[Brownie Brittle-- Anyone have a good recipe?]

Anna,

 

Thank you for that recipe! Made it today and really I liked it, too. Very chocolatey and nicely crisp.

 

 

[Brownie Brittle-- Anyone have a good recipe?]

I am trying to find a god recipe to make these from scratch. Thanks!

[The Fruitcake Topic]

58 minutes ago, andiesenji said:

Denser cakes keep better and can be sliced thinner.

Any ENGLISH recipe for fruit cakes, Dundee cake, etc., will slice much thinner.

 

Some fruitcakes from England with big chunks of fruit can be sliced thin and look like stained glass windows.

Very Interesting. How do you define a dense/English recipe? Is it a recipe with less flour?

 

The last recipe I made had 2 cups flour/9 cups mixed dried fruits (all hydrated for a week in bourbon)/5 eggs/ 1 cup butter. It tastes great, but is impossible to cut neatly. The plumped fruit just pulls from the crumb, rather than slices through neatly. I was hoping for "stained glass". Could plumping the fruit make it too moist to cut through cleanly?

[The Fruitcake Topic]

I have a general question about fruitcake texture: Over the years, I have made many different recipes for fruitcake. All the recipes contain dried fruits and nuts. Some recipes seem to produce a dense loaf that can be easily sliced into thin slices, while other recipes produce a loaf that is full of moist fruit and have a moist crumb, but crumble when sliced, necessitating that one cut thick slices for serving. I can't seem to figure out what determines the final texture of the cake. Any ideas what makes a cake that can be thinly sliced and what makes the type that must be served in large chunks?

[Recreating Neuman's Date Nut Bread]

Kerry,

 

Thanks. That looks  promising.

[Establishing and Working with Homegrown Sourdough Starter]

HI Mick,

 

Thanks for all the great information! Your posts have been incredibly helpful!

 

If you are trying to convert a recipe from commercial yeast to a sourdough recipe, how do you know how much starter to use? I have read that you want ~30% of the recipe's flour to come from the starter.Is that about what you would recommend, too?

 

 

[Recreating Neuman's Date Nut Bread]

I'm trying to find a recipe for date nut bread that will produce a loaf similar to Neuman's Date Nut Bread, a round, somehwat sticky loaf sometimes found in supermarket deli sections. Anyone have a recipe that's seems close to that one?

[Sinbo Snorkel-Type Vacuum Sealer]

Barrytm, thanks for the detailed info. It does sound like there is some real learning curve in using this machine. Its relatively low price and the ability to use non-quilted bags, however, still makes it an attractive option.

[Sinbo Snorkel-Type Vacuum Sealer]

Anyone have any experience with the Sinbo brand of vacuum sealers? They are snorkel-type machines that make it possible to use the same inexpensive nylon (or even Mylar) bags that chamber-style vacuum machines use, rather than the more costly quilted type of bag.

Here's a link for a Sinbo machine that they also claim can be used to seal liquids: http://www.vackpak.com/Sinbo.html

[Xylitol Hard Candy]

I'm interesting in trying to make hard (sugarless) candies from xylitol. What I have found about it on the web says it is difficult to do. If any of you have tried it with success, can you please share the technique? Thanks!

[Mandolines]

Any of these mandolines tough enough to julienne a celery root?

[Puff pastry: your go-to recipe]

My favorite recipe with the best detailed directions for puff pastry is in Flo Baker's The Simple Art of Perfect Baking.

[Candying fruit, Wybauw's method]

I was able to find the pages describing this technique on Google Books. Also had a miserable failure. The mixture started bubbling and fermenting after a few days, despite following the directions. Obviously the sugar concentration in the early steps was insufficient to inhibit growth of bacteria/yeast.

[Candying fruit, Wybauw's method]

I'm bumping this topic back up because Whole Foods had organic oranges on sale today for .79/lb, so I now have 10 lbs that I want to slice and candy. I've done this yearly by slow simmering in a crock pot, but I'm always looking for alternative techniques. I'd like to try Wybauw's 2-week increasing sugar concentration soaking technique, and even have a refractometer, but I can't find the details on how to do it. Does anyone have these details?

Also , I keep thinking there must be a way to do this with vacuum packing and sous vide. Has anyone had success with this technique?

[VacMaster VP210 vs. VacMaster VP112]

VP215 has a much higher maximum vacuum than the VP210. The difference between 94%(VP210) and 99%(VP215) for compression purposes is significant.

Does the difference in vacuum make a difference for sous viding? Is there a problem with bags floating more with the VP210 vs the VP215 because there is more air left in them?

[Chamber Vacuum Sealers, 2011–2014]

And for the people with H2O sensors on their Henkelmans: How useful is the feature in reality? Does anyone not use it?

I'm trying to make my final decision on which chamber vac machine to buy. I'm also really curious to hear how important and useful these H20 sensors have been for people who have opted to buy machines that have this option. I'm assuming it makes it more of a no-brainer in terms of proper settings to have an H20 sensor, but is it that hard to figure out the proper settings once you are comfortable with your machine and the particular food you are vacuum sealing?

[Biscotti]

Does anyone have any slicing tips? I want to make each biscotti thinner, but they usually crumble if I slice any less than 3/4 inch thick.

I use an electric knife to cut them after the first baking, and can easily slice them to 1/4 inch or thinner.

[Ultra-tex]

Are there some basic rules on when to use the 3 vs the 8?

[Ultra-tex]

Does anyone know if Ultra-Tex 3 can be used as a substitute for Ultrasperse 3? I'm trying to follow a recipe from MC that calls for the latter, but can't find a source for it on the web. Are the two products comparable?

[Anyone Making Halva?]

Have you checked out these previous threads?

Here

and

Here Also

[Stuff in cannolis]

Here are some unusual option from NYC: Click here.

[The Ketchup Battle: Heinz vs Hunt's]

In the Spring 2011 issue of Entertaining/Cook's Illustrated (p.17), they have a sidebar where they discuss the results of a ketchup tasting. Of 8 brands tested, they recommended Heinz Organic and Hunt's, but declared Hunt's the winner...

[Shower caps in the kitchen]

I take these shower caps from hotels, too! I use them to cover bowls of dough while they are rising. Stays in place a lot better than plastic wrap.

[Cooking with "Modernist Cuisine" (Part 2)]

The set and grate seems an extra step that while useful in a restaurant etc could be skipped at home.

I didn't see the point of freezing and grating the cheese either. I made a "bulk" batch of cheese, then portioned it into 160 g portions by weighing this amount into the bottom of a bunch of round Ziploc containers. After freezing, I was able to pop the cheese 'pucks' out of their containers, and store them in a 1 gal Ziploc bag in the freezer. When I want to make a 100g batch of macaroni, I just melt the cheese puck in a saucepan over low heat, then add it to the macaroni once they are cooked. A simple stir, and it's ready to serve.

["Modernist Cuisine" by Myhrvold, Young & Bilet (Part 2)]

I'm willing to bet that the sticker on the side of the box is in part responsible for the missing copies - when you announce on the side of the box that it contains something worth $625 US or $700 Cdn - that's got to be pretty tempting to someone who figures they could earn a few extra bucks by lifting it and selling it. Perhaps we should all be watching for e-bay sales of MC that don't have the kitchen manual to find the guilty parties.

Today, on ebay, a copy with a Buy It Now price of $1600. Clicky here