Martha Stewart seems to have a near monopoly on the packaging of baked goods. It isn’t fair. I absolutely long for the cute boxes and bags she sells, even though they are a little pricey.

Lovely, no? Luckily, there are some other excellent options out there, like these pink bakery boxes from Sur La Table.

I also love the simple use of white parchment paper and Japanese masking tape from happy tape.

And you can’t go wrong with anything from Bake It Pretty. This store has to be one of my favorites for food packaging: simple, cute, and affordable.

Wouldn’t these foil boxes be perfect for macarons? (M’s sister and I will be making a large batch. If we’re successful, I may return to San Diego and start making them on a normal basis, and perhaps even selling them.)

So how will you package your baked goodies for gifts this year? I’d love to hear what creative ideas others have had.

{I made some delicious orange-almond biscotti dipped in dark chocolate this week that I’ll be making again for the holidays. I can’t wait to share pictures with you next week!}

I thought it would be nice if you woke up to a fresh croissant this Sunday morning. I wish you could smell it. Absolutely heavenly with all that butter and flakiness.

I had heard the croissant making process was quite difficult and not worth the effect — I disagree. The biggest problem with croissants is that you can’t wake up in the morning and say “hmm…I think I’ll make myself some fresh croissants” the way you can with pancakes or waffles or french toast. The process takes time, most of which is you waiting patiently and doing other things while the dough sits in the refrigerator. And there was the whole “roll the dough into a 20-inch square” line — a 20-inch square is pretty large. Larger than you’d like when you’re just overcome with thoughts about how good these will taste and you just want to finish rolling the dough.

This darling is one of the “turns” of the dough. My Baker’s Illustrated cookbook said two were sufficient, but Mrs. Julia Childs said three, so three I did. And I’m oh-so-glad I did. The croissants were a hit with the recipients of my baking. I made them on Tuesday and tortured myself all morning, just smelling their other-worldly pastry aroma for hours. I only had one for myself and I was going to eat it right. After class ended, I brought my croissant and two others to the French classmate’s office, where he, one of his office mates, and I ate croissants smeared with his mother’s homemade pear-lemon-vanilla jam. Perfection.

The recipe I used is from Cook’s Illustrated and located here (I don’t feel right publishing this one as I made no real changes to the original). It’s a fee-based membership site, but I promise you it’s SO worth it: the plethora of recipes, instructional videos, equipment and product reviews are just too good to pass up.

I wish I could have a group of you over for croissants and tea. We wouldn’t be talking much because we’d be eating, but the conversation once we finished would be lovely.