jgarner53
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Posts posted by jgarner53
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Isn't anybody going to mention all the sugar in most commercial peanut butters? Many of the country's most popular brands (Jif, Peter Pan, Skippy) all contain quite a bit of sugar and taste very sweet. Add jelly to it for a sandwich, and you might as well be giving a kid a Snickers bar and calling it lunch.
(Says the aunt who watched her nephew consume little more than sugar in the form of grapes, jelly sandwiches on white bread, yogurt raisins, chocolate cake, and the occasional bite of a syrup drenched pancake over the Christmas holiday - and his parents are unconcerned?
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From a recent dining experience at Chez Panisse, these were the things that stood out:
Willing to make substitutions, even though the menu is set. The server asked if the menu looked fine to us, and was more than willing and knowledgeable enough to answer questions, even going as far as bringing us a Jerusalem artichoke from the kitchen when my husband asked what one was.
Invisible, or at the very least unobtrusive, management of things like plate removal, wine refilling, or crumb scraping.
The coat thing (mentioned above) was also a very nice touch.
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tangerine cheesecake
tangerine poundcake
candied tangerine peel
tangerine charlotte
tangerine creme brulée
I'd say anywhere you'd use oranges or lemons, you could use tangerines or mandarins. Go wild!
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The ladyfingers shouldn't be too dry. They typically are soft, not crispy, and after being in your freezer, they will probably still be soft.
Please post pictures! I love a good charlotte.
If you have a 9" cake round, put that in the bottom of your springform before you add the fingers. Then you have a base to move onto the serving platter. Even better if you just replace the bottom of your springform with a cake round. Remember that you will need smaller disks than the size of your pan - the ladyfingers will probably eat up about an inch of space around the perimeter.
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Don't wash mine either. I might if I run cocoa powder through it, but it's not absolutely necessary.
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One other note: don't try to make it if it's humid (raining). It will affect the finished product.
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I have also found that the average candy/fry thermometer gets out of calibration pretty quickly, and there is no way I know of to recalibrate them. For example, on Saturday, while making caramel, I did happen to be watching the temp because I wanted it light light light for a croquembouche, and my candy thermometer was almost 15ºF too cool! My instant read (held with tongs) seems much more accurate. I tossed the candy thermometer because at this point it's really useless.
The probe thermometers (with the digital timer, etc) are great if they can go high enough since you can set alarms and such.
Of course, mine at home doesn't have a clip to hold it to the pan.
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Yes, the caramel is quite strong. In fact, when dismantling mine on Saturday to serve at our party, I even squished a puff so that filling went everywhere! It was quite funny, and luckily didn't get on anyone's nice clothes.
I'll post a picture later when I'm at home. I probably should have built it in a cone, but I'd made a nougatine top for it and really wanted to use it, so I built it freehand, and came up a little short on puffs because I didn't angle in sharply enough. I was also pressed for time, and since I hadn't worked with the cone before, I didn't want to have to spend time figuring it out; I was stressed enough as it was.
Here it is:
edited to add photo
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lemon cheesecake
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You can use ladyfingers, though generally that's referred to as a charlotte russe, and the filling is generally set with gelatin. (There should be an intermediate layer of ladyfingers as well, so it's not all mousse) Of course, you can always make and pipe your own ladyfingers, which would allow you to make circular disks for the bottom and middle layer. It's really no harder than making a genoise, probably even easier, and you could alter the flavor if you wanted (chocolate, add orange zest, etc.)
It sounds like you plan to have some kind of cake border (whether it's ladyfingers or genoise). Could you get your hands on acetate and avoid the cake border, so that the cake is embedded inside (and you see the pretty pink mousse all around and then get the contrast of the topping and sides)? The acetate would help hold it, though you'd be setting it up inside a ring anyway. If you use a cake border, you'd want the cake to stop a little below the top of the ring mold so that you would see, say, a half-inch, of mousse peeking out over the top of the cake, and then the coulis topping.
For the topping, I'd start with a simple syrup set with gelatin (2 cups simple syrup with 5 sheets or 5 tsp. of powdered gelatin) that's just warm (so it's melted), then add a strawberry coulis to that. This will set when chilled, and give you that nice, glossy finish. I wouldn't apply it before freezing (though I couldn't tell you why - just instinct - perhaps it would freeze fine).
Charlottes do freeze well, though I wouldn't freeze them more than a couple of days. I'm not 100% sure about a mousse (assuming that it has eggs in it in addition to the whipped cream). Thaw in the fridge before unmolding.
