jgarner53
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Posts posted by jgarner53
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For me, it's between the pink one with the chocolate dots (VERY much my style) or the one with all the stripes (and the "I do" ribbon). For sheer jaw-dropping factor, the bamboo, all the way.
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Truly, these pictures are all spectacular, jaw-droppingly beautiful! Really, some tremendous cakes there. Thanks for taking the pictures and making us feel like we were there!
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I would hate to ruin $20 of chocolate in the name of experimentation.
As long as you don't scorch it, or get water in it so that it seizes, you can save what's leftover, or the whole batch if you can't temper it, or lose your temper
Spread it out on a piece of parchment to set up, and then it can be chopped and used for other baking (anywhere you're going to need melted chocolate in a recipe). -
The one that made her crazy was the mis-use of "panini" which is plural; panino is singular, but you hardly ever see it used.
Same goes for biscotti. If you just have one, you have a biscotto. Just one one of them Russian meat pie thingies? Ask for a pirazhok (pir-ah-zhoke) instead of a piroshki, which is plural.
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I was familiar with Thai food before we went to Thailand, but really fell in love with it when we went there a couple of years ago for a 17-day vacation. I expected to grow tired of the cuisine (as many of our tour mates did) and pine for something else, a hamburger even, but I never did. We'd ditch the bus tour when it stopped for lunch and usually eat where the driver did - far more authentic food, and cheaper by far.
From the fried bananas bought from a street vendor, to noodle dishes, to curries, to the roti (thin pancakes) cooked on a grill and served up with bananas and sweetened condensed milk, to spicy peanuts, to spicy chicken with holy basil and peppers, I really grew to love it.
When we got back, I investigated taking some Thai cooking classes to learn more about the cuisine and be able to make some of the dishes myself. I found a woman in Oakland who's written a couple of cookbooks and takes regular trips to Thailand as a culinary tour guide, and also teaches Thai cooking out of her home. Once a week for four weeks, we'd gather to learn about Thai ingredients, tasting coconut milks to pick the best brand (we liked Mae Ploy and Chaokoh), and then discussing the week's recipes, prepping the ingredients, and cooking a meal together. At the end of the evening, we'd sit down to devour what we'd made. It was a great experience, and I learned a lot about Thai cuisine.
My favorite dish? Really simple stuff like well done ground chicken or pork with holy basil and peppers, served over rice. Or a good green curry.
FYI, Thais eat with a spoon, using a fork in the left hand to push food onto the spoon. Chopsticks are only for noodle dishes.
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Oh, how I remember the crunchy Chinese noodles! For a long time, that was my favorite part of a Chinese meal. Having grown up quite the picky eater, I was probably close to 12 before I'd deign to try many of the things on the menu. The Chinese place we went to was Bamboo Terrace. I remember eating foil-wrapped chicken, bbq spareribs, sweet & sour chicken or pork, and dishes like cashew chicken. They always brought out a little dish of the crunchy noodles before you ordered.
Growing up in Southern California, we had a large Mexican population, so I was exposed to Mexican food as well. My grandparents had a favorite homey place they went to every Saturday night, and while this was long before I'd try Mexican food, (I remember eating hamburgers or plain ground beef in a taco shell), my mom would also make things like enchiladas and tacos pretty regularly. Of course, she seasoned the ground beef (always ground beef) with Lawry's taco seasoning mix, and bought pre-made taco shells. If there was salsa, I didn't eat it, though my grandmother made her own.
There weren't a lot of Italian restaurants around, that I remember, except for pizza. Mom would make spaghetti (again, ground beef) and manicotti and lasagna. Mexican food was far more prevalent: the big plates covered in sauce and cheese, with a puddle of cheese-topped refried beans and mound of rice. Sombreros on the wall. The most popular Mexican restaurant in our neighborhood (still is pretty popular, too), had once been a steak house, and the formica-topped tables still sported the Western/ranch themed design (brands, branding irons, fence posts,etc) that they'd had when the place was the steak house. The menu was laminated to become the placemats, the colored lights (dim otherwise) made it feel festive. That was my first encounter with shredded beef, which I thought was a particularly amazing invention.
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Those look great! Do you have a Kaiser roll mold, or did you do those by hand?
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For the bakers out there in eGullet-land... can you imagine life with mixers?
I read somewhere recently (can't remember where), but French bakers of old used to spend HOURS whipping up egg whites into meringues. They must have had huge Popeye arms.
No, thanks. I'll take my mixer, thanks. -
my favorite recipe, Alton Brown's Cocoa Brownies.
Those are my favorite brownies, too. Really great, dense, fudgey, and chewy. I like them even better baked in a 9-inch pan, so they aren't quite as high.
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How would you compare them to New York style and Montreal style bagels?
Ummm, I don't know what Montreal style bagels are, so I can't do any kind of comparison. I'd say they were definitely softer than NY style bagels, most likely due to the lower protein in the flour. At least, based on the few NY bagels I've had. And I usually eat my bagels toasted, which changes the texture, of course, and makes comparison trickier. But I just couldn't wait to eat one of these this morning and ate it without toasting.
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Since I had some extra cream cheese after making some cream cheese icing, I had to make bagels, didn't I?
Unfortunately, I only had half a pound of high-gluten flour on hand, and the hippy co-op didn't have it either (I guess it's time for a trip to Whole Foods), so I used the King Arthur bread flour I did have instead. I think the bagels, while definitely chewy on the outside, thanks to a minute and a half boil on each side and baking soda in the water, they are softer on the inside than I'd like. Which isn't to say they aren't tasty, though!
The sponge took nearly 3 hours before I said, "To hell with it," and proceeded anyway, even though it hadn't fallen. And it wasn't a particularly cold day, either.
