andiesenji

Sorry, your original post said you wanted a nutcracker that was better than the cheapo V-shape crackers, that are hand held. Any hand-held nutcracker has the same inherent problems, only as good as your grip. I have arthritis in my hands and so do many of my friends. The rocket works on the arm of a recliner because I have used it while sitting in mine. I have also used it on a tray held on my lap and my friend's husband uses it at the dining table when we are sitting around it playing Rummycube. It does a good job on one nut or a bunch. It also cracks them so you get less broken meats. However, you have to settle on something that satisfies you. Maybe this one will be more in your line.

This is another which is very popular with friends and family. When done correctly, with the ingredients as listed - i.e., Dutch process cocoa, these cookies are both crispy and chewy at the same time. I have modernized the recipe and made it in a more reasonable size for today. The original made hundreds of cookies. Cocoa Cookies The original of this recipe is over 200 years old. It has been made in my family for at least that long. These cookies are the most intensely flavored chocolate wafer cookies of any I have tasted - We always had them for Christmas and on special occasions when grandma made ice cream. These cookies are excellent keepers if stored in a tightly closed tin. (however the tin has to be in a locked vault or secret hidey-hole, otherwise they disappear like magic) *Please use only "Dutch-process" cocoa the other kind doesn’t work in this recipe. I recommend the Double Dutch cocoa from King Arthur Flour and often use this mixed half and half with the Black cocoa from the same source. Unsalted (sweet) butter 1 stick Sugar 2 cups cocoa (*Dutch process) 1/2 cup water 1 tablespoon salt 1/4 teaspoon egg 1 vanilla 1 teaspoon flour (all purpose) 2 cups baking soda 1 teaspoon cream butter and sugar, add cocoa, water and salt. beat the egg and add with vanilla to the mixture. sift the flour and soda together twice then gradually sift it into the batter, continue beating until flour is completely blended. Turn out onto plastic wrap, flatten to about 1 inch thick, wrap dough tightly and refrigerate at least overnight. I find that the flavor deepens as the dough is stored longer in the fridge. to bake, preheat oven to 350° Allow dough to come to room temperature. Dough can be rolled out between 2 sheets of wax paper to less than 1/4 " thickness. Cut into 2 " rounds, dust with powdered sugar (or vanilla sugar) and bake on baking parchment, or on greased baking sheets. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes but watch carefully, some ovens bake quicker than others - in my convection oven, they bake in 7 minutes-maximum, but often are ready at 5 minutes. Using baking parchment is much easier - just slide the paper off the sheet and allow to cool then ease the cookies off the paper - they should be crisp as soon as they cool Otherwise you have to be very careful removing them from the cookie sheets and the sheets have to be washed and re-greased before the next batch. Option #1 This is the easiest for novice bakers.... Form dough into a rope 3/4 to 1" (Tootsie-roll size) in diameter. cut into 1" sections, roll into a ball, roll in powdered sugar (or vanilla sugar), place on baking parchment, flatten with bottom of a hobnail glass dipped in powdered sugar or the vanilla sugar, bake as above. Option # 2 roll out very thin right on baking parchment. Using a pizza cutter, pie-crust cutter, crimping roller, etc. cut into strips, straight or wavy, or into squares, triangles or diamonds. Slide baking parchment onto a cookie sheed and bake as above. Slide parchment onto a cooling rack. when cookies have cooled enough to touch, roll into cylinders and dust with powdered sugar or let cool and dip one end into melted white chocolate. These wafers can also be broken up and sprinkled over vanilla ice cream. Also can be rolled between sheets of baking parchment to make crumbs that can be used to coat cakes that have been smoothly frosted with buttercream or sour cream or even the old faithful "7-minute" frosting.

