Baked Goods

Cookware greased and hairnets applied just right, school-lunch cooks across Maryland spent the week toiling, but this time, not for their kids. They were instead preparing goodies for today's annual school food services bake-off in Ocean City.School cafeteria bragging rights are at stake.Edith Brown from Guilford Elementary in Baltimore will be there with her bread pudding. So will Patsy R. Kreppel, bringing a blueberry tea cake from Chesapeake High School in Essex. And Dianne Snyder, presenting almond cookies from Friendship Valley Elementary in Carroll County.

Noninstant nonfat dry (powdered) milk can be blended with flour to thicken sauces or soups, or to fortify bread and other baked goods.-- Cole's Cooking A to ZPub Date: 07/04/99

Imagine having to choose the best chocolate chip cookie among 100 plates of the delectable favorites -- all baked fresh by eager youngsters hoping to be the grand champion at the Carroll County 4-H/FFA Fair.Better yet, imagine having to choose the grand champion in dozens of categories of baked goods after nibbling on countless breads, muffins, cookies, pies and cakes. There are 21 categories of breads, rolls and muffins; 14 of cookies; 13 of cakes; three of pies; and 11 of decorated cakes.

Bernard F. Breighner grew up eating the delicious, old-fashioned baked goods of the New System Bakery in his native Hampden and owned the legendary establishment as an adult.Mr. Breighner, called the "Unofficial Mayor of Hampden" by residents and area business owners for his civic endeavors, died of cancer Sunday at Greater Baltimore Medical Center. He was 59 and had lived in Cockeysville for 20 years.He had owned the bakery -- on West 36th Street, known as The Avenue -- from 1972 to 1995, when he sold it, along with Keller's Liquor Store and the split-level shopping mall that was the former 600-seat Hampden Theater.

FRESH PRODUCE, colorful flowers and homemade baked goods are a few of the items you will find at the fourth annual Mount Airy Farmers' Market from 4: 30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesdays in the north parking lot next to the Farmers and Mechanics Bank on Main Street.The Farmers' Market will continue through the last Tuesday in September and offers a variety of items for the home and the taste buds."We all enjoy what we do, and we really enjoy talking with the people who stop by here," says Mary Hershelman, market organizer for the second year in a row. "We have quite a few repeat customers."

If the words "sugar-crusted cinnamon raisin bread" make a little shiver go down your spine, you're going to love our tour of Baltimore's bakeries.We know that these days you can get a staggering array of excellent baked goods at supermarkets, mall food courts and doughnut and bagel shops. But there's nothing like stopping in an old-fashioned bakery for a fresh peach cake or picking up some all-butter croissants at a fine French patisserie.You could start at Lexington Market. Many of Baltimore's legendary bakeries have branches there.

AMAZING WHAT happens in spring in our community. We have so many chances to get together with our neighbors for fun and fellowship.We'll be able to get together from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday, for example, at the May Fest, sponsored by the Patapsco Valley American Association of Retired Persons, Chapter 3850, at St. Christopher's Episcopal Church hall, Sweetser and Marydell Roads in Linthicum.Tables will be full of baked goods, plants, woodworks, Christmas items, crafts, jewelry and lemon sticks for sale, and Orioles tickets, a picnic and a gift certificate to Snyder's Restaurant to be raffled off.Eleanor Pieroschek, club president, said the men will prepare lunch.

Dolores Mason is warm, pleasant, motherly, and as fiercely competitive about baking and canning as the jockeys pushing their horses around the half-mile track across the Maryland State Fair Grounds."

THE GROUNDHOG'S prediction of an early spring could not have been more welcome last weekend. So far, we have escaped the tons of snow that Mother Nature dumped on us the past few years, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed and a bag of melting crystals handy. You can never be too sure.Coffeehouse tonightMagothy United Methodist Church, 3703 Mountain Road, sponsors a coffeehouse from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. today in its fellowship hall.Performers include the Matt Kuhn Trio, Glorybound Singers, Chuck Holmes and Friends, Rupert Hall male chorus, Jeremiah Wentz and Justin Clulow.

As general manager of the 52nd Howard County Fair, Dick Mettee is responsible for making sure that nine barns are cleaned, a 40,000-square-foot exhibition hall passes a fire inspection and 40 acres of grass are mowed for the estimated 100,000 visitors.One thing he can't control is the weather, which has been clear and cool during the final week of preparations for the fair, which begins Saturday."It's nice not to have to set up in the rain," Mettee said with a laugh yesterday.Forecasters predict agreeable weather for the eight-day fair, which features everything from barns of cattle, pigs and horses, to halls of handmade clothes and baked goods, to the flashing lights of the midway, to the silly fun of an animal dress-up contest and a worm race.

