use better ingredients.

i've been on a baking kick lately, having made ciabatta, vanilla cupcakes with royal icing, classic bittersweet chocolate brownies, spiced mini carrot cakes, streusel-topped coffee cake muffins and whoopie pies since easter*. i'm happily discovering that our new range, while not commercial-grade, is doing a fantastic job.

the most important consideration for me when baking, or cooking, is quality ingredients. i seriously think you can throw anything together with great ingredients and it will taste fine. therefore, i was happy to hear that i am totally unoriginal in my thinking when i received today's email from the culinary institute of america. today, i'm going to geek-out on this video series:

cooking with america's finest ingredients
you've heard it before, but it bears repeating: you can make bad food from good ingredients, but you can't make good food from poor ingredients. investing in quality products, like fine oils and vinegars, makes good cooking much easier. you don't need to impress guests with your culinary skills if you can impress them with your good taste in ingredients. watch chefs john ash, janet fletcher, and stephen durfee explore the finest ingredients available to today's american cooks in a free 16-part video series that guides the viewer from salts and vinegars to cured meats and the new american sandwich. links to recipes accompany many of the demonstration videos. get started now.

*let me know if you want any receeps!

image credit: culinary institute of america.