Franci

this is becoming a staple for my kids birthdays. Sponge cake with white chocolate ganache filling and strawberry and white chocolate glaze

I usually buy beef knuckles for stock plus a slice of beef shank (I remove the bone with marrow to add later on). None of the meat get discarded. If I make a big batch and I have a lot of cartilage, I collect all of it and press it into a small container with a weight on. When cold, I slice very thin with the slicer and serve it like "insalata di nervetti", I add some raw sweet onion (that often get soaked with salt and iced water) and add a dressing of oil and sharp wine vinegar, salt and chopped parsley. I LOVE it. I've done it often with pork bones as well. I often buy a roast with meat, carve the meat out and use it for something else and save the bones for stock. With the meat attached I often make mondeghilli . Another options that my children love is to add simply to noodle soup shredded. And my husband just prefers it with fleur de sel. I sometimes like to dip it in salsa verde or bagnetto rosso. Other option, make a terrine, to eat with salad

Piergiorgio Giorilli and I would ask at Cast Alimenti

Yes, that is a possibility. You can find all sort of ravioli there and east and west side of Liguria is slightly different. I know in Genoa the traditional raviolo is with a mix of borage and escarole and meat (also brain, sweetbreads and "filoni" I need to look for the translation) dressed with "toccu" ,a meat sauce. But we, closer to the west side of Liguria, used to buy ravioli with borage and meat (roasted meat, plus some mortadella and/or ham). The walnut sauce is very traditional to dress the pansoti which is without meat (like in the link you posted, where you can also omit the ricotta altogether). In all honesty, I also like them dressed simply with a ligurian oil, some parmigiano and a little bit of fresh marjoram. I'll post some pictures of the trompettes, I don't think we'll be able to try them before we leave for our vacation, hopefully my husband is going to take good care of them. Tonight I made a little experiment: a mix between a piadina sfogliata from Emilia Romagna and the technique I use for Chinese scallion pancakes. We had a nice buckwheat piadina to eat with speck.

Beautiful meals everybody! I'm not cooking much lately but it's nice to come and see what you are making I'm missing so much the days I could buy fresh borage from the market to make the borage fritters the Ligurians love so much. Or ravioli with borage (or better preboggion) But I planted in the garden 10 plants of courgette trombette! Hopefully we can have some flowers.

This in clearly not a summery cake (nor that pretty to look at) but I'm trying to empty my pantry a little before leaving for my vacations. I also had the exact quantity of butternut squash in the freezer and some fresh cranberries (plus I added a couple tablespoons of poppy seeds, which I liked a lot). Using silicon cake molds was not a good idea. The cake is very tender and when warm crumbles easily, better to line the mold with parchment paper and wait to unmold! Next time I'll reduce the sugar to 150g for my taste and love adding the cranberries (in fact I think sour goes here much better than chocolate chips!). Overall it's a very moist, very likeable cake. Ah, just to say it: it's gluten free

I have the KSM8990, bought from the webstaurant store. So far so good. I also bought a 5 QT bowl to go with it for when I need to mix a small quantity. I stack the 8Qt and 5 Qt bowl but if you ask me to compare it to another kitchen aid, I cannot answer, I never owned a KA before (Delonghi, Bosch).

Thank you, Johnmc for your reply. The Ankarsrum is an interesting option, I'm not sure though I want one more mixer (or that mixer at the moment). I need to think about it. Also, the possibility of a light volume cheese grater is crossing my mind but I'm not sure how fine the grated nut flour would be. Also, I don't think they come with multiple shredding tools which would be useful in my case. I fine-shred about 12 kg chocolate a month right now.

If you have one or you use it a work, it would be appreciated if you help me understand if: 1. Using the grating disc (or fine shredding) can I make nut flour in it, fine as macaron fine flour? I have the magimix but as I already mentioned here, as you grate the nuts in the small gap between the bowl and the disc some pieces of nuts can fall in between and I end up sifting my flour. So I bought this Westmark grated, that does a decent job for small quantities. I want to upgrade to something else and was wondering if I can eliminate the problem with the robot coupe. 2. Can you grate small pieces of food or only big chunks? Example diced lemon peel. Using the westwark grater, mentioned before, I get nice and fluffy grated candied lemon peel but it takes a lot of time and effort. In the mixer or in a coffee grinder, I don't get the same result and of course I cannot use the magimix for this task. Would the robot coupe work? can you suggest another appliance otherwise?

I always keep a jar in the fridge. I don't like the canned anchovies in salt that I can find here, even the agostino recca very expensive are not that special. I often substitute the shrimps for the anchovies in some italian dishes: orecchiette with cime di rapa is one.

Hi everyone. I have a question. I want to buy a silicone pan for bite-sized cakes. I really don't want to buy an expensive pan and finding that my cakes taste off as often happens with silicone. Have you experience baking in the Demarle flexipans? I want more or less this size and something that can fit an half sheet pan. I was also think about the pavonflex but the total size is too big for my oven. Thanks

Coconut paste as in coconut manna or butter? I use it to make some cherry bars and it's quite delicious!

FP, I just got a tin of these cookies from a French friend visiting My son loves them, so I am going to try to make them as well. It reminds me a lot of the gingerbread dough I make every year (and it's a British recipes) plus the addiction of egg and stem ginger.

I don't use it much anymore. Last time to make lemon curd, 3-4 days ago. I am using it for things that I'm cooking and eating rather than chilling. Because I am lazy and prefer a ziploc rather than sealing my pouches and I don't always have enough ice around. In winter, when there is tons of snow in the backyard it's easier. I find it convenient for some dishes: duck legs confit for example and it's really good if you like chicken breast. But we don't like meat cooked sous vide. It's ok for some vegetables but most of the times it's really quicker and easier for me to use other tools.

