lorea

One of the posts above reminded me of one of the questions I've always had about roasting garlic. Why do you have to slice the top part of the garlic head off when roasting garlic? I've always been too chicken to risk ruining good garlic, so I've never tried roasting it with the top ON.

Hey Wendy....can you try out the cake I posted from the Cake Bible? see how it compares to the Woolley cake? It's posted above, and I also put it in RecipeGullet.

Gosh, I've never tried buffalo mozzarella before. Now with 2 people talking about it....must....buy....buffalo mozz!

You need to find the rice labeled "Sweet Rice" on the bag. Here's a tip: Glutinous rice always comes in smaller bags. Whereas medium grain and jasmine rices can come in huge 50lb bags, this type of rice is normally in the 5-10lb range. So...look for a brand that doesn't come in anything larger than 10-20lbs. Sho-Chiku-Bai is the brand I normally like using.

I would still say it's a 4.5 (can I do that?? ) The reason why it's not a 5 is because it doesn't make me crave to eat more after I've had my share....and I've had some cakes that have made me do that. I think the cake I was actually thinking about from the Cake Bible was the All-American Chocolate Butter Cake. This recipe makes 2 9-inch cakes. (Adapted from the Cake Bible by Rose Levy Berenbaum) Unsweetened Dutch Processed Cocoa ½ cup + 3 tablespoons, lightly spooned 2.25 oz. 63 g Boiling water 1 liquid cup 8.25 oz 236 g 3 large eggs Scant 5 fluid oz 5.25 oz (without shells) 150 g (without shells) Vanilla 2 ¼ teaspoons 9 g Sifted cake flour 2 ¼ cups + 2 T 8.25 oz 235 g Sugar 1 ½ cups 10.5 oz 300 g Baking powder 1 T 15 g Salt ¾ teaspoon 5 g Unsalted butter, softened 1 cup 8 oz 227 g Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together the cocoa and boiling water. Cool. Mix eggs, 1/4 of cocoa mixture, & vanilla. Mix together the dry ingredients. Add butter and remaining cocoa. Beat for 1 1/2 minutes to develop the cakes's structure. Add the egg mixture in 3 batches. Bake for about 25-35 minutes.

The Baking Club - Chocolate Butter Cake This recipe makes 2 9-inch cakes. (Adapted from the Cake Bible by Rose Levy Berenbaum) Unsweetened Dutch Processed Cocoa ½ cup + 3 tablespoons, lightly spooned 2.25 oz. 63 g Boiling water 1 liquid cup 8.25 oz 236 g 3 large eggs Scant 5 fluid oz 5.25 oz (without shells) 150 g (without shells) Vanilla 2 ¼ teaspoons 9 g Sifted cake flour 2 ¼ cups + 2 T 8.25 oz 235 g Sugar 1 ½ cups 10.5 oz 300 g Baking powder 1 T 15 g Salt ¾ teaspoon 5 g Unsalted butter, softened 1 cup 8 oz 227 g Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together the cocoa and boiling water. Cool. Mix eggs, 1/4 of cocoa mixture, & vanilla. Mix together the dry ingredients. Add butter and remaining cocoa. Beat for 1 1/2 minutes to develop the cakes's structure. Add the egg mixture in 3 batches. Bake for about 25-35 minutes. Keywords: Intermediate, Cake ( RG1008 )

The Baking Club - Chocolate Butter Cake This recipe makes 2 9-inch cakes. (Adapted from the Cake Bible by Rose Levy Berenbaum) Unsweetened Dutch Processed Cocoa ½ cup + 3 tablespoons, lightly spooned 2.25 oz. 63 g Boiling water 1 liquid cup 8.25 oz 236 g 3 large eggs Scant 5 fluid oz 5.25 oz (without shells) 150 g (without shells) Vanilla 2 ¼ teaspoons 9 g Sifted cake flour 2 ¼ cups + 2 T 8.25 oz 235 g Sugar 1 ½ cups 10.5 oz 300 g Baking powder 1 T 15 g Salt ¾ teaspoon 5 g Unsalted butter, softened 1 cup 8 oz 227 g Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together the cocoa and boiling water. Cool. Mix eggs, 1/4 of cocoa mixture, & vanilla. Mix together the dry ingredients. Add butter and remaining cocoa. Beat for 1 1/2 minutes to develop the cakes's structure. Add the egg mixture in 3 batches. Bake for about 25-35 minutes. Keywords: Intermediate, Cake ( RG1008 )

The moderate heat, butter trick thing works absolutely wonderfully with duck breasts too....crispy skin, yet tender and juicy on the inside.