This has long been a favorite with family and friends. It is an old family recipe, brought up to date by me. These cookies keep very well. CHRISTMAS COOKIES, Old English style. 2 cups dark brown sugar (Or you can use 1 cup caster sugar and 1/2 cup black treacle (Lyle's) for a more traditional flavor-mix the caster sugar and molasses together and allow to set for a couple of hours before adding to shortening.) 2/3 cup shortening or unsalted butter shortening for crisper cookies, butter if you like them softer. 3 eggs, extra large 2 cups flour (pastry flour is best or see below in instructions) plus 1/2 cup flour. see below! 1 tsp. salt (if using Diamond Crystal kosher salt use 1 1/4 teaspoon) 3 tsp. double-acting baking powder 1/2 tsp. cinnamon, freshly ground 1/2 tsp. nutmeg, freshly ground 1/2 tsp. cloves, freshly ground 1/4 tsp. ground ginger 2/3 cup milk 2 tablespoons rum 1 cup seedless raisins or Sultanas 1 cup pecans, lightly toasted and chopped into 1/4 inch and smaller pieces. Method: Cream the shortening, adding 1 cup sugar (or half the sugar/molasses mixture), gradually, then beat until fluffy. Beat the eggs just till blended then beat in the remaining sugar or sugar/molasses mixture. Gradually beat the egg mixture into the shortening/sugar mixture, continue beating until smooth and creamy. Sift 2 cups of the pastry* flour with baking powder, salt and spices. (*Or you can substitute half and half all purpose flour and cake flour) set aside the 1/2 cup of the flour prior to adding salt and spices. Mix the rum with the milk and add alternately with the flour to the mixture. Add the fruit and nuts dredged with 2 tablespoons of the remaining flour and blend into the dough. Add enough of the remaining flour to make a stiff dough. Drop by teaspoons on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. Bake in 375 degree oven until golden brown (about 8 to 10 minutes, faster in convection oven). Cookies made with butter will spread more than cookies made with shortening.

I too have been waiting breathlessly (well, almost ) for a report on how the new range performed on T-Day. Bliss or Blast? Come on, Dave, it should only take a minute to post a brief note and we are really interested.

I'm so pleased MeeMaw's recipe stood up to the family tryout. I have made up a double batch for the cake and also for a savory pie and for empanadas.

This one works much better than the more expensive SS one. And it isn't so expensive.

This site has the cheaper than Vermont country store. This site has it also for 19.99 and also has a different nut cracker that looks like it would shell anything. here.

I have used mine on hickory nuts which are almost as difficult to crack as a mac nut and there is less meat inside for the effort. I have given them as gifts and they are always very popular, especially with the guys. I think the mechanical look of the thing is what attracts them. either that, or the name!!

Sources for edible gold: Gold more gold here is a product gilded almonds and another source for edible gold leaf. and my favorite: The one I buy from. Gilded Planet.

Gold and Silver dragees are back on the market in California. I have been buying them for the past two years with no problems. Pure(near) 23 K gold leaf is edible. It has been used for hundreds of years on certain pastries, on candies and candied fruits. You can even find it in a liquor (Goldwasser) an extremely sweet liqueur. It isn't cheap and is tricky to work with but the results can be spectacular. I have used it many times to cover half of a glacé fruit or place onto a cake coated with a poured chocolate that has set smooth and firmly. It has been especially propular with my Asian clients. It is also used in some medical treatments for severe rheumatoid arthritis. There is also an edible silver foil that is used on some Asian candies. I have also used it in some of my paintings, in particular, a series of paintings with an Egyptian theme I did in the late 70s and early 80s. I took a course in gold leaf application before doing the artwork, mainly because the course used artificial gold leaf and I could practice with the inexpensive substitute before springing for the real stuff. That being said, I think the advice about having a printed top made up by people who know how to do this is the way to go. I saw one of the "Great Chefs" shows a few weeks back where the pastry chef had a couple of sheets of printed edible images and he assembled all the little stamp-sized bits to make what was essentially a mosaic picture on top of the cake. It was spectacular.

I should have mentioned that when you check the Trudeau nutcracker, notice it does not list Brazil nuts as one of the nuts it will handle. The only nut that the rocket has a little trouble with is the Macadamia nut. However all nutcrackers, except a specialty product, made just for the mac, have trouble with the super hard shells.

Get one of these Rocket nutcrackers and you will never look for another. I have tried them all, and this one works.

Extra Rich Bread Pudding for Christmas Eve 8 extra large eggs 4 extra large egg yolks 3 cups milk 1 cup heavy cream 2/3 cup sugar (or use all or part Splenda to cut sugar, it works just fine) 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract. 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon, freshly ground 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, freshly ground 6 cups pannetone cut into 2 - inch cubes or torn roughly into the same size. spread on sheet pan and allow to dry slightly for about 3 hours. Spray a large 10 - 12 cup Bundt pan with oil, dust lightly with flour or use the new "Baker's" oil spray that contains flour. Combine eggs, egg yolks, milk and cream, sugar or Splenda, vanilla, salt and spices in a large bowl. Beat until eggs are completely blended and the mixture is slightly frothy. Add the pannetone cubes and press down into the egg mixture with a spatula. Cover and set aside for about 20 to 30 minutes until the bread has soaked up most of the egg mixture. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 325 degrees. Pour the mixture into the pan to within 1/2 inch of the top. Set the pan into another baking pan and place in the oven. Pour boiling water into the outer pan till it is within an inch of the top of the Bundt pan. Bake for 75 minutes. However start testing, as below, at one hour. Your oven may bake more rapidly. Test by inserting a thin knife blade into the pudding near the center. If it comes out wet continue baking for an additional 10 minutes. Test again until knife blade comes out clean. (It will take longer to bake in humid weather.) Remove from oven and immediately brush top with melted butter. Serve with warmed sweetened cream in which you have infused a cinnamon stick and stirred in some brandy or a sweet cream sherry, such as Savory & James.

