Posts in category: Baking

Happy Star Wars Day! We’re inviting all Star Wars fans to our stores today to celebrate their love of the iconic series. Come in an enjoy a treat, and see what the Jedi Kitchen Council has devised to spread fun through the galaxy.

Today, between 3 p.m. and 8 p.m., visit your local Williams-Sonoma store to learn how to cut out and decorate Star Wars cookies with our top-rated cutters. Customers will receive a free homemade cookie (while supplies last)!

Click here to find a store near you, and shop our entire Star Wars collection online, from themed aprons and spatulas to Darth Vader-inspired cupcake tools.

As we look forward to Mother’s Day this month, we’re honing our breakfast and brunch techniques so the whole family can make a memorable meal for Mom. Pancakes are, without a doubt, a favorite part of leisurely breakfasts. In this staple recipe, buttermilk is the key ingredient, lending its rich, tangy flavor and creating light, fluffy flapjacks.

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Homey, fresh baked biscuits are a staple of breakfast and brunch menus, whether smeared with sweet preserves or topped with creamy gravy. The secret to tender, flaky biscuits? When cutting the butter into the flour, work quickly so it doesn’t melt too much before you put the biscuits in the oven. And don’t overmix the dough.

The old-fashioned biscuits below can be rolled and cut out into any shape. Round is the classic form, but you can also roll out the dough into a rectangle and cut the biscuits into squares. This way, there are no dough scraps to reroll.

Try this classic recipe for baking powder biscuits, or scroll to the bottom of this post for more unique flavor combinations.

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Four ingredients. Six minutes. 240 mph. That’s all it took to make a luscious lemon curd that is the star of these two-bite treats.

While recipe testing, Union Square’s Culinary Expert Aaron J. Clarke came up with the idea to simplify and speed up the process of making lemon curd by doing it all in the Vitamix blender. Check out our how-to video:

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Hot cross buns are an Easter favorite, beloved and fun to make. Bakers turn them out by the hundreds this time of year! Here’s a riff on the classic in loaf form, which is delicious sliced, toasted and topped with a little butter.

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Lemon and lavender is one of my favorite pairings when baking. While prepping for an in-store demo of the Meyer Lemon Poppy Seed Quick Bread, we were looking for ways to give the recipe an extra boost of flavor and came across our Lavender-Lemon Simple Syrup. The syrup was used twice — soaked into the bread itself and incorporated again in the icing, for maximum flavor.

The great thing about our quick bread mixes is the ability to be creative, making the end result truly your own. You can fold in fresh berries (blueberries would be great with the lemon) or toasted nuts, or as in our case, infuse flavor with syrup. The Lavender Lemon Simple Syrup is from our simple syrup collection by Royal Rose, a husband and wife duo that hand makes small batches out of Brooklyn, NY.

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This step-by-step tutorial shows you what happens once you’ve mixed and baked your layer cake — the fun, decorative part begins! The following techniques will walk you through removing a cake from the pan, cooling a cake, slicing a cake base into layers, filling a layer cake and getting it ready to frost. With a little practice, you can create a cake just as beautiful as the Devil’s Food Layer Cake pictured above.

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Festive occasions make this season perfect for baking, and the Dulce de Leche cake from the cookbook Williams-Sonoma Home Baked Comfort is one worth sharing. The ultralight white cake, layers of decadent dulce de leche, and fluffy marshmallow-like frosting make this a melt-in-your-mouth dream.  Continue Reading …

Spring baking is in full swing with Easter-inspired cakes and cupcakes, so we’ll be featuring some of our best baking tips over the next few weeks to help you out in the kitchen. Here, we’re starting with the basics: preparing a cake pan for baking.

Three steps are essential to insure your baked goods don’t stick: buttering, flouring and lining your pan with parchment paper. See how it’s done below.

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Happy Pi Day! In honor of March 14th (that is, 3.14) we’re sharing a new recipe perfect for your spring baking.

Buttermilk pie is exceedingly popular in Texas and the rest of the South. Lest you think it sounds strange, we encourage you to give it a chance, because this is a beautifully balanced custard with the tang of buttermilk and a hint of lemon zest and vanilla.

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