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yslee

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  1. I'm going to be on holiday in Malaysia next month. Can anyone recommend a good Malay/Nonya cooking class? I'll definitely be in KL, Ipoh, Penang and some other as-yet-unchosen destinations, but will be avoiding the large, all-inclusive resorts (Langkawi, etc). Thanks!
  2. Hello all, I've been lurking with interest because I, too, am curious about AB's The Chewy. I have the same problem as infernooo: my cookies are "fudgy" in the middle. I'm a careful, moderately experienced home baker and I've followed this recipe to the letter, then tried using the variations described by JFLinLA et al. So I'm beginning to wonder if this is a problem of expectations: what delights you all about this "chewy" cookie? Are the edges delicately chewy, progressing to a soft middle? I think maybe I was expecting more chew than the cookie is intended to deliver. Maybe I should move on to The Thin...
  3. yslee

    Vegan Desserts

    Hello, The Crazy Cake recipe mentioned above (also called Wacky Cake and a number of other aren't-we-silly-ho-ho names) is genuinely good: improbably moist and rich-tasting. It's supposed to be a kids' cake, but a more adult-tasting version is printed in a number of vegetarian cookbooks, including Jeanne Lemlin's _Quick Vegetarian Pleasures_ and Crescent Dragonwagon's _The Passionate Vegetarian_. I like to fill layers with a version of the tofu chocolate mousse described above. You might also want to look at _The Passionate Vegetarian_ and Myra Kornfeld's _The Voluptuous Vegan_ for more options. I particularly recommend Dragonwagon for bold but complex flavours. I love the idea of a blog - with recipes, please!
  4. No, it's an entirely white flour bread but it's one of the most flavorful I've tried (even without the walnuts). It occurs to me that the Baking with Julia thread may contain a discussion of it (but I haven't searched yet; my dial-up connection is extra sluggish today).
  5. I can't recommend highly enough Steve Sullivan's Walnut Bread in Baking with Julia. It's based on his Mixed Starter Bread (itself splendid) and absolutely packed with walnuts. I make it specifically to eat with bleu d'auvergne, and then I buy more cheese the finish the bread.
  6. How do you pronounce "Chexbres" (the name of MFK Fisher's companion in Switzerland)?
  7. yslee

    Rice Cookers

    My very basic, 3-cup National rice cooker is now 12 years old. I use it 4-5 times a week for white jasmine rice, brown Basmati rice, millet, quinoa and steaming, as well as the occasional steamboat. Everything cooks perfectly (although brown rice turns out better if I soak it for 30-45 min. before pressing the button). I expect many more years from the machine - my mother's larger (6-cup?) National has been going for over 30 years now and she uses it EVERY night. She also has a 10-cup for company, of a similar vintage, but used less often. By the way - I find that large-capacity cookers don't cook small quantities as well as a smaller machine. So if you routinely cook only 2-3 cups, the 3-cup cooker will do a better job.
  8. I know you think you're eating enough, but based on what you described (a kid's lunch; a Clif bar) I second tryska's suggestion that you think twice about your lunch. A Clif bar has 250 calories. Even I, as a small, thin woman, cannot survive on a Clif bar for lunch. (I've tried, on hectic days; I'm always deranged by hunger at 3:30.) Also, those noodle cups are basically white starch. Maybe a more balanced lunch would help, too. Protein, vegetables, whole grains - and save that Clif bar for your mid-afternoon snack.
  9. Presumably, "BAYZel" is given last because it's the most marginal/recent pronunciation...
  10. Thanks, SuzySushi. At this point, I'm not sure where "perseverance" leaves off and "pig-headed monomania" begins! Tepee, about the pastry recipe you linked to: how many tart shells do you get from the recipe? Does each ball constitute one tart shell? And after rolling it up Swiss-roll style, do you just roll it out into a circle? There's something vaguely Buddhist about this whole cook-off, with people going through cycles of pastry, moving ever closer to perfection. Or maybe it's closer to Dante's Inferno.
  11. I did 2 types of puff pastry and tried baking each type a couple of different ways. I don't have a digital camera, so I hope you'll bear with my verbal descriptions. For all variations, I used Corinne Trang's filling recipe (2 c whole milk, 4 eggs, 3 tb sugar, 1 tb vanilla). The filling makes a pleasant English-style custard, but it's not what I'm looking for in a dan tat. But on to the real pain in the arse: the pastry. Version 1: Apicio's recipe for Chinese puff pastry (posted in the Dan Tat thread in the Pastry forum). This is a traditionally rolled puff pastry. The dough was extreme soft to work with (it uses a lot of vegetable oil in the main dough, with a second lard dough) and I think this showed in the baked tarts. When I baked the pastry and filling together, the dough basically steamed along with the filling and came out floppy and damp. I tried these both at 300F for 45 minutes, and then at 375 for 20. When I blind-baked them (375F for 15), the pastry puffed very slightly and eventually became very firm. Overall, I was unsuccessful with this dough. The flavour was right, though. Version 2: a rough puff pastry recipe (Lauren Chattman's Instant Gratification) using half butter and half lard. This was better, especially when blind-baked, but still didn't give the super-flaky effect I was after. Again, I baked this 3 ways (filled and low temp, filled and higher temp, and blind-baked). The best results were with the pre-baked shell, but they still weren't authentic. To be sure that it wasn't my pastry that was the problem, I baked up the scraps as sugar twists and these were good and flaky (and hard to resist - feeling a bit sick, now ). Also, most of my tarts looked okay, kind of like the stuff from mediocre Chinese bakeries - but they didn't taste right. I'm now wondering about the shape of my tarts: I'm using a standard muffin tin and questioning whether the straight-up-and-down sides are affecting the flake factor. I might try again tomorrow, using Corinne Trang's pastry recipe and the remainder of her filling. But I'd love to hear about the results of someone with proper tart tins, please! Also, does anyone really like their filling recipe? Is it silken and delicate and not too milky? I'm officially obsessed.
  12. Hello. Am I too late to join this cook-off? I normally lurk around Pastry & Baking (seldom posting) but mystery of the pastry sounded irresistible. (Also, I shot my mouth off about puff pastry in the Egg Tart threat and now feel the need to investigate my own theories!) I thought I'd try both basic puff (either rough puff or with fewer turns) and Apicio's formula as well, which s/he has posted in the P&B thread. My question for you is, have you arrived at some consensus as to the silkiest, most delicate custard?
  13. I'd drop a paper cupcake liner on top of each dough circle and then fill it with beans/pie weights. Wendy DeBord might have a better suggestion. I should add that I'm no pastry chef (just an avid home baker) but for you, sheetz, this weekend I will attempt to put my money where my mouth (fingers? keyboard?) is.
  14. I'll second the use of lard. I also think the traditional puff pastry technique will work, using lard instead of butter. (That's essentially what the trad Chinese recipes suggest with their 2-dough method.) Then I'd suggest blind-baking them (weighted) to give the sides of the tart a chance to puff instead of sog. Then top up with custard and finish. Of course, I'm feeling too lazy to try this myself, today. If I summon the energy, I'll wander over to the Chinese cooking forum and actually participate instead of bombarding you with advice from the safety of P&B!
  15. Thanks for the clarification, rjwong. Now I'm really curious: has anyone tried the chocolate souffle with the potato flour? For those who don't have the book in front of you, Yard adds 2tb of potato flour to a souffle containing 4 oz chocolate, 1/2 cup heavy cream, 3 yolks and 8 whites. She also uses a tiny amount of cream of tartar to stabilize.
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