Baking at The Market on Holly

I’ve been doing a lot of baking lately. And I’m not talking about the usual holiday-season baking or muffin baking I do regularly. No, I’ve become a real, professional baker.

I wake up at 4am. I’m in the kitchen by 5. Croissants are proofing by 6, and all of the morning’s baked goods are ready by 7.

I’m not going to lie. It is excruciatingly hard to wake up so early and get working. But it is a labor of love. A laborious, labor-intensive labor of love. And why would I put myself through this? Well, I happen to be a big fan of the Market on Holly in Pasadena (if you haven’t checked out this lovely cafe it should be on your list of things to do). I also happen to think that their croissants are some of the best in the city. And I love their wonder bars and cinnamon rolls and lemon cakes. So when I was given the opportunity to bake there for the month my answer was, of course, yes!

So my last few weeks have been filled with intensively learning everything from their pastry chef. She is now away for the holidays and I am taking everything she has taught me and baking for the Market on Holly until the new year. Here are a few things I’ve learned from baking in a commercial kitchen…

1. Making croissants from scratch is no joke! I mean seriously. Rolling Danish dough, incorporating the butter then rolling it again the next morning to make croissants is hard. It is hard to get right and it is just downright hard to do. I have had bruises up and down my forearms from rolling this dough each day. But the rewards are priceless. There is nothing like a freshly baked croissant with fluffy sweet layers and folds, especially if it is filled with almond paste. And while I now know the exact quantity of butter that goes into those folds, I still love croissants – butter be damned!

 

2. Space is key. Baking at home is not half as fun as baking in a commerical kitchen. There is actually space to roll out dough, to line up large baking sheets, to have your ingredients on the table with you as you work. And having the space to move around makes baking so much more enjoyable and inspiring. This is somehow a blessing and a curse. I’m going to love this month of baking professionally, but when I have to get back into my own kitchen I’m going to long for the counter space I once had.

 

3. Everything is better in muffin form. One of the things I love about the baked goods at the Market on Holly is their cute and compact individual nature. Pull-apart breads are baked in muffin trays creating a wonderfully sized individual serving. Sweet pumpkin rolls and cinnamon rolls are thrown into muffin tins creating perfectly circular and compact treats. The possibilities are endless. Creating desserts in individual portions by baking them off in muffin trays is just pure genius!

 

This week at the Market on Holly I am getting creative with holiday cookies. My favorite of which are these thumbprint cookies. What sets these a cut above your average thumbprint cookies is the jam. I used Sqirl‘s Mcgrath Farm raspberry and fresh lavendar jam. Sqirl is a local artisan jam and preserve company owned by the lovely Jessica Koslow. All of her jams are made with produce from family-owned farms that practice sustainable, certified organic methods that are in close proximity to her kitchen in Los Angeles.  You can really taste the fruit in each jam – they are not masked by artifical flavors and sweeteners. The flavor combinations add a subtle depth to each jam. Tomorrow I’m making thumbprints with Santa Rosa plum with Shear Rock flowering thyme. I can’t wait!

Happy Holidays!

 

Thumbprint Cookies w/ Sqirl Jam

yields about 2 dozen

recipe adapted from Martha Stewart