Most bakers assume the best butter is the most expensive one on the shelf. The data says otherwise. I pulled prices on four unsalted butters at Walmart this week specifically for Croissant Bread Week, and what came back is worth knowing before you shop. 🛒 What it actually costs 🧈 Great Value Unsalted Size: 1 price: $3.06 Per ounce: about 19¢ Fat content: not listed, standard grocery butter is usually around 80% 🧈 Land O Lakes Unsalted Size: 1 lb Price: $4.46 Per ounce: about 28¢ Fat content: not listed, standard grocery butter is usually around 80% 🧈 Kerrygold Irish Unsalted Size: 8 Oz Price: $4.84 to $5.24 Per ounce: about 60 to 65¢ Fat content: higher fat, usually around 82% 🧈 Danish Creamery European Unsalted Size: 8 Oz Price: $3.44 Per ounce: about 43¢ Fat content: 85% butterfat, confirmed on the label Prices from Walmart, Columbia SC. 👀 Here’s what the numbers are telling you Danish Creamery is 85% butterfat. That’s the highest fat content of anything on that list, and it’s sitting there for $3.44. Kerry gold, the one everybody reaches for when they want to upgrade, costs about 60 to 65 cents an ounce. Danish Creamery beats it on butterfat. And it beats it on price. It’s not even close. 🥐 Why fat content matters for this bake Less water in the butter means cleaner layers. When your frozen butter shreds hit the oven, the water in that butter turns to steam and pushes the dough apart. That’s what gives you those flaky layers. Higher fat means: ✅ less water ✅ cleaner separation ✅ better layers ✅ more butter flavor in every bite 💵 Now here’s the per-loaf reality For Croissant Bread, you’re using one stick of butter for the lamination. That’s 4 ounces. Here’s what that stick actually costs: 🧈 Great Value: about 77 cents 🧈 Land O Lakes: about $1.12 🧈 Danish Creamery: about $1.72 🧈 Kerrygold: about $2.42 to $2.62 So going from standard grocery butter to the best lamination butter on that shelf costs about 95 cents more per loaf. That’s the whole upgrade.

If you lost a pie to the peel this weekend, you are in good company. Here’s what’s usually going on and how to fix it. Why it sticks: - The dough sat on the peel too long and the moisture wicked through your flour. - You used regular flour on the peel instead of something with more glide. - The dough is too wet or too slack for a bare-peel launch. Three fixes, in order of how fast they’ll save your night: 1. Switch to semolina or a 50/50 semolina-flour mix on the peel. It acts like ball bearings under the dough. 2. Shape, top, launch — fast. Don’t build a pie on the peel and walk away. Top it and go. If you need build time, build on parchment. 3. Use parchment as a training tool. Launch the pizza on parchment for the first 2 minutes, then slide the parchment out. You still get the steel kiss without the heartbreak. Bonus: every 30 seconds the pie sits on the peel, give it a small shake to make sure it’s still moving. If it sticks, you fix it before it bakes onto the peel. 🍕

We're baking pizza this week, and before you stretch a single dough ball, I want to tell you where that foldable New York slice actually came from. Here's the short version: it wasn't built that way on purpose. Pizza showed up in New York as immigrant food, baked in coal ovens that were really bread ovens. Soft pies, eaten right there at the table. Then the gas deck oven came along, dried the crust out just enough, and the city did the rest. Rent, workers, lunch breaks on the move. The slice had to travel. The fold became the handle. That history is sitting right inside the dough we're making this week. Strong flour for structure, the right hydration so it bends without breaking, and an overnight cold rest for flavor. When you stretch your dough this Saturday, you're making a piece of that story. Watch the deck, then come bake it with us. You can find all our recipes at: https://recipepantry.app/ 🍕 New York Style recipe: https://skoo.ly/ny-style-pizza Henry ⭐🔥

Last week I secured a new domain for the Recipe Pantry, much easier to remember and find: www.recipepantry.app You’ll also notice an orange bar at the top of the Recipe Pantry that lets you save a thumbnail to your desktop or phone, just like any other app. Always with you, no more hunting. Whenever I make changes or add a recipe, a banner will appear on your screen after a few moments letting you know there’s an update. Just click it and the app updates. Bob’s your uncle. You can also refresh your screen to do the same thing. Let me know if you run into any problems or spot anything I need to fix. ~ Henry ⭐🔥

So hubby wants homeade pizza tonight but with sourdough starter. Amd good recipes I found one that calls for ½ a cup of starter 1.4 cups of water 4 cups of flour 2 tsp of salt and 2 TBSP of olive oil. Is there a better potion or how does this recipe sound i found it online so I want to make sure I dont mess up the dough.?