McDuff

And I was told in culinary school, after giving the definition of a torte as a cake where all or part of the flour was replaced by ground nuts and/or bread crumbs, that a torte was, quite simply and elegantly, a dessert made from cake.

Was wondering if you'd ever show up here James

I once interviewed at an old country inn where the kitchen was a cavern in the cellar, and I saw an electric drill with a round pastry brush chucked into it, next to a can of Crisco, next to a pile of muffin pans.

There's an outfit in Worcester MA called Primarque which has apple pectin in pound or two pound cans. Do a google thing and they should turn up, as they have a web site. I've tried Michel Roux's recipe and Michael Hu gave me his recipe and I tried that too. Tricky little devils. Boiling something to 217 that is that thick is problematic, but I've had successes and failures. I used Perfect Puree.

There was one of these floating around the family swap, and on the way out I was soo tempted to steal it, just to add another line to the family legend...remember the Christmas Uncle David stole the egg peeler?

I've been using that stuff called Mycryo to temper chocolate lately and it works great. Melt the chocolate to 115, cool to 90 and add 1% of Mycryo and stir it in well. Seems like you need a way to hold it at 90, because it sets fast and hard.

In the sugar showpiece lab at J&W we used to boil up enormous amounts of stock sugar syrup to use for pouring. 50 lb bags of sugar at a time. It always had a lot of glucose in it. I don't know that you would need to caramelize it to stick the choux together, and maybe not even for making spun sugar. These notes present a more scientific method of approach. I'm not much of a decorative artist, but even I was able to make a showpiece that actually came out and looked good, until someone putting away the heat lamps smashed it.

Stick in the eye---our paychecks never showed up.

I buy this stuff called Grandmother's, which I think if fairly low fat. Don't know that I've ever had actual real mincemeat that had suet and/or meat in it. The cheap quick dirty way to go with this is Haagen Dazs rum raisin.

Nice. I'm reading this with great interest as my sister and my niece are expecting a trial run of a wedding cake on Christmas Eve, like I don't have enough to do that week. It's probably going to be chiffon genoise with a dacquoise layer, raspberry ginger ganache, Pierre's flourless chocolate brownie, lemon swiss merinque buttercream and ta-da...Satin ice rolled fondant, which I already bought. I don't have a ton of experience using this stuff, but nothing to do with a rolling pin scares me.

I once read a quality spec sheet from Guittard that had a notation for testing the cocoa beans for E. coli. Kind of made me wonder. Who peed on the watermelon?

When cream cheese is paddled too fast or too long, it just sort of lets go. And no amount of chilling will bring it back. But maybe a little Jello instant vanilla pudding mix drizzled into it would tighten it.

I've made these a couple of times. I think they need more sugar than Pierre suggests. Once they came out almost candied. The edges of the slices were heaven. But the second time they were mush. I'll have to try them in our new oven.

I guess that's what I would have said if I had the words.

You can get ascorbic acid at a winemaking supply place, and instructions to use it from Raymond Calvel's book. It's used at a very small percentage. As for the other stuff, I just don't get it. This is heavy duty industrial stuff probably not available to the home user. There are so many ways to get a good loaf I don't know that you need to resort to better living through chemisty. This chemical is on the list of unacceptable ingredients for food sold where I work, Whole Foods. This is proof that you don't need chemicals. Just follow some of the tips in the bread threads here. This is Cook's Illustrated rustic Italian, with the hydration pushed to 100% in the dough, and barely kneaded, maybe a minute. But it was turned every 20 minutes for an hour and then allowed to ferment as the recipe indicates. Screaming for nitrate-laden fatty cold cuts and sharp cheeses.

Nice idea. I like #1. with creme anglaise. I'm dying to make a traditional pudding, have gotten over the suet thing, but don't care for the red #40 in the candied fruit.

I once got a third prize in the Bay's english muffin contest for a recipe I had never even made. I called it River Barrow Salmon and Bay's English Muffins and it was toasted muffins, smoked salmon, red onion, poached egg and a chive beurre blanc. when it appeared on their recipe folder they changed the beurre blanc to blender hollandaise. I also just finished in the middle of the pack in an internal Whole Foods pastry competition. Had to ship three ice cream cakes from Boston to NYC in a big foam box I have used to transport wedding cakes. Put some pathetically small hunks of dry ice in the bottom, even tho they weighed 24 lbs total, put in the cakes, popped on the top and stuck it in the freezer for someone to pick up and take down. They arrived so solidly frozen they couldn't be cut.

Not exactly what we're talking about, but does anyone know how long whipped cream piped onto an ice cream cake will last in the freezer?

try the damn things with green peppercorns in the pan with them. I fry nothing at home without a screen over the pan now.

My boss is always after me to make bigger batches, but this is right. It takes no time at all to make so why bother making thirty pounds when ten will do for a while.

My wife found some of those in a chef's coat that just came out of the dryer, and they there were condoms that got shrunk. I don't know how to stick two quotes in here, but re: the exacto knife reply, she used to work as a graphic designer and had a knife roll off the table and land upright in her thigh. She had to drive herself to the hospital, all the while wondering what to do about the fact that she was not wearing panties that day.

I find this all very interesting, as I have a bunch of copper, mostly stainless lined, but I do have two gorgeous pieces I never use. Both are tinned, one is a bail handled pot with cover 9 1/2 winde by 6 deep and the other is a very heavy pot with a cast iron handle 8 wide by 4 1/2 deep. I'm scared to use them because I'm, afraid the tin will wear out. I used to use the larger one and the tin did wear in one spot so I had it retinned, but it's never seen heat since. What's the bsdis of my irrational fear? they are both high quality and would probably look cool on the stove with something cooking in them.

Skip up a couple of posts and go read the referenced recipe. I believe the word spelled "g-a-r-l-i-c" refers to garlic, three cloves, count them, three. Thinly sliced, and out of place.

My guess is no, the pistachio doesn't count. Leave the powder at 1 tsp. The gas generated by the baking powder is trapped by the web of gluten activated by stirring the flour into the creamed butter/sugar/egg along with whatever liquid is added. And since pistachio flour has no gluten, it can't trap any gas. So you only need enough powder to leaven the one cup of flour. My first guess after looking at the recipe was that there was too much powder, as that causes the middle of a cake to collapse, then I decided I didn't know. I'm just wondering if the pistachio flour is making the batter a little heavy, but that might be part of the appeal of this cake.

No, glazed baby turnips go best with roast duck..I don't know. If you want to try it, try it. There is no right or wrong. Julia says, You're alone in the kitchen and no one can see you.