K8memphis

Another thing about oats, some medical people believe that the heartier oats like the steel cut or old fashioned are better for you than the quick ones. The thoughts on it are that the quick ones go through your system so fast they mess you up glycemically and skew your blood chemistry. The foods & oats that make the body work more to digest them are better for you they say. I know it's been true for moi. I'm just throwing this out there as more information about oats. So if I make oatmeal cookies or granola bars I use the heartier kinds of oats. Shoot I eat savory oatmeal with walnuts almost every morning.

I don't know. I have rose pans y'know that bake a rose shaped muffin--I have the mini bundt too but I haven't used it yet. I noticed that when I used a regular cake mix they tend to stick horribly but not always . When I bake a fruit bread or use a doctored mix, specifically the melted ice cream one from the Cake Mix Doctor, they come out perfect. So maybe it's your recipe as you suspect. It seems heavier products fare better but this is not a scientific all inclusive recommendation. Just my own causal observation. And putting them in the dishwasher is a no-no. Also I grease them with either pan goop* or heavy spray of pam and flour. *There's different formulas but basically cream equal parts of shortening and flour then add an equal part of oil--keep in a plastic container and apply with a brush or paper towel.

Wowzers I can't wait. Four months of planning?? Wow. I stayed up all night & finished one like 15 years ago for a gingerbreadhouse contest in GoodHousekeeping. If I can get someone to scan my picture I'll put mine up. It's Magnolia Manor, a run-down orphanage that elves are fixing up for the holidays. A fairy enchants a magnolia tree & the elves spring up out of the flowers & start making Christmas for the orphans. Believe me Leslie's future in claymation is secure--I'm no competition. However my house is cute albeit a few homely elves. Can't wait to see your work!! Well and the colorful story is that in the midst of a 'spirited discussion' between my husband and I Magnolia Manor grew wings and flew across the room I promise the only other thing I ever threw at him was the cordless phone--and it bounced off the hood of the car as he backed out the driveway Geez shades of true confession time. And would you believe, we'll celebrate our 27th anniverary December 25th! There's nobody else I'd rather throw things at

Congratulations to both of you!

Oh it's beautiful!!!

Kim, 'cooking ahead' is a euphemism for 'lunch is served', 'snack-time' and 'what's for dessert'??!!!! signed, Nowillpower But I totally applaud people who can do this. I should. Gosh I love to make huge long rolls of pinwheel refrigerator cookies. And I would just slice the dough & eat it. Because if you totally go and bake some--hey that's cheating! But if you just slowly whittle it down sans baking there's less guilt ...somehow...

Another idea is to toast some of the oats like in a dry skillet & keep stirring until they brown a bit. Just another texture idea. I also like to umm, grind my raisins like with the egg so it smoshes up ok in the blender or food processor--makes a different variation on the traditional cookie. I add cinnamon to mine too. My favorite oatmeal cookie--which I realize you didn't ask this but I'm off on Monday's, I'm avoiding housework like the plague and I'm sanguine-- umm is to toast coconut and leave off the raisins and cinnamon just add the coconut to the regular oatmeal cookie--muy yummy.

I live (eat) vicariously through this thread (sigh) Yum yum you guys are awesome!!

To illustrate my point about declaring whether you use mix versus scratch, there's an old story about a mob that rose up to kill a man. He was clever enough to shout out that he belonged to same union half of the mob belonged to. The two unions were rivals in real life. The mob broke in two and he slipped out with his life. Likewise, in the great cake debate (and this being business, not pleasure baking) if you declare which way you go, you run the risk of loosing business, sullying the water and getting lo$t in the shuffle, because of the touchy emotional division even as evidenced in this thread. Sometimes it works in your favor but hot button issues divide people and dividing your clients is not business savvy. Your potential client may think they want scratch but their taste buds want mix and vice versa. You can't tell by looking at them or by listening to them. You just never know and you don't want to draw & quarter your clients if you are serious about your baking. It's an age old controversy, a roll of the dice, Russian Roulette, not a legitimate inquiry. It's a, "Tag, you lose!"

I'm going to make some sweet & hot bar b q pecans. I feel a little fish out of water-ish. I usually have potato roll dough going & I pop out traditional carmelly tea rings in the morning and there's always apple & pumpkin pies and three kinds of stuffing, cornbread, fruit and then sage sausage stuffing. And my special mashed potatoes & all the other stuff. But chef-boy worked so many doubles last week, when they asked him if wanted to work Thursday, he said 'sure' not realizing it was Thanksgiving (du-uh!) So we are going to kid #2's in-law's (to my new son-in-law's Meemaw's house) & I'm not making a huge agape love feast tomorrow--whoopee no dishes I can still make tea-rings for Christmas--but probably won't be able to wait that long for the apple pie. Daniel, are you aging the eggs you're using in your goodies???? Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!! I thank God for all my online buddies. "Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a tenderlion and hatred therewith." ...gobble gobble

Thank you!!!