I wound up kneading the dough mostly by hand, for fear that such a stiff dough would overwhelm my Kitchen Aid mixer. Forming the dough into bagels was easier, too, than when I've used all high-gluten flour. I forgot the step of leaving them at room temp for 20 minutes or so before retarding, but it didn't seem to hurt them any.
So this morning I cranked up the oven, put the pot on the stove, and got to work:
Half the bagels, ready to boil:
The first two lucky kids in the pool:
Half a dozen "everything" ready to bake: (with caraway, sesame, and poppy seeds, kosher salt, onions, and garlic) If some of these look kind of deflated, they are. I made the mistake of pulling the pan out of the fridge while the oven was still heating, and I think they overproofed somewhat.
One everything bagel, fresh out of the oven:
One plain (which I am now munching on with a schmear of cream cheese):
The taste is great, the crust, like I said, nice and chewy. Worlds away from what you can get at N**h's. These ain't going to the office. They're going smack into my freezer for bagely goodness anytime!
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Result: 8 cups batter total: 2 for each cake layer, plus 10 1/2-cup cupcakes.
Bake time: 23 minutes for the cake layers, cupcakes are currently in the oven, but I'm thinking 15-20.
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This topic seemed familiar to me and it was:
http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=61027
jgarner53, in this discussion thread about Scaling from an 8 inch to a 9 inch pan, there are a couple of excellent links to websites that have done the math already.
http://www.baking911.com/pantry_substitutes_pansizes.htm
www.pastryscoop.com
Just bookmark these and bake!
For all my googling this topic yesterday, why couldn't I find it? Thanks! It's going in my bookmarks now.
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I don't know if I'd substitute all the water for rum - them's would be some pretty potent brownies! Usually a couple of tablespoons is all you need to give the flavor of the alcohol to the item (though with brownies, you might want a bit more because of the chocolate).
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Beautiful rolls and brioche! How did the craquelin with the orange sugar taste?
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What's wrong with just a spoon?
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I'm not sure I follow your math (really, I glaze over so quickly on this kind of thing), but I'll take your word for it. Of course, the proof will be in the pud-er- cake, I guess. Thanks!
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Can someone help me out here? I have a cake recipe that a neighbor wants me to make for him. The recipe makes three 9-inch layers (I am going to assume because this was published in "Southern Living" magazine that we're talking about 1 1/2-inch deep cake pans because that's what your average home baker has on hand.)
He has told me that he doesn't need a whole 9-inch cake, so I was thinking I'd make an 8-inch cake and bake the rest into a small 6-inch cake. But I'm trying to figure out how much batter the recipe makes, so I can figure out if I should do three 8-inch layers, or just two (and tort them), to have enough batter leftover for the 6-inch cake.
In the recipe, the butter is melted, and the eggs are just beaten, so we don't have to calculate the added volume of air from creaming or whipping eggs or egg whites. Here are the quantities:
1 1/2 c. butter
3/4 c. water
4 oz. white chocolate (melted)
1 1/2 c. buttermilk
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
3 1/2 C. all-purpose flour (here we will have to guess on an ounce-weight, since it is not given)
1 c. chopped pecans
2 1/4 c. sugar
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
Now I know I should have paid more attention in algebra! Or was that geometry?
For the record, I found online that a 9 x 1-1/2 inch cake pan holds 6 cups, and an 8 x 1-1/2 inch cake pan holds 4 cups.
help!
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I'm not sure I can add anything new to this. I can't imagine adding to the stress of my own wedding by attempting to make my own cake, particularly if it were something I'd never tried before (tiered cake, that smooth sheath of buttercream, then the fondant, not to mention assembly and transportation).
But I agree with what Josette said about not being certain that I'd want my name as a business person on what are likely to be some less than perfect cakes. She's worked hard to make a name for herself with her cakes, and having substandard end product out there with her name on it - how will that ultimately affect her business? I'm all for her if she can make money off of it, and if she's not worried about the impact on her business, bully for her.
I suppose it all serves to get her name out there, and if I'm a bride in Oklahoma who wants one of her cakes, and none of my local bakers has anything like that, her kit might just be the thing to give me the cake of my dreams. Provided it all comes together.
As for working with fondant. Ugh. We made our own in school, and I really did not like working with it. Whether I'd like working with pre-made stuff any better, I don't know. My intention as a baker is to stick with buttercream and use the fondant as a decorating garnish. But then again, I'm not doing wedding cakes.
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I've found that the powdered buttermilk is OK in baked goods, but not in something like pancakes. You just don't get the same effect.
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I've had good luck mostly with Cooking Light and Cook's Illustrated recipes, though I've used some Fine Cooking recipes with success, as well.
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That's why I ate the smallest one and sent the rest in to my husband's work! Let them have the calories!
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rice flour doesnt show up as well as wehat flour
Aaah, that's good to know.
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What kind of eggs did you use?
I use Trader Joe's large Cage-Free eggs. The carton advertises no antibiotics, no hormones, and all-natural feed. The yolks are almost always a very deep yellow-orange, which gave me that lovely yellow (pale, buttery yellow) crumb.
"Chocolate Desserts" by Pierre Herme (Part 2)
in Pastry & Baking
Posted
Yes, Mel, you can keep re-tempering the chocolate until you get it right. But I think there's probably a limit to that (I've gone back and forth on the temp thing about 5 or 6 times before finally nailing the temper). But when you have leftover tempered chocolate, or leftover melted chocolate for whatever reason, just spread it onto the parchment. The chocolate won't stick to it. Acetate, is fine, too. I'm not even neat about it (since it will just get broken up again anyway)