yellowmnm81

Oh man.. I can't wait to visit. I LOVE Pinkberry, so I really hope this is comparable. My favorite topping at Pinkberry is the fresh mango...anyone know if Phileo has this? Yum! Too bad it's sorta far away from me...

After reading this thread, watching the Baking with Julia clips over and over again, reading the Baking with Julia book and Tartine books over and over again, I finally made my first batch of croissants! I actually had quite a bit of difficulty doing the last of the rolling and forming - the dough started to tear everywhere!! But, miraculously, they came out of the oven flaky and amazingly delicious. I guess you can't go wrong with all that butter! I used the Tartine recipe, but with Baking with Julia technique... dunno if it was the best decision, but they were darn tasty! Especially the chocolate ones Even though they're not quite croissant shapes... I think they're sorta cute Thanks for the encouragement guys!

I recently had some coconut sherbet someone had made from Emily Luchetti's "Passion for Ice-cream" book...I don't have it myself, but I managed to glance at it while I was still over there, because I wanted to remake it at home!! I was very surprised to find out it was simply a matter of whisking together 1 1/2 cups coconut milk with 1 cup cream of coconut, and a tablespoon or so of sugar. Chill, and pour into ice-cream machine! It was divine paired with pineapple chunks.... mmm. This was the only coconut sherbet I've ever had, so I'm not sure how "intense" the coconut flavor was, but I sure enjoyed it

i can thoroughly recommend alice medrich's "s'more bars" in her cookies and brownies book... it is so incredibly simple in concept and execution...... but it turns out sooo good. it's just a graham cracker crumb crust prebaked then topped with milk chocolate chips (i chopped my own chunks), toasted chopped walnuts, and a layer of mini marshmallows...baked until golden. mmmm.

I haven't made the Fine Cooking brownies or the On the Fence Brownies...(which I will try next!) but I have made Alton Brown's cocoa brownies and also Alice Medrich's cocoa brownies, which were, as I said, very dense. However, they were still tasty!

I did try the supernatural brownies the other day........ wow!! I don't know if I'm just getting better at gauging when to stop baking brownies, or what.... but these are probably one of the best I have baked. However, it could also be the ingredients I used were quite different than before as well... I used Trader Joe's bittersweet and dark muscovado sugar for the brown. Either way, these brownies came out with a soft texture I have not had in the brownies I've made before, and it was very rich and chocolatey, but the texture helped save them from making you feel sick. I prefer these I think to any of the cocoa powder brownies I've made, which are too dense and sticky in the mouth for my liking. Anyway...delish!

Here's a link for Gale Gand's Mini Moon Pies... I haven't made them before, but you could test it out for your moon pies. http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/re...6_26546,00.html

I have all three of those books and I would go with Chocolate Obsession. It is all about ganaches, truffles, and dipped chocolates. ChocolateChocolate I don't think has anything regarding chocolates and Pure Chocolate has only a section for it. Have fun!

yea i saw that recipe before but was wondering whether it was a good one to use or not.. i guess i'll have to try it now, won't i?? thank you!

for those of you who have made cupcakes with this recipe...... about how many cupcakes does it make? should i reduce the recipe if i don't want my house to overflow with cupcakes?? i'm making halloween cupcakes with this! i can't wait to decorate. any suggestions for a frosting? thanks!

i made pierre herme's tarte grenobliese tonight... yummmmm!!! :-) wasn't too difficult... and the tart was sensational. can't wait to eat more tomorrow..

i've made the ci and alton brown ones as well...... i liked both.. but i like the ci ones better too. alton's were good .. mine weren't quite as puffy. but they were still good. however, on the second day, mine dried out a lot and weren't so chewy anymore. they weren't remarkably fantastic, in my memory. no one really raved about them when i brought them for friends. i really liked the ci ones though. they remained moist and chewy and baked consistenty well. looked about the same.. the alton ones were more shiny and the ci ones were more like they puffed but then dropped back in so it's more.. wrinkly. when i brought these for friends, everybody loved them. i feel like i should give the alton brown ones another chance though.. since so many people seem to love that recipe. perhaps it was something wrong that i did?? baked too long? not sure...