Ah, there. . .you see? I went to great thoughtful lengths *to* be pitiful about it, Susan. A long time ago, I discovered that sharing yucky stories with my best friends, when they had their own troubles, was really a great thing to do. Sort of a competition, you know, as to who has the absolutely worst story ever that happened to them. Makes everybody feel better. So let me tell you right now - the weather here is dreadful. ← ...and my feet hurt but if I take my shoes off my feet will be cold because I've been working all day & well, feet sweat Not only that but the freaking Eiffel Tower cake (geez louise already) that I was just introduced to today that we thought was for a 4pm delivery tomorrow is really for an 11:30 delivery Good thing we at least found out it got moved up but I don't want to end on a happy note,,,ummm,,,my cat is sick.

That sounds like a great day to me too.............except it stinks being the person who's missing the holiday with their family to serve you. ← Kinda sorta--gives them something to keep their mind on. Umm, I always worked the holidays before I had my family so others with family could enjoy. It can be cool too. Would be cool if your employer would consider getting a temp to stand in for you. Maybe next year...

Must be a New Jersey thing--there's no ketschup on Chicago area White Castles where I grew up. Yah I can see the need to eat er ahh remove the pickles. Cool I'm gonna try this with frozen ones. Happy Thanksgiving--gobble gobble

Oh man, if my schedule allowed, I'd consider driving to Nashville (3+ hours one way ) to get White Castles for stuffing. I totally cannot appreciate the frozen ones. You using fresh or frozen??? Maybe in stuffing the frozen-ness is not a factor. Hmm, maybe I will try this on one of the three additional turkeys my son has accumulated this year. New Year's sounds good. Will frozen work?? Sounds to die for good!

Hi Kris, I realize you are going to be very busy but when it's convenient for you could you elaborate with a recipe or how you make that sweet potato gratin???? It just sounds so much more together and interesting than the usual sweet potato mush business we make y'know? Thanks

Carrot Top, so well spoken that was, in fact your whole post was beautiful. My sweet little Momma passed away the day before Thanksgiving three years ago. And for this fact I know that hotels have huge spreads of every kind of food and ice sculptures and tasty desserts--way cool blow outs of agape foodscapes, every meat, soups, sides, rolls you get the picture. 'Over the river & through the woods' without any dishes to wash. It's a huge buffet, but nice people are there to wait on you too. It's accomodating without familiarity. A sense of holiday without hoopla. Good food, all the traditions without the work. Even if you went by yourself, I think you would not feel the same as you would in a restaurant eating by yourself y'know? No sense of pathos. The big Holiday Inns do this. Probably other places too. My plan A if I were in your shoes this year, would be to try to find a friend to treat to dindin at a place like this. Plan B would be go anyway. I think you deserve and should have a grand meal. You won't forget your babies are elsewhere but consider feeding the kid in you. Randi, I think wrangling an invite would make you happiest. Gobble Gobble

Well, I wrote the following then decided to put it in the circular file. But since Wendy suggests the same thing -- here are some 'how to's'... You don't have to lie but you don't have to tell either. Like, "Oh you know better than to ask that!" "Well, what do you think?' "What a controversial subject, which one does your wife/Mom bake?" "Which do you prefer?" "Hey, y'know, just like Mom's" "Can't you tell?" (which one) "It's an old family secret." of course there's always "I could tell yah but then I'd have to shoot yah." When really they qualify for execution just by ASKING!!! With the climate of baking such as it is with all the things that have already been discussed in this thread--it's tantamount to asking, 'boxers or briefs'--it just should not be asked. If you encounter a cad who asks, they are just making conversation, blow them off--pick a line from above and smile, laugh, talk about it without answering, blow them off, change the subject. If it's a client, say, Oh you've had my cake before at such & such an event. Or, here's a sample...stuff like that. There's no good answer to that question.

Yes, if you want to. You can do anything you want to do.

