jgarner53

That caramel sauce will be good on your ice cream that's in process. And on apples. Or pears. Or bananas. Or fingers... I love seeing all the pics of your work in progress (and it looks like you have a nice kitchen to boot!) I have used a silicone hot pad to anchor a bowl on the counter with great success.

They have light bulbs in ovens? My poor little oven was made long before someone decided that light bulbs would be a smart thing. But good advice from all. Here are the results from today's baking: a classic French country loaf, made with pain fermenté. This was the second loaf, retarded in the fridge while the first one baked. Baked at 425 for 30 minutes (internal temp checked, along with "thump" test when the loaf was done) And the crumb: You can see that the loaf isn't very high. I'm sort of thinking it's a bit on the overproofed side. Next round I'll cut down the time and be more fastidious with checking the rise. Sure smells good, though!

Oh, one other thing: a scale. While probably most, if not all, of the recipes you're using call for volumetric measurements, a scale is VERY handy. I have one that's about 3/4 inch high and maybe 10 inches square, which is very easy to store. I find I'm using it more and more as I learn more about baking. My dream kitchen has a baking area with a maple counter inset, too. And a pastry marble on the side. But the rest of the counters are soapstone. How true, how true. BTW, your tiramisu tart looks yummy!

The Dulce de Leche ice cream sounds like a great foil for the pecan pie. As for worrying about scrambling the egg yolks, could you do it in a double boiler? Less direct heat, slower to cook, less chance that you'll have scrambled eggs. as for the bitter caramel, I don't watch my caramel's temp. I eyeball it. At Christmas I made multiple batches of caramel sauce for gifts and learned how to watch for the sugar to turn. I found it easiest in a good, heavy saucepan where it heated evenly. Otherwise the caramel tended to darken from the outside in. Practice makes perfect! And if you didn't already know this, you can get hardened sugar off a pan by filling it with water and bringing it to a boil. It will melt the sugar.

That sounds like a great idea. When I have an oven with a broiler element, I'll have to try it. For now (and the forseeable future), though I am using a circa 1947 O'Keefe & Merritt, where the broiler is a drawer below the oven. Generally, it's a good stove - kind of like having a vintage Packard in one's kitchen - and considering that it's over 50 years old and still working, I probably shouldn't complain. But I do anyway.

I'm looking forward to seeing your progress. I'm in kind of the same boat as you (though I learned to embrace fat early on because you can't make a good pie crust without it) and have decided to release the baker within me. Eclairs went off with my husband to work this morning. Not bad, although the puffs softened a bit overnight (I didn't fill them until this morning). Good luck to you! I'd love to know what books/tools you've armed yourself with in your quest and what you hope to accomplish/achieve.

Wow, what a great thread! So many great cakes (I'm dying to try the red velvet cake!) My favorite cake was the Lemon Jello cake (my mom calls it Lemon Supreme cake), which uses a lemon cake mix, and a box of lemon jello. You whip the egg whites separately, though I'm not sure why because the cake is SO dense and moist from the 3/4 cup of oil and the lemon juice/powdered sugar glaze that you really don't get any superior volume. I hadn't had it for years and recently made it for a friend's birthday (at her request). I'd really love to devise a scratch recipe for this. I think the taste would be superior to the chemical-ly, fake lemony, neon yellow that this cake turns out to be. My mom also used to make an angel food cake (probably from a mix as she wasn't a big baker) and sometimes cover it with a whipped cream icing (I think) that had cocoa powder and crushed Heath bars in it. Wow, was that good! Cakes are where I started baking at a pretty early age, though I probably did start with mixes, I quickly moved on to scratch cakes, preferring chocolate, though for some reason I was leery of using a double boiler to melt chocolate, so I always sought out cocoa powder recipes (we had a book of Hershey's recipes). I don't make many cakes now (though I'm hoping that will change as I get my baked goods into more people's mouths), mainly because with just 2 of us, a cake can last a Looooooong time. My favorite cake memory, though, is when my sister took a bite of a chocolate potato cake I'd made for mom's birthday one year (a Cooking Light recipe) and enjoyed it, but once she knew there was potato in it, she couldn't finish her piece.

This is a question for all you bakers out there. I am learning how to make more artisan-type breads, and while they always taste great and have pretty decent crumb and sometimes have an OK crust, I never get great oven spring. Am I overproofing? One of my challenges is that my tiny oven can only handle one loaf (say, a boule) at a time. So if I'm baking two, the unbaked one has to sit out that much longer. I've tried preheating a pan on the bottom of my (gas) oven and pouring in 1/2 to 1 cup of boiling water when I put in the loaf. I've also tried spraying the loaf before it goes in and spraying every couple of minutes for about the first 5 or so minutes. I have quarry tiles on the rack (lowest) that I bake on. What can I do to improve oven spring?