It's almost cool to be gluten-free. More national brands are offering gluten-free versions of their popular products, cookbooks for celiac disease sufferers are available at your local bookstore and now allergy-friendly bakeries - such as Sweet Sin Bakery in Waverly - are available at your doorstep. But it hasn't always been that way. Jules E.D. Shepard of Catonsville was diagnosed with celiac disease in 1999, what she calls "the dark ages of cooking gluten free." At the time of her diagnosis, Shepard was an avid baker, whipping up cupcakes for friends and classmates.

Where there's a cause, can a bake sale be far behind? Whether it's for the church outreach program or the school PTA, for Barack Obama or John McCain, or for a nationwide campaign to stop childhood hunger, putting out a tray of enticing goodies always seems like a fun way to raise a few bucks. Until it's your turn to bake, that is. Then you may feel the pressure. Must you come up with something unique, distinctive and delicious that will leave your fellow parents or politicos clamoring for the recipe?

Flour and worry were in the air one recent morning at Hoehn's Bakery in East Baltimore as Louis Sahlender and Sharon Hoehn Hooper prepared sheets of raspberry tarts for the oven. Like most of the goods produced by the small bakery at Conkling and Banks streets, the recipe for the tarts had been handed down from prior generations. Hooper and Sahlender, who are cousins, learned the baking craft from Hooper's father, Frederick J. Hoehn. Hoehn, in turn, had been taught by his father, William, a native of Germany who installed the bakery's oven in 1927.

Unity by the Bay presents concert Unity by the Bay Church will present "An Autumn Evening with Greg and Brent" from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. tomorrow at 836 Ritchie Highway, Severna Park. Greg Martens and Brent Law will perform songs from their CDs. There will be a pizza buffet and live music. The cost is $20 at the door. Continuing events include silent unity prayer time at noon, Monday through Thursday; meditation from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesdays; and "A Course in Miracles" from 7:30 to 9 p.m. Thursdays.

Mom's macaroons, Aunt Fern's fondant - we all have that cherished recipe our friends request at birthday and graduation parties. No matter how obscure you may think your family favorite, next month's 125th annual Maryland State Fair probably has a contest to fit your recipe, with categories for everything from gingersnaps and spritz to peanut brittle and cherry pie. The opportunities for cooks are extensive, with more than 100 "baked goods and candy" classifications,...

Under an overcast morning sky, Carole Ruppel carried basil herbs, fresh spinach, potatoes, cabbage and onions, and an apricot brandy pound cake, the latest haul from more than two decades of almost weekly shopping trips to her local farmers' market. For Ruppel, 68, of Westminster, the fresh produce, baked goods and potential Christmas presents at the Carroll County Farmers' Market's have led to hundreds of visits to the market's county Agriculture Center location since 1985. That year, she first heard about the market while scouting home locations in Carroll for a move from Catonsville.

Because I am on a restricted diet, can you provide me with a low-fat recipe for a pastry crust? You're not alone in your quest for a low-fat crust, but a good one is hard to find. "There is no successful low-fat recipe," said Barbara Farner, extension educator in nutrition and wellness at the University of Illinois Extension. "Crisp roll-out cookies and piecrusts are two dishes without successful low-fat alternatives." Farner offered these suggestions for those on restricted diets: Select an oil-based piecrust recipe that uses the more healthful canola or olive oil. Such recipes would contain the same amount of fat, but they would contain less saturated fat. Switch to a graham-cracker crust, which requires less fat than that found in a traditional pastry crust.

Every farmers market has its own personality; but at this time of year, all specialize in splendid tomatoes and vibrant mounds of root vegetables and apples. Prepared foods, crafts and jewelry are among other riches to be found at the outdoor markets. Baltimore Farmers Market, downtown Saratoga Street, between Holliday and Gay streets, Sunday, 8 a.m. to noon. This is the mother of Baltimore-area farmers markets, a cornucopia of vegetables, fruit, fried donuts, cheeses, dog biscuits, jewelry, barbecue, ice cream, omelets, fried fish sandwiches and wheat grass.

Rosie K. Smith, 92, seller of baked goods at Hutzler's Rosie K. Smith, who sold baked goods in a downtown department store for more than two decades, died of heart failure and pneumonia May 13 at Sinai Hospital. The Howard Park resident was 92. Rosie Katherine Nichols was born and raised in Cambridge, where she graduated from Frederick Douglass High School in 1930. She moved to Philadelphia in the 1930s, where she took a position as a housekeeper in city public schools and later for several families.

Mick Kipp wanted to open a retail store where he could sell his brand of Whiskey Island sauces, spices and salsas. Rose Lansing was looking for a place to sell her cookies and other baked goods. The two were introduced by Mary Pat Andrea, owner of the Hometown Girl gift shop, who thought they might be able to combine their business ventures. She was right, and in September, Kipp and Lansing opened the Whiskey Island Pirate Shop, a deli and bakery on the Avenue in Hampden. The small space, which shares a door with the Oh!