The cheese curds we got at the factory were white - it was much like what is known as "hoop" or "farmers" cheese, dry cottage cheese. The "squeeky" cheese curds sold in many places in Wisconsin are not used for making regular cheeses but are sold as-is for immediate consumption. I have a friend who used to live in this area and raised sheep for milk and I would buy milk from her and a local source for cow and goat milk and make fresh cheeses like chevre, ricotta, mozzarella, feta, and also some aged cheeses similar to, jack, fontina, cheddar, colby as well as cheeses like camembert, brie. I get my cultures and molds from Dairy Connection Now I mostly make fresh cheeses as I don't have quite enough time to devote to the cheese making as I need to prepare a truly good product. I have a wine cooler in the garage that I used for aging the cheeses as it maintains the higher temperature that is needed for the cheese during the aging. I have a neat cheese press that forms a wheel a little over 6 inches in diameter which is perfect for my needs. For the draining trays, I found some neat silicone surfaced draining trays (for crystal) at a restaurant supply place. Much better than the wooden grids I used to use and which had to be bleached and steamed after every use. I use butter muslin - I found a bolt-end of the stuff about 10 years ago when I was poking around in the garment district in L.A. and got it for practically nothing because the jobber didn't know what it was for and hadn't been able to sell it. I put it folded on the top shelf of my dishwasher (a Hobart) with a rack to hold it in place, and run the sterilizing cycle. If I am going to use it for a wrap - I stretch it on a stretcher made for silk, rub it with beeswax and iron the wax into the cloth. It works better than any of the new wrapping materials - the natural resistance of the beeswax to molds and spores and bacteria keeps the cheese nicely. I have a home pasturizing appliance because I am using raw milk and need to process it all prior to use. I have it calibrated at least once a year to make sure it is maintaining the correct temperature and time. I would love to get a cheese to taste like my all time favorite, Caerphilly, but so far I have not been able to get that perfect taste that goes so well with fresh fruit. Your photos are awesome.

If there is a health food store anywhere nearby, and often even the smallest towns have one, check with them. Any store that sells loose herbs also sells the fillable tea bags, usually the ones that can be ironed closed (I use a cheap (8.95) curling iron bought just for this purpose). So they can then be carried in a container, such as a ziploc baggie. Be sure and get the largest ones as "good" tea leaves need to expand to release all their flavor. It is best to put the tea into the bags as is and then crush the bags just before use. This allows more flavor to be released as it exposes more of the leaf to the water. For home use, the "Tea Sock" is very popular and available online from several vendors. tea sock However I know people who carry one with them, along with a small canister of their favorite tea and use them in restaurants.

Very impressive collection. Some of them I've never seen before. Care to share what's the name of #1, 5, 6 from left to right and the top left one and their usage? How do you like the ball whisk compared to the flat whisk? ← the one on the far left is a Mexican chocolate whisk. You use it just as your would the carved wooden ones with the loose wooden rings, that is, you put it in the container of chocolate and roll it rapidly between your palms. #5 is the palm spring whisk I mentioned in an earlier note. It is used interchangebly with the heart spring whisk # 3 from the left and the, #9 vintage spring whisk, and the #12 "gravy-master" whisk. These all do very nicely for getting the lumps out of sauces and gravies. Sometimes I have two or three sauces going at once and this way I don't have to stop and wash just one utensil when going from one to the other. #6 is also known as a "standing" whisk as it will stand on the end. It also gets right into the corners of straight-sided pans, but is useful for stiring things which include lumpy ingredients which you want to stay that way, because they don't get caught up in the more open wire design. I have some others that are made of hard plastic or silicone for use in the more fragile non-stick pans, however these are all wire or metal based. The black one is wire coated with some hard plastic which so far hasn't chipped off and it has had considerable use. The one at the top left is an "antique" egg whisk, it is designed to be used in a shallow bowl to whisk egg whites or whole eggs just enough to break them up but not to whip them until they are completely emulsified. It was my grandmother's. I have several more even older ones but they are hanging up very high in my pantry and I can't get at them right now. The one that has the tape on the handle is actually a Danish pastry blender I found in Solvang. I have a couple and one is used for cutting fat into flour, but this particular one I use as a whisk as I can put it into a deep mug and roll the handle between my palms, to mix cocoa, etc. It works quite well, better than some of the others for this particular job. My housekeeper has told me that there are several others, different styles, stuck here and there in various "junk" drawers, but these are the ones I use most often. I have one huge one that wouldn't fit in the picture - it was a joke gift from a friend a few years back and one I don't recall ever using. I forgot to mention the ball whisk. It is great for whipping very thick stuff, I use it for whipping my homemade cream cheese, which is softer than regular cream cheese, but it has to be whipped to make sure there are not lumps of cheese curd. Beating it with an electric mixer makes it watery. I took some to the L.A. potluck, it is quite different from the 'Philly' stuff.

