Recipe Sharing

We serve really good breakfasts here at The Craftsman B&B. Well, our guests keep telling us that and they are writing great reviews about it on-line too. We get asked to share recipes, well we really don't do that. We are half a food business, so just like a restaurant, our business is food based. We prepare good food we have tested recipes, modified and tweaked them until we think it's good enough. Then we try it out on friends and returning guests to get their opinion before an item makes our menu.

I have done a lot of experimenting with various food allergies as well. We want to serve all our guests the same meal. If we have a guest with a dietary restriction at the table, we don't want to serve them something entirely different than the rest of the guests. We don't want to make them feel isolated. We make sure all the plates look pretty much the same. That means, we have to adapt "regular" recipes to not include ingredients that a person can't have while making it look and taste like the original version. Sometimes it's easy, a lot of times it's not. So why would I want to just give out all my hard work when that's half my business?

I know it can be a challenge for someone who has come upon an allergy later in life and has a complete change in their diet. Gluten and or wheat allergies ring a bell? Baking gluten free can be a huge challenge. We have figured out quite a few muffins and cookies that are gluten or wheat free. I know oats have gluten, but most people are allergic to wheat, and other long grains, like rice and barley, yes, no beer! Oat flour can be a good substitute, but not if they are gluten free.

I have shared some of our secret recipes for our diet restricted guests. But like any restaurant, we don't share every dish to the entire world. We want you coming back for more. That said, we also try not to serve a returning guest the same dish they have had before. We do get requests and we do accommodate them, just like the reason you return to your favorite restaurant.

So over time, we have shared a few recipes with the world. Our famous Bananas Foster French Toast is very popular and the talk around our still tiny town of Pacific City. Waiters, when finding out our guests are staying with us, have asked if they had the Bananas Foster French Toast, we call it BFFT.

So another guest has been asking for our coffee cake recipe. He has started a blog that is food based and I thought this would be a good post for him, us and his morning breakfast. We've been e-mailing back and forth because we have 3 coffee cakes we make on a regular basis and didn't know which one he wanted. So after a few questions, I know the one. We call it Craftsman Coffee Cake.

If you have had it, I'm sure you'll agree, it's pretty darn good. If you haven't, book a room and ask for it for breakfast.