Meeting My Favorite Baker!

Hi Everyone, it's Mary here! I am so excited to post for the first time! I just couldn’t wait to share with you about an awesome event I had the opportunity to attend last night! One of the bakeries/cafes Hannah and I LOVE frequenting in Boston is Flour Bakery, an adorable little café with a diverse menu ranging from freshly baked pastries and cakes to delicious sandwiches (on homemade bread!) and salads. Since its beginning in 2000, Flour already has four locations in Boston, and the owner Joanne Chang, a Harvard grad, has already published two cookbooks! Just yesterday,
Chang released a brand new book, Baking With Less Sugar, which I had been anticipating for many months! Though I love to bake, I have been significantly cutting back on sugar recently, and was so excited to see an entire book dedicated to using other natural sweeteners from my favorite bakery!

Chang (left) and Greenspan (right) sharing some of their best stories!

Last night, I had the opportunity to attend a Conversation and Q&A session not only with Joanne Chang herself, but also with distinguished baker Dorie Greenspan, author of six James Beard Award winning cookbooks! It was amazing to hear the two of them discuss their adventures in baking, from their first jobs to publishing their first cookbooks, as well as sharing some of their best tips and most important lessons! While Chang received a degree in Economics and Mathematics, she always had a passion for baking and became inspired to open up a bakery after a taking a “How to Open a Bakery” class at the same place I attended this event tonight, the Boston Center for Adult Education! What an incredible story!

Joanne Chang and I! 

After hearing many great stories and discussing many delicious recipes, everyone was invited to sample some delicious creations from both chefs! There were lots of little dessert samples presented so elegantly, it was so hard to choose what to try! I sampled Chang’s Carrot Pineapple Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting, a recipe from her new cookbook that is sweetened only with apple juice and the fruit in the cake! It was absolutely delicious, I cannot wait to make it for my friends and family to try sometime soon!

    

 Limoncello Cupcakes from Greenspan’s book Baking Chez Moi

Mini Indian Pudding Cups (made with Molasses) from Chang’s Baking With Less Sugar

My new signed book! 

I’m so excited to embark upon all sorts of no sugar and low sugar baking adventures this summer! What types of sweeteners have you experimented with and been successful with? If you’re like me and love baking but want to cut back on sugar, I would definitely recommend picking up a copy of Baking With Less Sugar as a great place to start!

Mary