FoodCourt

October 27, 1999

William Morrow Books presents Susan Westmoreland, food editor of Good Housekeeping discusses her new book, "Good Housekeeping Baking" and also baking, recipes, and food.

Page 1 of 8

FoodCourt: Welcome to FoodCourt! . William Morrow Books and The Talk City Network are proud to present our special guest, . --- Susan Westmoreland --- . Food Director of Good Housekeeping Institute. . Susan is here to chat about "Good Housekeeping Baking." . An award-winning chef and well-known journalist, Susan is responsible for planning and producing Good Housekeeping's food features. . Please welcome Susan Westmoreland! . Thank you for being with us today.

Susan Westmoreland: Thank you, we are so excited about this baking book! You might be wondering why, with the time crunch, we came out with a baking book. And it's for that very reason. Baking is one of those things that you don't HAVE to do, but when you do, you reward yourself and the people you bake for. And these are my 600 favorite reasons to turn on the oven.

AnnaQ Says: My mother always made Parker House rolls for the holidays and I would like to make them this year. Are they hard to make? Do they take a long time?

Susan Westmoreland: AnnaQ, it's actually a really easy dough to make, called straight dough, which means you don't have to make a sponge. You make the dough, let it rise once, punch it down and shape it into that classic Parker House style, so you can actually make the dough the night before and let it rise in the fridge, and do your shaping the next morning. Then you can let it rise again and be able to pop the rolls into the oven, let's say, on Thanksgiving just as the turkey came out. Your active time for making a bread like this is very little -- you just need lots of time for rising.

Plimso Says: Do you have any cookie recipe where the dough can be frozen so I can make several batches now and then bake them for the holidays? I really need to save time this year.

Susan Westmoreland: Absolutely! A whole part of the cookie chapter is refrigerator cookies, which you actually roll into long logs, and they are perfect to wrap well and freeze for about a month. I always keep a lemon one in my freezer, but the possibilities are lemon, almond spice, coconut, lemon poppy seed, chocolate, chocolate spice, almond, and checkerboard. These are really easy cookies to make -- it's like making a soft batter that you shape into a cylinder or square. Then you wrap well in foil and freeze. These are great even if someone drops by unexpectedly -- you can have cookies in about 12 minutes. I love to think of my freezer as part of my pantry and it's great to have stuff like this for last minute drop in guests. There's something about having the smell of fresh baked cookies in your house when people arrive that's really inviting.

Page 1 of 8