Inspired from the When Cheaper is Just Fine thread, what do you buy with the money you save from buying the cheap stuff? When does it really matter to pay more for your cooking gadgets, cookware, & equipment? And what have you put your money into? Does brand matter? For me, it's a good chef's knife, a great saute pan, and Microplane graters. Alright, microplanes aren't that expensive, but in this case, it DOES pay to spend just a little more.

I second (or was that third?) the Ikea end-grain cutting boards....mine is fantastic! It was only $20! I went back a few months ago to buy one for a friend, and apparently they no longer sell them. I like my $.79 dough scraper, purchased at the business Costco. Or a good substitute is a Chinese cleaver. $12.95 for a set of 2 half-sheet pans, 1 sturdy cooling rack, and 2 plastic lids that all fit together perfectly...from costco. I use them to transport my food around all the time. How about the hardware blow torches? They beat the wimpy expensive ones "made for" creme brulee any day. Cheap pyrex measuring cups. And definitely my wooden stirring things and my Chinese bamboo angled spatulas. I use them for everything. Cheap Chinese carbon steel wok. We should start a thread called "When expensive stuff matters"

Yeah, I would get pretty upset at myself if I ruined any meal. But with the equipment thing, I think it's because we see it as an investment that should last many many uses.....and a meal is just a one time thing! Once you eat it, it's forever gone.... But a chipped knife will forever be looking at you, giving you a guilt trip every time you looked at the poor chipped thing.

Alright, I'm back to share some more experiences with this cake. On the night I made the 2 cakes, I had wrapped both cakes in plastic wrap and left one out and put the other in the freezer. The one I gave a review on was the one I left out. Last night, I went to a dinner party and plated up the previously frozen one. It was much better/moister than the one left out, and wasn't as crumbly as the one that was left out. I got really good reviews about the cake from my friends....about how rich it was.

Wow, seriously hardcore! It's not too late to re-do the batch you just made....just strain out the chilis, do the same process with the same oil, let it sit for about a week, strain, and you'll have a great chili oil. I like to use the less refined Chinese-branded peanut oil for my chili oils....it makes everything taste more fragrant when I use the chili oil. Safflower is good too though.

Okay..I made this cake last night! I'm busy munching on it right now. Here's what I did (I weighed the ingredients w/ my usual conversions): Fudge Brownie Cake sift together: 15 oz. AP bleached flour 4 3/4 oz natural process cocoa 1 1/2 tsp. soda 1 tsp. salt reserve. Cream: 6 oz. butter, room temp with 14 oz. sugar Then add: until creamy 3 eggs 1 c. buttermilk 2/3 c. veg. oil 2 tsp. vanilla Then mix in you dry ingredients from above. To this you add: 1 1/2 c, boiling water I baked the cakes in 2 greased/floured 9 inch sheet pans. My conventional oven was at 285 degrees, according to my oven themometers. I took one cake out at 35 minutes since the cake was starting to look really dry around the edges (the cake tester still came out slightly gooey). I waited until 45 minutes for the other cake. 5 minutes after the cakes came out of the oven, I double-wrapped them in plastic wrap and let them cool. Like Wendy, my cakes came out like humongous muffins or volcanoes. I would have been really displeased with this if I were to frost these cakes! I think there must be too much gluten or too much flour in this recipe. I decided to use natural process cocoa because the recipe is using baking soda, but later on, I figured it could have been either natural or dutch-processed because there's quite a lot of buttermilk in this recipe. I found that it was really difficult to NOT overmix this batter because mixing the dry with the wet resulted in a gooey kind of dough, which then needed to be broken down by the hot water....but the end texture was actually quite nice anyways. My old favorites used to be the Chocolate Fudge Cake from the Cake Bible and the Chocolate Chiffon Cake from Baking with Julia. I didn't think either of them were perfect either though. I liked the flavor from the Chocolate Fudge Cake (it tasted almost brownie-like....very chocolatey and full-flavored), and the crumb was really fine, almost silky. I thought it was a little dry and crumbly though. Normally, I like chocolate cakes that are really rich textured and flavored. For a change, I liked the Chocolate Chiffon Cake because the texture was really nice...very moist & rich textured. If there was ever a "chocolate cake mix" cake, this is it. I didn't care too much for the flavor though....the oil didn't really highlight the chocolate flavor, and there was a definite "cake mix" flavor to this cake. As for Wooley's (the one Wendy posted) recipe, I thought the texture was in-between the two above cakes. My results were slightly chewy, and moist. The crumb is in between the fine crumb of the Chocolate Fudge Cake and the open-holed Chocolate Chiffon Cake. It's a little crumbly though. I wish it were slightly moister, and held together better. I liked the texture of the cake baked for only 35 minutes much better than the 45 minute one. As for flavor, I thought it tasted very chocolatey, but it didn't taste as full-flavored as the Chocolate Fudge Cake did. It was definitely much better tasting than the Chocolate Chiffon Cake though. With quite a bit of tweaking, I think this cake could become my only favorite, but not the way it is right now. I think the mayonnaise chocolate cake in the Cake Bible also has potential, but I haven't tried that one yet either. Any other takers? Edited to add: I give this a 4 out of 5!