hello.. i have another question about using euro style butter instead of regular butter.. well i have plugra and would this be good to use in say.. a chocolate chip cookie recipe?? i am making the chewy type so would the high amounts of butterfat make it spread too much and be crispy? or would refrigerating the dough before baking solve the problem anyway??

hello, i made the fine cooking lemon curd recipe today..... sooo good!! thanks for posting it up. i have made lemon curd only once so i don't have much to compare with but this recipe was fantastic.. easy to make, although it did take quite some time for all the butter to melt.. i got really impatient and increased the heat before i was supposed to and then i didn't sit there stirring the entire time b/c i started to work on the crust for my tart.. but it still turned out silky smooth and oh so delicious. :)

i've only made butterless biscotti recipes... and i really like them. i find no problem with them being hard as rocks.. either that or i'm just okay with eating very hard things. well, that and i always eat them by dipping them into coffee. and for that i've been scared to make butter biscotti before because i didn't want them to fall apart after dunking. i usually make the cantuccini recipe in baking with julia. it's a great recipe and the biscotti are delicious! i like the texture of them a lot. i haven't made biscotti in a long time though so i haven't had a chance really to make anything else. maybe i will take this oppurtunity and start biscotti making again.

made the chocolate and lemon madeleines today! well, half made them today! made the batter last night and gave them an overnight rest until today. i had a little trouble with the batter.. i guess either my eggs or butter weren't truly at room temperature so even though i did the smearing (which i'm not sure if i did thoroughly enough??), the butter didn't mix into the eggs and appeared curdled. at first i tried whisking more and then tried to rub the butter into the mixture between my hands.. which was very laborious and i wasn't getting very far. then i remembered i had a hand blender and used that to blend the rest in. after that i finished the rest of the mixing and put it into the fridge. today when i was putting them into the molds, i thought the batter was reaaallyy thick and that i screwed up somewhere.. but after baking them they turned out fine! my humps aren't as pretty as i hoped them to be..some of them came out pretty well and then others didn't have much of a hump. actually, these are my first madeleines so i don't really have anything to compare them to.. but i enjoyed them. good chocolate flavor.. but i didn't really notice any lemon flavor?? perhaps i didn't rub the zest into the sugar enough.. but they're still delightful cookies. nice texture and the shell shape is pleasing to look at and eat!

yes, i was going to suggest benne seed wafers too. for a simple sesame cookie.. this is a recipe from a japanese cookbook of mine.. (so sorry that it is in grams and cm, and also the lack of instructions. also it would probably be easier to double the recipe since it calls for 1/2 an egg.......) Sesame Cookies Makes 40 cookies 100 g flour, sifted 80 g unsalted butter, softened 40 g sugar 1/2 egg, lightly beaten 1 tsp vanilla extract 50g sesame seeds Preheat oven to 170ºC (340ºF). Cream the butter and sugar. Add the egg and vanilla and beat together. Add sesame seeds and flour and stir to combine. Put in pastry bag (they say 1 cm tip....) and pipe out 1.5 cm diameter cookies. Bake for 15-20 min. as for your health conscious clients.. try these health-food cookies from maida heatter. i haven't made them before.... but you can't go wrong with maida! Health-Food Cookies from Maida Heatter's Book of Great Desserts Makes 36 cookies 1 cup unsifted all-purpose whole-wheat flour 1 tsp baking powder 3/4 tsp salt 1 tbsp cinnamon 1/4 tsp powdered ginger 7 1/2 ounces (1 1/2 cups) raisins 4 ounces walnuts, coarsely broken or cut 4 ounces pecans, coarsely broken or cut 3 ounces pine nuts 4 ounces peanuts, salted or not 2 1/2 ounces sunflower seeds 2 1/2 ounces sesame seeds 1/2 cup wheat germ 1 cup rolled or quick-cooking oatmeal 1/2 pound butter 1/2 cup peanut butter (or any other nut butter) 1 1/4 cups firmly packed dark brown sugar 2 eggs 1/4 cup milk Preheat oven to 350ºF. Sift the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and ginger. Add the raisins and toss until coated with the dry ingredients. Add in everything up until the butter and mix. Beat the butter and nut butter together. Beat in sugar and then the eggs and milk. Add in the flour-nut mixture and stir until the dry ingredients are completely absorbed. Scoop heaping tablespoonfuls 2 1/2 to 3 inches apart on sheets and flatten with back of spoon to about 3/4-inch thickness. Bake 18 min. until lightly browned and semifirm to the touch.