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I haven't had one in a while, since there isn't one close by, though I did get them once upon a time as a meal replacement when I could manage to get out for 5 minutes to grab one, but had to stay at my desk working away. They are just so much sugar, though, and even with a protein "boost," not a lot of protein, so I'd find myself on a big sugar buzz for a while and then crash. I will admit that they are tasty. The HQ is just across the street from where I occasionally freelance.
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OK, call me weird, but I actually enjoy building a croque. I even volunteered to do it for our dessert buffet/pastry party at school this week. No one else even wanted to get near it. The first ones we did were only about 60 puffs, but we built them freestyle, without a mold. The one I'm doing tomorrow will be at least 150 puffs, and I'll be using a mold.
It seems weird (and awkward) to me to build a croque inside a mold. Is it absolutely necessary for one of that size? I'm working on a 12-inch nougatine base. Part of me just wants to build it freehand again.
The several pots of caramel is a great idea, which I'll probably use to speed up the process (so there's no down time while I wait for caramel to reheat).
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That's all heartening to hear. My nieces and nephews have grown up on hot dogs and mac & cheese, and 90% of the time have a separate dinner from what the adults are eating. There's a lot of "I don't like ______" or "______ is gross" in their houses.
Of course, my picky sister hasn't helped matters any. I think the only meat she will eat is chicken or turkey. Everything else is gross. Or too fattening.
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Can't we just bake our own cookies? Give me a homemade chocolate chip cookie over a Chips Ahoy any day.
Oreos are harder to replicate, but they're not my favorite anyway.
Thin Mints, on the other hand...
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That old American fave, Joy of Cooking, actually does a somewhat decent job of explaining much of this in the chapters "The Foods We Eat," "The Foods We Heat" and "Know Your Ingredients." Wonder how many of us take the time to read these chapters in full? (I know I haven't.)
:raises hand: Uh, I have.
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Further dumbing down of pre-made, pre-packaged food. For example, the cookie blobs that you now have to take out of the package and place on a cookie sheet and bake will now come on their own cookie sheet (disposable, of course) and kid-friendly heat source, or else they'll be microwaveable.
So you can create lasting memories of happy nanoseconds spent with your kids before shuttling them off the soccer practice, the piano lesson, and the weekly scheduled playdate.
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he Thirsty Traveler is the biggest dork on the tube. His lack of knowledge/insight is topped only by his middle Canada beer drinking hockey fan persona.
I wholeheartedly agree. While I do sort of like learning how various spirits are made, there are only so many distillery shots I can take. Though it is mildly entertaining to watch him get plowed and the subsequent behavior (repeatedly jumping into the river in Cognac). Can someone please teach him how to pronounce foreign words? He's constantly butchering them.
He was even worse as one of the color commentators on Iron Chef America, playing dumb sidekick to Alton Brown.
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For special occasions, I like dutch baby pancakes and have a yellowed photocopy of the 1977 issue of Sunset magazine it appeared in. (Mom has the original) They're very showy, but easy to make.
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spinach dip: mayo, sour cream, instant vegetable soup mix, and frozen (thawed) spinach. A winner every time.
I had difficulty convincing someone once at a pot luck that falling off a log took more effort.
It's no amuse-bouche OR amuse-gueule, but damn I like it anyway.
And to hell with haute cuisine, if I'm watching a ball game, I want cheese dip and hot dogs and spinach dip and I might even take a lil' smokey or two.
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When you strain, do not press down on the tea or herbs.
Yes. I forgot to mention that. Pressing down on the tea or herbs will let out some nasty, bitter flavors.
What about cinnamon, or something with heat, like cayenne? I tasted some truffles last night that were really different: flavored with Red Stripe beer, balsamic vinegar, wasabi (not all in the same truffle!). Personally, I don't care for fruit with chocolate much, and I think it's been done to death.
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I never knew that about old Crisco either. It makes sense, though, since butter has water in it.
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We just did tea-infused truffles: jasmine, green, earl grey, oolong, lapsang soochow. Bring the cream to a boil and add the leaves. Cover and let steep 15 minutes. Bring the cream back to a boil and strain as you pour it over the chocolate.
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I swore off sushi for about six months after a bout with something after a sushi meal one Christmas (for some reason, there was a spate of years where I always got sick in some fashion at Christmas: cold, flu, whatever). But after revisiting my sushi, I couldn't quite stomach it.
But nothing's ever been permanently ruined for me.
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Well, I do have a favorite hand cream, but it's made from sheep in New Zealand, and my mom buys it in bulk and gives me a jar every few months. Not, um, exactly to come by. But its main ingredient is lanolin. Maybe it's time to find a replacement.
young pastry all stars wanted
in Pastry & Baking
Posted
I, too am interested, but not willing or able to move.