Ann, your bread looks better and better! I'm sure it beats the bread of most bakeries.

Hi Elsie, I really think it's just a matter of technique, how to spread the focaccia in the pan and how to cook it. I'm also learning in the process, because, although I made a lot of focaccia in my life, it's very different than the genovese focaccia, where I don't have much experience. The only point to my favor is that I had the opportunity to taste it numerous times, so, I know how it should be. I think watching videos helped me so spot also my own mistakes. This guy, an Italian engineer living in California, comes from a family of bakers from Genoa. He has a web site as well with an English version. Although the video is in Italian you can see how he does. He says to have a uniform thickness press the dough, don't stretch and to sprinkle the salt before the final rise (I didn't know!) to prevent a crust from forming. I think the dough is really a winner. I'll make it again myself in the next couple days trying to follow the same techniques on the stretching the dough and I got myself a paderno blue steel sheet pan! Edit to add: As a curiosity, I'd like to add this video. At the very end the baker shows how to eat the focaccia, the bottom goes to the roof of the mouth so the salty and oily side can touch the tongue.

And if you follow something along the lines of pao de queijo? I have not tried this but given how much I like pao de queijo and his chewiness, it might be good. Also, as I wrap, I'm always being curious about the "tapioca" the Brazilian crepe. I have some tapioca starch, I'll try, maybe tomorrow and report back

thanks, John. Definitely you can make half quantity and sub the malt syrup for molasses (or honey). Personally I find it more difficult to work in the mixer smaller quantities, but it is certainly doable . My suggestion would be to make it full and use 1/2 for a thick pizza (without so much oil), bake and freeze in portions for snacks or emergencies. That's what I'll do for my next batch.

Here, it is. Let me know how it turns out for you. For the recipe I have to thank Paola, a Genoese, living in Turkey Fo the poolish 200 g flour (I simply used an organic AP flour from Whole foods)200ml water1.5 grams instant yeast (I used 3/4 tsp) For the dough all the poolish500 g flour1 teaspoon instant yeast300 ml water3 teaspoons salt1 teaspoon malt syrup40 ml di olio evo emulsion: 80ml evoo120 ml watercoarse saltMix all the ingredients for the poolish and let it rest covered for 12 hours. I mixed mine at 8 pm. Pour the fermented poolish in the mixer, add yeast, malt and using the flat beater slowly mix everything. Add flour and water and oil and mix on low for about 10 minutes. Add the salt and increase the speed to 2 until the gluten has fully developed. Cover the bowl and at 20 minutes intervals, for 3 times, using a bowl scraper fold the hedges of the dough toward the center. Let rise covered for 3-4 hours. Divide into your pans already oiled (for this quantity, as I said I used an 1/2 inch pan and a 15 inch round pan). Wet your hands with oil and stretch the dough in the pan, if it resists a little let it rest 5-10 minutes. Let it sit 1 more hour and meanwhile make an emulsion with the oil and water. Pushing with the knuckles of you hands make a lot of indentation in the dough, pour almost all of the emulsion on the focaccia, leaving some to brush on top when the focaccia gets out of the oven. Bring you oven to 450 F and let rest the focaccia for other 20 minutes. It would be better to create some steam in the oven at the beginning. Bake for around 20 minutes or until golden on top. Out of the oven brush with leftover emulsion. You can make it also with onions. Cut about 3 onions very thinly and saute with a little oil until wilted. Let cool before spreading on the dough. Use half emulsion.

It's very different from other focaccias. It's very thin to start with, after it is baked is at most 2.5 cm (1 inch). It has a golden color on top but pale at the bottom, more soft than crisp (beside the hedges) and with big wholes filled with extra virgin olive oil and water (as you find on google) and coarse salt on top. Yes, it is very oily and it's one of the reasons people like it so much, with a good amount of salt it's really addictive. Ligurian oil is not very spicy. People from Genoa like to dip it into cappuccino for breakfast. De gustibus... My oven is an old gas oven. A steam oven would be best for this focaccia. I made two pans, an 1/2 sheet pan and a staub hexagon frying pan: no comparison. My cheap aluminum pan made a very smooth harder bottom (still pleasant), not the hexagon. If anybody wants to give it a try, I'm more than happy to share the recipe.

I made focaccia genovese. It is SO good, it's hard with my ancient oven and these baking sheets are no good

Anna, if you need any sweets, I have a good number of very good almond/hazelnut cakes and cookies. They are all very very good. For something more American in taste, I tried this and it was really very good, I could not tell it was gluten free. I didn't convert everything in grams, only on my notes I have 1 cup coconut flour=120 g I already posted the pictures on Egullet Also, if you need a banana bread. It doesn't have any sugar and to be honest, I didn't miss it! Also, for crackers, I already mentioned in the past, I absolutely adore these crackers. It's important make them very thin and dry them well. I know the name is pretentious...instead, the life changing bread on the same blog I didn't like at all.

Anna, if you are interested in more cookies, I tried this http://deliciouslyorganic.net/nut-free-grain-free-chocolate-chip-cookies-paleo/ If you scroll down in the comments you'll find me and I've already converted the recipe in weights. Depending on the fat you use, butter vs Palm shortening you'll get a different cookie.

Anna, I made this one time http://brittanyangell.com/worlds-best-paleo-sandwich-bread/ And also this http://againstallgrain.com/2012/05/21/grain-free-white-bread-paleo-and-scd/ Toasted they are ok. Not what I would call great, but if you have not seen real bread in ages definitely acceptable Brittany Angell has a new book out, with very good reviews, I don't have it and cannot comment on it

I think the high protein flour is really overrated and also the big holes. French make perfectly fine baguettes (and breads) with lower protein flours. Kingofbaguette, you are doing better and better. With some practice you'll make great baguettes.