Dough

STAND in line at any cappuccino bar and your eyes are drawn to the pastry case, where pieces of streusel-topped "coffeecake" wink back at you temptingly. Don't waste the calories. Coffeecake -- real coffeecake -- is not just a cold, sweet hunk of generic cinnamon-topped cake gobbled down in the front seat of your car. Real coffeecake is a Sunday-morning experience. It begins (if you're a lucky houseguest) with the unforgettable aroma of bread filling the house on a winter's morning, a yeasty smell so tantalizing that it seduces you out from the cozy bedcovers and down to the kitchen.

Dear SOS: My husband and I recently spent a weekend in San Francisco and had a superb dinner at Perbacco. Everything was wonderful, but our dessert was one of the most delicious I've ever tasted. If you could get the recipe for its pine nut and honey tart, I could begin to cure my craving. Deborah Pollack Ventura Dear Deborah: I love everything about this tart. Not too sweet and with just the right touch of saltiness, this rustic dessert takes on light floral notes from the addition of Tasmanian honey, balancing the richness of the buttery pine nuts.

You can tell when a dish has made it into the mainstream by looking it up in the dictionary. There you'll find entries for sushi, taco and pho. I still have to italicize as a foreign word bao , the term for Chinese steamed bread and filled buns, but my hunch is that I won't have to do that for long. Bao is on the rise, and that's not just because it features leavened dough. Just check Costco, supermarket chains such as Vons/Pavilions and Ralphs, and of course, any nearby 99 Ranch.

  Total time: 50 minutes, plus cooling time Servings: 8 Note: If you'd like to add any flavorings to your scones, it's best to add the flavorings after cutting in the butter and before stirring in the liquid. 3 cups (12¾ ounces) flour 4 teaspoons baking powder 3/4 teaspoon salt 1/4 cup sugar 1/2 cup (1 stick) cold butter, cut into ½-inch pieces 1 cup cold buttermilk, milk or cream 2 tablespoons heavy cream 2 teaspoons turbinado or coarse decorating sugar 1. Heat the oven to 375 degrees.

Dear SOS: Can you please get the bread pudding recipe from La Boulange ? By far, it's the best bread pudding I've ever tasted. It is so good! Thank you very much! Michelle Quach San Francisco Dear Michelle: A wonderfully different take on the classic, La Boulange sandwiches a rich, not-too-sweet croissant bread pudding between two crumbly short dough crusts. Dust the puddings with powdered sugar, and serve with whipped cream, chocolate sauce or a selection of fresh fruit.

The other day I was sitting at a local bar catching a game of football with a friend. The bartender handed us a bowl of pretzels. Noshing on a few over a beer, I got to thinking. I can't remember the last time I had a really great pretzel. Freshly puffed and temptingly aromatic, they're the ones with the deep brown sheen that — if you're lucky — you get still warm, the large specks of salt catching the light just so as they're slid out of the oven. Chance upon a good bakery at the right time, and you might be able to snag one. But homemade?

If you want to get your mind around the research that won three astronomers the Nobel Prize in physics last week, it helps to think of the universe as a lump of dough — raisin-bread dough, to be precise — mixed, kneaded and ready to rise. Hold that thought. Now consider Albert Einstein — not the wild-haired, elderly, absent-minded professor he became in his later years but a young, dashing scientist in his 30s. It's 1916, and he's just published his revolutionary general theory of relativity.

  Total time: 50 minutes, plus cooling time Servings: 8 Note: If you'd like to add any flavorings to your scones, it's best to add the flavorings after cutting in the butter and before stirring in the liquid. 3 cups (12¾ ounces) flour 4 teaspoons baking powder 3/4 teaspoon salt 1/4 cup sugar 1/2 cup (1 stick) cold butter, cut into ½-inch pieces 1 cup cold buttermilk, milk or cream 2 tablespoons heavy cream 2 teaspoons turbinado or coarse decorating sugar 1. Heat the oven to 375 degrees.

