Christine Moore - Little Flower baking

ALSO BY CHRISTINE MOORE

LITTLE FLOWER: RECIPES FROM THE CAFE

One of Food52s 16 Best Cookbooks of 2012a Piglet finalist!

Winner, Best Nonfiction, Southern California Independent Booksellers Association Awards

Were set to prepare and devour everything in it.

Wall Street Journal

This is a terrific book.

Russ Parsons, Los Angeles Times

A charming cookbook that needs to be left in the kitchen, not on the bookcase.

Nancy Silverton, chef/owner of Mozza, founder of La Brea Bakery, and author of many cookbooks

You cant always have Christine Moore around to explain her perfect blood orange tarts, but Little Flower may be close enough.

Jonathan Gold, Pulitzer Prizewinning food writer for the Los Angeles Times

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR

LITTLE FLOWER BAKING

What a fabulous treat! Ive always admired Christines knack for making recipes that are both comforting and inspired. This is the book to use for updated baking essentials, full of secrets that are simple, uncomplicated, and delicious.

Sherry Yard, owner/chef of the Helms Bakery and author of Desserts by the Yard and The Secrets of Baking

Reading these pages is like sitting with Christine for a cup of coffee. I can hear her voice in every hearty potato bacon biscuit, in how she tells us to make an earnest sauce out of sea salt caramels, and in the practical ways she suggests to swap one ingredient for the other when the season calls for it. Few bakers can translate their pastries into words with the richness that Christine and Cecilia have in this cookbook. This is the kind of book that finds a home on the kitchen counter, collecting stains from sticky fingers or splattering pots of fruit, with many of its pages marked and handwritten notes on the sidelines.

Roxana Jullapat, baker, Friends + Family

When you eat Christine Moores food, you feel happy and well served by life.

Jonathan Gold, Pulitzer Prizewinning food writer for the Los Angeles Times

Its no surprise that Christine Moores Little Flower Baking is just like her, straightforward and enormously appealingalways figuring out a way to teach or be of service, and ultimately luscious without being precious in any way. I want to bake my way through these recipes from the first to the last.

Evan Kleiman, host of Good Food on KCRW/NPR

Dedication

To all the night bakers, who are going to work when many of us are just going to sleep

Table of Contents

CONTENTS

By Christine Moore

B londies with spiced gumdrops (my favorite childhood pastry invention) Rice Krispie treats with double marshmallow rugelach made with scrap pie dough. The signs were all there.

Do what you loved as a child. Ill never forget when someone said that to me when I was in my twenties, waiting tables.

Baking was something I loved. And when I was a kid, I used to write a menu for my mom before I brought in breakfast in bed. What kid does that? Ill tell you: one destined to serve. I wasnt a great brain in school; I actually never really liked school. I had wonderful friends and was good at sports, but I didnt follow the path that my friends did. The restaurant business turned out to be a safe place for a kid like me to land. It was a family of sorts. Ive always felt very lucky to be in this community of hard-working people who feed and serve others and are nice to them. In other words, hospitality professionals.

Serving makes me feel good. Its who I am. Feeding people is a true honor. I tell my staff that we have more than 200 opportunities a day to make someone happy. Thats a gift.

In my late twenties, after years in Los Angeles of waiting tables, managing restaurants, and catering, I finally decided to go to the back of the house and do what I loved as a child: bake. I took a few extension courses and was inspired by a teacher who had lived in France.

Then, when I was twenty-eight, a tragedy woke me up to the power of NOW. My dearest friend, Vonnie, died in a car accident. She was like a sister, and her stunning, unfathomable death both crushed me and made me realize how precious life is. How easy it was to die. It could happen. It did happen.

I was on a plane to Paris within a month. I knew no French, knew no one there, and had no plans other than a reservation for a hotel room for just three days, but I was ready to bite the apple of life. My ignorance really was bliss, and that year in Paris changed the course of my life. It made me rethink who I thought I was, and led me to realize who I really was and what I wanted. I owed all this to Vonnie.

I met a fantastic friend my first day there. He was working at Le Bioux, a wine shop across from my hotel, La Louisiane on rue de Seine in the 6th. After spending my first day walking the city, too petrified to speak to anyone, I went into the wine shop and said basically the only thing I knew how to say in French: Je mappelle Christine. The shopkeeper burst out laughing and said, in perfect English, Do you always introduce yourself when you walk into a shop? Hooray, I thought, hes American! Juan Sanchez and I have been lifelong friends since that moment.

Juan helped me get my stage at Grard Mulot. He opened his home, cooked for me, and taught me how tremendous a man could be. I will be forever grateful to you, Juan, for how you guided me and watched over me.

Surviving in a foreign country is not as romantic as it seems in books and movies. I had a very limited amount of money saved, and kitchen work in Paris is tough. Working in those kitchens made me realize how incredibly easy we have it in the States. Wed go to work at 5 a.m., when it was dark out, and work until 7 p.m., when it was dark out again. Not seeing the sun for days plays tricks on your mind, especially this adopted daughter of California.

And yet I was so lucky to be able to work in Monsieur Mulots kitchen. He was a formidable chef. The pastries, breads, and chocolates that he and his crew produced were, in my opinion, the best in the city. The smells of that kitchen will stay with me forever. On my most recent visit, I walked into his patisserie and tears welled up. It was twenty-five years ago, and it still feels like yesterday. Thank you, Monsieur Mulot.

I also had the great pleasure of working for a lovely chef at the Charcuterie de Seine. One day while chopping ham, I cut off the tip of my finger. I got woozy, but I didnt want to make a fuss, so I excused myself for a minute, bandaged it up, and got back to work. My finger bled for three days, and it hurt like crazy, but there was no crying in that kitchen.