wow, those are some niiiice madeleines, patrick! great .. humps. hehe. especially since you only let them sit for 2 hours. i wonder if they would have been different overnight?? i will try overnight i think. now i'm motivated and ready to make mine!

ohhh yea!! i forgot about that coconut macaroon recipe. i have the new best recipe and that contains the recipe as well. hmm might have to investigate that further!! the truffles seem good too.. thanks!! my brother (who would be a main consumer of this coconut good..) doesn't like rice pudding or carrot cake though, or else i would love to make those as well. gosh darn him for being so picky!! it's always so hard to bake everything you want to bake when you have to satisfy everybody else's taste all the time.. and they're picky! but anyway, thanks for the recipes and ideas guys! i'm actually not going to make anything with the cream of coconut for a little bit in favor of chocolate lemon madeleines... but i will post back when i do make something (or most likely, multiple things). if anybody has any information on substituting heavy cream with the cream, please share! or any coconut panna cotta etc recipes. i'll probably be making a few things as i have two cans..

wow, lots of suggestions for me!! thank you all. also thanks for the clarification, jaymes.. my mom at first suggested using it for a thai curry that we like to make.. could have been disasterous! i don't drink pina coladas myself.. or else it'd be a great option. for using it in recipes that don't originally call for cream of coconut, would it work to just replace the heavy cream with it?? for example, the rice pudding or something else and just use the cream instead. joshalow, do you happen to have a recipe for the tembleque or coconut flan??

my friend gave me two cans of "caribbean coco crema de coco" and the can is entirely in spanish i think(i don't know spanish.) i'm not really sure what to do with it?? can i use it in recipes that call for coconut milk or is there a large difference? and what are some of the best ways to make use of this stuff?? thinking either panna cotta or coconut sticky rice.... any other suggestions? thanks!

wow, thank you dorie! and thank you for joining us in the forum-it's so much help and also an honor. the books of yours that i have -- chocolate desserts, desserts, paris sweets, and baking with julia -- are among my favorites. i love all of the hard work you put into your books.. can't wait until your next one! staying on the "lemon train"........ i'm thinking about making the chocolate and lemon madeleines next! anyone like to join me?? i bought a madeleine pan a little bit ago and still haven't used it yet!! what a travesty.. but this looks like a great oppurtunity.

thanks for the welcome and compliments! but, i am no food chemist.. (did you get that from yellowmnm81??) but yellowmnm actually relates to my name.. which is emily huang. i'm taiwanese but we speak mandarin too and in mandarin (or chinese) huang means "yellow" (think huang or yellow river) and emily turned into m&m but you can't use & so i used "n". amusing i guess? thanks patrick for the chilled suggestion, i had it chilled this morning (for breakfast, of course!) and it was amazing! a lot better than warmed, i must say.. sooo very good!! can't wait to have more. :-)

well i finally made something!! been too busy with christmas baking and vacations and such that i didn't really get a chance to bake anything yet until tonight!! and i finally got around to making that nutella tart.. i'm just a little behind. but it's okay, you guys can just get a .. reminder of how great it was! <br> <br> that's my tart!! it was my first time using a tart ring.. a little nervous! but it wasn't difficult at all. really nice and delicious tart!! loooove nutella. i also only used half a cup of hazelnuts.. i finished the tart pretty late tonight and just ended up eating it warm because i didn't want to wait until it completely cooled... but it was very tasty that way too. going to try it tomorrow at room temperature! can't wait to bake more, and hopefully it won't take me so long to do so! awesome work to all of you guys!! it's been great reading and seeing all the great desserts.

hello, i'd love to participate in this project!! i won't be able to make anything for a little bit.. b/c i have some other things already planned out. but i love this book and actually just got it so i haven't really been able to make much out of it yet. i've only made his brownies and they are really good!! i really enjoy reading this thread