Those look like the quarry tiles I have. They are naturally colored clay tiles, fired at some ungodly heat (like 2500F), so the heat in your oven shouldn't be a problem. Quarry tiles are not glazed, and you should get the untreated ones (I suspect that treated tiles would be suitable for outdoor use, or perhaps a floor, where slipperiness would be dangerous). Here in the states, they come in 6x6 inch tiles. My small (14 1/2 x 18 1/2) oven just needed six tiles, with two cut down by an inch or so to allow 1 inch air flow around. They just sit on the lowest oven rack.

For non-alcoholic beverages, you could serve San Pellegrino (sparkling mineral water), or take some plain water and add a few slices of cucumber and chill before serving. The cucumber makes the water very refreshing in hot weather. Or if you can get some Torani flavored syrups (available in all kinds of fruit flavors), you could make cream sodas: half & half, sparkling water, and the flavored syrup -- the guest stirs it all together.

You can get an oven thermometer at most hardware stores, or a place like Bed, Bath & Beyond. Most specialty kitchen stores will have them, too. Bulb thermometers are reportedly more accurate, but I've only ever seen the spring type (with the dial and a needle that goes 'round). I have an old oven that doesn't tell me when it's preheated, so I have one in there all the time. They're only about $5 or $6. You might also want to get quarry tiles to line your oven, for bread baking if nothing else. You can get them at a big box home store like Home Depot for about $1 each. Far cheaper than a pizza stone. Though maybe the PC's here have another suggestion?

Or the baking powder! My husband is back from a 2 week trip to Tokyo. Need something for him to take into work to share. (when my KA mixer was new) Got to break it in. Got to break in the hook attachment. Got to break in the whip... Oven got recalibrated Any time I spend on this forum usually makes me go running for the baking pans.

Any chance you could post pictures of your results? I've also got the BI book (signed!), and have so far made the currant scones and the yellow cupcakes and the pizza dough, all good.

OK, so I'm behind, but I'm just getting started. I made the Glazed Mini Rounds yesterday with pretty good success (sorry, no pics). My only problem was that the cake was slightly higher in the center, and when I cut the edge pieces, the tops weren't level. I called it "artsy" and didn't worry about it, since the genoise came out beautifully - at least 2 good inches high. At least I guess that's a good genoise; I've never made one before! I packed them up and sent them off with my husband to his job. Still waiting for feedback. I also only had a 1.75" cutter, so they're a bit bigger. I might try the fruit foccacia this week if I have time. Since I need something for a pot luck on Thursday, I might do the apple tart instead, since it's only a one-day process, not three!

Oh, WOW, am I hungry for popovers! Is a popover pan really critical to making them? I should invest in one, but when it's just me and my husband, it's hard to justify making a whole batch because while I probably could gorge myself and eat half a batch, I probably shouldn't! Amazon says my BWJ is on it way to my door today, so I'll be able to play now!

Exactly. So Toblerone with what, hand-milked cream, fresh from the cow? Sounds like a load of hooey to me. And the fact that they can only make one a night? Do they only have one fondue pot for service? How much DO they charge for this? And if the chef is infusing the cream in the morning, how much "work" is that?

This is a small nitpick, but does anyone wonder why the Chairman doesn't eat? Kaga always got to eat, even if he didn't judge the food. Maybe they're trying to make Kevin Brauch into some kind of Gilligan to Alton Brown's Skipper.

Well, drat! DH did not get me BWJ for my bday after all. He did get me a signed copy of Baking Illustrated (Chris Kimball was recently doing a signing at a local bookstore). So it's off to amazon to spend some of my birthday money and start baking with all of you! I also got a new hand mixer to replace the one I burned out last Christmas trying to mix up the dough for the cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning.

Brand new here. And I am hoping hoping hoping that one of the birthday presents I'll be getting will be BWJ (I gave enough hints to DH -- let's hope so!). As I am opening them tonight, I should be able to join you all in baking this weekend. I read through the whole thread the other day and was sorely tempted to abandon my horrible temp job (where I had nothiing to do anyway) and come home and bake. Something. Anything! All your pictures look great. Unfortunately, DH is on his way to Tokyo tomorrow for 2 1/2 weeks, so I won't be able to post any pics until later in the month (if I can figure out how ) Cheers!