Okay, here is the photo of the various whisks I use. There are no duplicates here, although I have multiples of several of the whisks or whips. The one at the far right is the Danish dough whisk which is ideal for mixing quick breads, scone, thick batters, as it mixes well without working the dough too much. Great for arthritic hands/wrists.

I too am looking forward to your blog. I love cheese and have been making my own, in small amounts, for many years. I also lived in Wisconsin for a few years back in the 50s and our village had a cheese factory which allowed visits when one went to purchase a supply. My mom owned a bakery, in which I worked, and we purchased the dry cheese curds, and other products for bakery use as well as home use. The only think I miss about Wisconsin is the brick cheese, which I have to order as no one seems to export it to the rest of the states. I am endlessly fascinated with the amazing variety in cheeses.

I have a couple, one still in the box, never used. Not sure what happened to the other. It used to hang on the wall above my baking center but isn't there now. I just looked at the box and it say the Original, Mountain Woods Fiddle Bow Knife. The handle on these seemed awkward for me to hold, so I never felt comfortable with using them. It is sharp, however.

If you take a look on the kitchen gizmo site, you will see one of the vendors, Villaware, has the traditional type moka pots.

Now those are some fine ideas - how does one get on your Christmas list? ←

Another advantage (for knuckle clearance) of the longer blade is that you do not have to have your hand over the cutting board because the blade is long enough to do the job and keep your hand clear of the board. This particular knife has a modified grip that keeps the fingers from sliding forward toward the blade if you hit something that the blade hangs up on - as happens when slicing a ham or roast - not so much in bread. I also use it for slicing cakes into thinner layers, it works better than the specialty items made for this. My trick for this and for slicing round boules into horizontal layers, is using a wooden hoop (made for embroidery work) put the cake layer or the boule in the center and the 12 inch blade is long enough so the end and the base of the blade can rest on the hoop as I work through the loaf. I then remove the bottom slice and set the cut face onto the cutting board and cut the next slice, working up from the bottom, instead of down from the top in the usual way, which always results in uneven slices. I have tried several of the offset knives, including the one with the "pistol" type grip reminiscent of a wood plane, and I have not been thrilled with any of them. Probably it is because I got used to using a straight knife many years ago and habit is very strong. I can't imagine using a curved knife for slicing bread. Seems odd to me.

This recipe does sound like it would work quite well. I also am intrigued by the cookbook and the other recipes you mention. I bake quite a lot of pannetone because my friends love it not only on its own but also as the base in an exquisite (and very rich) bread pudding I make for Christmas Eve. I too have used Nick Malgiere's recipe for the past few years for some of my loaves. I alternate with a recipe given me by my boss's mother (Italian, of course) which is very, very rich and has a very long list of ingredients and is also the kind that starts with a sponge and has additions added to the sponge over a period of two days. I have never put this recipe into the computer, it is still on the yellow 5 x 7 file card Carmella wrote it on back in the mid 70s.

I ordered a set of these after I signed off of eG last evening. A friend sent me the link and suggested it might be something quirky enough that I would like. Naturally, once I got into the site I managed to find a couple of other things that piqued my interest. and which I couldn't resist. Heh, heh, heh! I ordered this and this for a friend who needs some organization in her kitchen. I was wondering what to get her for Christmas when I came across them and they would be perfect in her kitchen.

Sorry! However I have hundreds of them in my bookmarks. I am addicted to kitchen gadgets and utensils new as well as the old ones I find on ebay. (And at auctions, estates sales, antique stores, etc.) I get emails from dealers all the time who find something rare or unusual. It has to be in working order though.