I'm not a pastry chef but I am a professional baker and professional cake decorator/sugar artist. Umm, the debate about mixes can get so emotional--it's so very interesting. Y'know some people use purchased phyllo leaves, some people make da schtrrooodel from 'scratch'. Although not too many of us actually plant and harvest the grain for the flour y'know??? I mean there's that other debate about how much itch makes it scratch? So all that said, I do employ pre-measured ingredients in my widening repetoire. Why should I limit myself to satisfy someone else's religious belief? That is a nice formula you posted. That cake is user friendly for decorated cakes in a lot of ways. It slices and serves without an over abundance of cake scrabbles that reduce your servings and so caterers and cake severs everywhere appreciate that not to mention the brides. It makes a nice secure tasty tangy serving. It's a beautiful canvas too--you can paint a lot of different flavors with it from fillings & stuff. However, I use self-rising flour in that one because I feel that the additional flour would make it too heavy. It's a nice formula though. I hope you hear from a lot of people who have tried it. edited to say: In particular, for the wedding & celebration cake makers of the world who need a product like I said, that serves beautifuly and expeditiously to possibly hundreds of quests, that needs to stack up securely in that engineering feat of magic that is a wedding cake. Plu-us, you need a product that will survive the distance albeit with pinpoint freshness accuracy. The distance of from oven to forkful having endured the filling, stacking, storing, decorating and delivery. And if you have four or five events to celebrate per weekend...come on, having a stable secure reliable formula to use is freaking invaluable. There's so much more to a wedding cake, celebration cake than a tossing a few ingredients in the oven y'know? Ain't no time to plant wheat, render the fat, cut cane and gather the eggs....

Great story, Jody!!! Welcme to egullet!! Sparrowgrass' "barbeque babies" was funny too!! I like good* carob brownies, as carob not as a chocolate substitute. *good=the ones I make but like decades ago--during the apple noodle soup era. Geez I love that story!!!

Megan, I love your description of NYC and fall and coffee--beautifully written. My husband makes me coffee every morning. It is waiting for me when I get up. When I can't drink coffee, he makes me tea. I got him a coffee mill and he makes his from fresh ground beans melita style. Then he makes my cup--the fresh ground beans somehow seem too much for my system so I use store bought flavored coffees and currently he's brewing me cinnamon bun coffee, sugars it, or rather splendas & honey's it (y'know eating local natural honey helps calm sinus issues?!) Yes, I totally understand how lucky/spoiled I am. I used to make my little Mom a pot of coffee when she came home from work. I might not have gotten the chores done, ok I probably never did my chores but I remember making her lots of coffee, timing it so it would be ready when she walked in the door. She had an all clear glass pyrex percolator, I mean the top & bottom of the basket was metal though, all full of holes so the water could pass through and between them was a clear glass basket--she had a long lean little bitty brush you could clean the brown goo out of the glass stem. You heated it on the stove. You could watch it all happening though--very cool. When you see the liquid bubble up the stem, hit the cap in the top and splay down onto the basket a couple times, then you turn the fire down & let it percolate. She loved coffee! Don't forget the filter!! Damn, that was like forty freaking years ago...

Well, Tess and Chris, since you've been so honest. I will give you my two worst potluck moments. Once a co-worker warned a friend to watch out for the disgusting broccoli slaw, that it is so awful, don't even go near it, will produce vomiting etc. And the other time was when some friends had determined that some idiot used smoked turkey to make the dish their daughter was noisily spitting out and what the hell were they thinking using smoked meat and blah blah blah yes you guessed it--both of those were my dishes. Moral of the story is, if you're not really sure who's dish it is you might want to refrain from lustily bashing it in public. Just a thought...

They are adorable!! And sorry, I did not see you asked about the lacey cookies. Yes though I meant the real real thin ones that you dropmeasuring teaspoons of real thin batter & they spread out completely & you can see through 'em when they bake. But I love your turtle cookies!!! Especially the one returning to the sea!!!!

Hmm, I used to make these ginormous yeasted kuchens in what would be like a double full sheet pan size, a little deeper though. When I put apple slices & streusel they most always sunk. When I let it proof too much the struesel topping alone sunk too. Of course yours is not yeasted. Drizzling glaze covers up the sink holes But my real suggestion is to perhaps bake it in a bundt type pan maybe. Rose herself suggests using magic strips did you try that??? The object of the game is to get it rising evenly (duh, Kate . The hole in the middle of the bundt pan will help that some. The magic strips will definitely help it bake more even in the springform pan. I would fold a piece of folded alminum foil Like the one in post 18 the third picture down. It is real easy to remove and just pat the streusel around to cover up the hole--take it out right when it comes out of the oven--the steam fills up the hole. Just slide a knife down each side to unfold the leg. Poof comes right out. Umm, spreading the batter from the middle out towards the sides of the pan a bit will also help--y'know heap it up a bit around the edges, then put on the streusel. But the magic strips & aluminum foil thingy will help a lot I'll bet. Just some possible ideas for you. I haven't thought about those massive kuchens in forever. They smelled so good! PS. Thank you, Deborah!