramelized white chocolate," Chef Penny entices. She says the warm and sweet pie with savory and boozy kicks "fires on every note." "If you're going to eat

Peanut Butter and Jelly Chocolate Cake

Chef Penny's Peanut Butter and Jelly Chocolate Cake

"The perfect combination of flavors for me is chocolate and peanut butter, and then I add a little bit of strawberry and strawberry jam to make it more like a peanut butter and jelly cake," Chef Penny

A pulled sugar flower on a hand-painted cake

How to Use Isomalt for Pulled Sugar Flowers

I can make flowers from fondant, gum paste, modeling chocolate, tempered chocolate, bean paste or cold porcelain. And while few cake decorators touch it, I can pull and blow sugar into stunning

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