  Quick puff pastry Our recipes, your kitchen: If you try any of the L.A. Times Test Kitchen recipes from this week's Food section, please share it with us: Click here to upload pictures of the finished dish. Total time: 25 minutes, plus chilling time Servings: This makes 22½ ounces of dough (enough for 1 tart, 8 turnovers or 4 vol-au-vents) 1 1/4 cups (2½ sticks) cold butter, cut into ½-inch cubes 1 1/2 cups (6.4 ounces)

  Basic monkey bread dough Total time: 15 minutes plus rising time Note: Adapted from "The Best From Helen Corbitt's Kitchens" by Helen Corbitt. 1 package (2 1/4 teaspoons) active-dry yeast 1 cup lukewarm milk (no hotter than 125 degrees) Scant 3 1/3 cups (14 ounces) flour 1/4 cup sugar 1 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup (1 stick) softened butter 1. In the bowl of a stand mixer or in a large bowl, drizzle the yeast over the warm milk, stirring to combine.

Haman's fingers Total time: 1 hour, 20 minutes Servings: This makes 36 to 40 pastries. Note: To thaw the filo dough, place the package in the refrigerator for at least 8 hours and up to overnight. Remove the box from the refrigerator 2 hours before using, leaving the sheets in their packaging. (Return remaining filo sheets to their plastic sleeve, re-roll and return to the package; refrigerate or refreeze until needed.) You can keep the pastries for 1 day in an airtight container at room temperature; they can be frozen up to 1 month (thaw the pastries before sprinkling over the powdered sugar)

Sometimes the old ways really are the best. When Test Kitchen manager Noelle Carter took a shot at perfecting pretzels, she tried every kind of "wash" in the book — egg whites, whole eggs, baking soda and more. But in the end, she found that the traditional dunking of pretzel dough in a bath made of lye and water created a dark color, a crisp, chewy texture, and deep flavor that none of the others could approach. Be sure to use food-grade lye, which can be ordered online at Essential Depot (www.essentialdepot.com)

Priscilla Mary Isin's piece on the role of sweets in Turkish Ramadan celebrations was a fascinating combination of history, culture and cooking. As an added bonus, it had what is probably the best recipe for baklava that any of us have tasted. Forget every humdrum, too-sweet, sticky version you've ever had. This one, built on a base of homemade phyllo dough, is very simple and very delicious. If you prefer, of course, you can substitute puff pastry or even store-bought phyllo. Baklava Total time: 2½ hours Servings: This makes about 3 dozen pieces Note: You can substitute prepared puff pastry sheets for homemade dough if desired (1 sheet of puff pastry for each 20-layer sheet of homemade dough)

An investigation of a 2009 outbreak of E. coli traced back to raw cookie dough finds the culprit may be raw flour. A report released Friday in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases provides the details of the analysis, from the first outbreaks of E. coli to interviewing patients to tracking the illnesses to raw cookie dough and trying to determine which ingredient cause the illnesses. In all, 77 patients from 30 states were affected; 35 people were hospitalized but there were no deaths.

Whither the dinner roll? Once the hallmark of a great home cook, when we think of dinner rolls at all today, it's as some kind of quaint artifact of another time. "Remember rolls?" we laugh as we tear off another chunk of sourdough baguette. But this recipe, from food writer Regina Schrambling, is a reminder that a well-made roll is something special. Crisp on the outside but tender at the center. Bready, certainly, but already so rich and buttery that they practically melt as you chew.

Gnocchi Total time: 1 hour, 15 minutes plus roasting time for the potatoes Servings: 6 to 8 9 Idaho or other baking potatoes, about 5 pounds Freshly ground white pepper 1 egg yolk About 2¾ cups flour plus additional for dusting Kosher salt 3/4 cup butter, diced Freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano 1. Heat the oven to 350. Prick the potatoes with a fork. Place the potatoes on a baking sheet and bake them until they are soft, about 1½ hours.

The other day I was sitting at a local bar catching a game of football with a friend. The bartender handed us a bowl of pretzels. Noshing on a few over a beer, I got to thinking. I can't remember the last time I had a really great pretzel. Freshly puffed and temptingly aromatic, they're the ones with the deep brown sheen that — if you're lucky — you get still warm, the large specks of salt catching the light just so as they're slid out of the oven. Chance upon a good bakery at the right time, and you might be able to snag one. But homemade?