Southern Faves Are a Hit All Over
Southern-style biscuit pie crust is a winner all the way! So many people use graham crackers for a crust and as soon as you cut a portion, it falls off the back.

Southern-style biscuits are great with sausage and gravy or jelly. Make sure to paddle in a large mixer with drawn butter, cinnamon and brown sugar. The sugar will melt without a sandy grit. This is ideal for pies or tarts.

Try Peach Biscuit Pie
Use a bundt cake mold and form a crust nose to edge ¼-inch deep. Melt French vanilla ice cream and ladle off the foamy top. Fold a can of #10 Monarch® peaches into the French vanilla cream. Pour into biscuit crust-covered bundt cake ring, cover with plastic wrap and let set in freezer for 24 hours. Pull and dip in a hot water bath for 2 seconds, and this will let the shortening in the crust release from the bundt cake mold. Invert on a cutting board. Top with hot caramel and crushed pistachio nuts.

The Secret to Perfect Fudge
Some fudges are smooth and creamy, while others, using the same production method, are grainy and coarse. This has to do with the recrystalizing action of the sugar in the fudge.

While necessary to stir or beat the batch, it’s the amount of heat in the batch when beaten that controls the size of the sugar grains. The hotter the batch, the larger the grains. This is why fudge should be allowed to cool to approximately 120° before the beating process begins. While cooling, the fudge shouldn’t be disturbed more than necessary. Caution should be taken to prevent any sugar crystal or crystallized type of candy from dropping into the hot batch of fudge. This would seed it with crystals and cause it to grain off.

Everybody Loves Cookies
Have your ingredients, utensils and oven temperature in place and ready for use. Errors can be made if you have to leave your station to find an item.

Shortening adds tenderness and flavor to your cookie dough. Be sure to use the shortening that is specified in your recipe. Changes can make for an inconsistent product. Try to have the shortening at room temperature.

Overmixing is easy to do. Stick with your mixer until the dough achieves the proper consistency. A sign that cookie dough has been overmixed is when your cookies turn out large and thin.

Stone Fruits Offer Variety
Stone fruits are versatile, which makes them great ingredients for baking. Peaches, plums, nectarines, apricots or cherries can all substitute for each other. Plate the season. When one fades away, another can fill in.

The pit or stone is where as great deal of the flavor comes from so be sure to let the fruit ripen. Several days at room temperature will naturally produce a sweet, easy-to-eat and easy-to-use flavor.

Don’t forget the exotics. Lychee is in the stone fruit family, too. A glass of lychee tea would go great with your next peach pie!