I had the same experience with the Hungarian Shortbread recipe....it was one of the few recipes in that book that gave me less-than-favorable results. Whew! I thought it was just me!

Great idea, Wendy! I would love to join in. I think your idea of you starting with providing us with your recipe, then we test it, then we provide feedback and/or a better recipe is a great idea. This can easily be very chaotic, so I like your idea of starting with one recipe first.

Hi Sam, In terms of food sticking, would a polished stainless interior be more food stick-resistant than a brushed stainless steel interior? I noticed a lot of cookware advertise one or the other, and was wondering what the real difference was. Are there any other considerations when choosing between polished vs. brushed interiors? Thanks for all of your assistance!

Err....so where does salmonella live in the chicken, anyways (if it's present)?

Thanks for the great class, Craig! I made your risotto milanese to go with my Osso Buco for lunch and it was beautiful.

Son of a motherless goat! I f*&%^&%* did it again last night!!!!!! Hmm...does this happen even when you leave the garlic whole, but smashed? Maybe it's just your pans.... or just rationalization to get new ones!

As long as you add the zest in after the eggs are stiff, I think it should be okay. Oil only really matters when beating the egg whites.

I just place pan-warmed slices of meatloaf between leftover mashed potatoes spread on each side of the sandwich. Add a little lettuce for some crunch. Yum!

I have exactly the same timer! I purchased it prior to the Cook's Illustrated review because I personally liked the following features: - it's LOUD. I kept missing the timer on my stove or microwave because they weren't quiet enough. It's loud enough that I can leave it downstairs and still hear it shrieking from upstairs. It beats wearing that thing! - It's easy to type in digits. I always felt timers that made you press the same button over and over again to enter in a time was a waste of time. Since all the digits are easily accessible, it's very quick to type in times. - There's a count-up function. - After the timer beeps, it continues to count up. As far as ergonomics goes, it's a little awkward to use. It's slightly difficult to hold (so I just leave mine on the refrigerator), and the readout is a little small. Also, it's a little irritating that I have to press Stop, then Clear, before I can type in new numbers. I'd rather prefer to press Stop, then be able to automatically enter in a new time without pressing Clear. But that's a small matter. In all, it's a good little timer that does the job. And if I ever really need to have multiple timers, I can always use my oven timer or microwave timer.

Ditto for me on the sourdough bread. I've tried capturing wild yeast many many times....and my starter ends up smelling like yeast. But when I actually try to bake the bread, it never rises! You'd think I'd be able to do it correctly (I'm in the San Francisco area...home of the famous San Francisco Sourdough!) after so many tries. I can make yeast bread fine, or sourdough breads that have at least a little commercial yeast in it. But yesterday, I was browsing around Whole Foods and aha! I found a little packet of San Francisco Sourdough starter! Maybe I'll finally be able to get that elusive perfect loaf of sourdough bread...

Oh yeah! I also forgot to add that some meals are easily frozen for future meals, like lasagne or stews. When I make meals that are easily frozen, I tend to make at least double what I'm planning to eat that night. That way, whenever I'm faced with feeling lazy, but still want good food, I pull something from the freezer. Frozen home-cooked meals beats out Stouffer's anyday! :D