Zoë François grew up in the 1960s on a commune in Vermont, where honey from her dad’s beehives and syrup tapped from the property’s maple trees were the only sweeteners she knew.
Then she entered kindergarten and got her first taste of a Twinkie, setting her on a lifelong, sugar-laden journey in pastry. She’s baked in professional kitchens in the Twin Cities where she now lives, including stints with celebrity chef Andrew Zimmern. While collaborating with Jeff Hertzberg on the bestselling cookbook series, “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day,” she conducted pastry tutorials on her website, Zoë Bakes.
Of everything she’s ever baked, cakes remain her favorite — so much so, that she embarked on a 45-mile cake-eating walk across Manhattan, sampling a slice of everything from raspberry-stuffed charlotte to Funfetti cake, as part of her research for “Zoë Bakes Cakes: Everything You Need to Know to Make Your Favorite Layers, Bundts, Loaves, and More” (Ten Speed, $30).
Cakes are “what I give people for special events and how I busy my hands and mind when I am stressed or sad,” she writes. “I also profoundly enjoy the process of building a cake, finding the just-right recipe that a specific moment calls for.” I found that “just-right recipe” in her Blueberry Muffin Cake — a fruit-laden, walnut-topped beauty baked in a springform pan which came together almost as quickly as it was consumed at a Mother’s Day brunch.
Her recipes run the gamut from simple to sensational, each with clear and concise instructions.
I may never break out a blowtorch to toast a Swiss meringue for a coconut cake, or construct a dome-shaped banana cake covered in honey buttercream and marzipan bees like the one she made for her beekeeper dad’s birthday. But I’m delighted to experience the process through her upbeat prose and appealing flavor combinations — each reinforcing her claim that “there is no day that can’t be made better with a little slice.”
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