yslee

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!

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...

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!

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).

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.

How do you pronounce "Chexbres" (the name of MFK Fisher's companion in Switzerland)?

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.

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.

Presumably, "BAYZel" is given last because it's the most marginal/recent pronunciation...

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.

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.

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?

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.

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!

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.

I think I'm having a stupid day: I don't quite understand this correction. Do you mean to omit the potato flour from the recipe entirely? After all Yard said about it contributing moisture and structure? Interesting. If that's not what you meant, please set me straight. Thanks!

What makes your French Rhubarb Tart special, ludja? Any chance you could share the recipe? I adore rhubarb and I'm always looking for new ways to cook it.

I spent my 3rd year of university on exchange in small-town England. The residence held 36 students in single rooms and between us we shared 2 cookers, 2 fridges and one sink. I learned a lot that year, including the neat trick of draining pasta out the window ("Gardyloo!"). I also saw what the top of an unbaked Fray Bentos pie looks like. (The nightmares eventually stopped.) But despite the overall atmosphere of fetid squalor, the ziggurats of crusty, slimy, mouldering dishes in the sink and taking over the counter, the thick carpet of bits and crumbs on the floor, the thing that caused the most complaints was me. Because I cooked with garlic. Sigh.

KA Flours sells something called "Princess" flavour extract. I haven't tried it but the catalogue promises you that traditional "bakery" cake taste. Maybe a little of that in a vanilla ice cream recipe is all you need?

I assume that your wife is an otherwise intelligent adult. How does she respond when confronted with facts (like the nutrition info on a box of frozen junk food)? Maybe it's time to see a nutritionist (screen, obviously - no point in getting a fatphobe, of which there are still plenty kicking about). Frankly, I'm more worried about your daughter. This is the kind of stuff of which eating disorders are made.

No one has yet mentioned Jeffrey Steingarten's essay on the so-called Chinese Restaurant Syndrome, umami and MSG. Called "Why doesn't everybody in China have a headache?", it's included in his second anthology, _It Must Have Been Something I Ate_. I haven't read it in some time, but in it he basically debunks the "discovery" of CRS and talks about why foods like Parmesan cheese and tomato paste taste so delicious (it's the wealth of free glutamate, which is naturally-occurring MSG). I believe he also refers to "MSG crybabies"!

I'm Asian, too. When my mother was pregnant with me, my grandmother urged her to drink a lot of soy milk so my skin would be fair. When I emerged a toasty nut-brown (well, brown by Chinese standards), my mother said, "Well, so much for all that soy milk." My Ah Mah's quick riposte? "The problem is not the soy milk! It's all that coffee you drank, too!"

I have long lost my citation for this (I wrote my PhD thesis on c19 English fiction and working-class culture) but putting the milk in first is traditionally a working-class thing. Wealthy Victorians put cream in their tea. Putting milk in the cup first was supposed to make it taste richer and thus more like cream for those who couldn't afford the additional expense. See, for example, the scene in _Gosford Park_ when the bumbling, lower middle-class police inspector (Stephen Fry) pours tea for the lady of the house (Kristen Scott Thomas): he puts the milk in first, she winces, and he makes a lame, flustered excuse about his wife's obsession with germs and such. He then pours her a new cup. Andiesenji, perhaps your great-grandmother simply preferred the taste of milk-in-first over cream?

Hello, Lately I've been obsessed with crunchy toffee (the type in the middle of a Skor bar). The only varieties I've found for sale tend to be coated with indifferent milk chocolate and not the freshest of nuts. Can anyone recommend a recipe for this? Thank you!

Don't you find that aerosol sprays linger in the air? It's hard to avoid inhaling the residue. I bake at home 3-4 times a week and a flavourless oil applied with fingers/paper towel works well for me (but I bet I'd be an ardent spray advocate if I baked all day, every day!).