Pastries—baked goods made from flour, butter, shortening, baking powder or eggs—are favorites for both breakfast and dessert, and a good pastry recipe or two will delight your restaurant or other food business customers. There is a vast array of pastries to choose from, ranging from simple turnovers to exotic ethnic recipes. Some pastries are relatively simple to make, while others are time-consuming and complex.

When seeking pastry recipes and pastry recipe tips, look for treats your customers are familiar with, as well as a few they've probably never heard of before. Then, display them prominently to encourage impulse buys. When researching pastry recipes, try the following:

1. Seek an online pastry recipe that appeals to you or has been reviewed favorably by online readers.

2. Buy a pastry recipe book written by an established cookbook author.

3. Test several pastry recipes and pastry recipe ingredients in your kitchen, choosing only the very best concoctions for your customers.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Select an online pastry recipe

Recipes found online have the advantage of being free, and often they are reviewed by fellow bakers and cooks (although most are amateur). Although it makes sense to look for a pastry recipe at a well-established recipe website, don't neglect smaller websites dedicated to pastries and baked goods.

I recommend: LoveToKnow offers many free recipes for such pastries as roly polys, popovers, potato puffs, Danish pastries, eclairs and more. Recipe Goldmine has free recipes for puff pastries, Napoleons, croissants, cannoli, popovers and more.

Find a pastry recipe card for ethnic pastries

Pastries are found all around the globe, so why limit yourself to only pastries that are well-known in the United States? Try experimenting with lesser-known Swedish and German recipes, or try something more exotic--like Armenian mavish.

I recommend: Organic Valley Family of Farms offers several ethnic pastry recipes, including Armenian mavish, Jewish rugelach, Swedish Lucia buns and Serbian chesnitsa. RusCusine.com provides a great selection of Russian recipes, including pastries.

Make use of a pastry recipe book

A good pastry recipe book is a must if you have serious interest in baking pastries for your customers. Not only will a cookbook offer tested recipes, but it should offer excellent general baking tips that can help make pastries easy to prepare and delicious to eat.

I recommend: Cooking.com sells "Leslie Mackie's Macrina Bakery & Café Cookbook," which offers 100 recipes plus tips from Macrina Bakery & Café in Seattle. Tower.com offers Bo Friberg's "The Professional Pastry Chef," which contains over 600 recipes, plus guidance and tips for all types of pastry making.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  When working with pastry recipe ingredients, remember there are two types of cocoa powder: non-alkalized and alkalized (or Dutch). Dutch cocoa powder produces a more mild and dark product, which is ideal for most baking. However, Dutch powder won't react with baking soda, so you should only use baking powder with it.