JeanneCake

Is it possible for you to use the ring mold to cut an already cooked sheet (hotel pan) of custard (your usual mix)and put it on the round of cake and then use the preformed sugar disk (or a florentine cookie kind of thing) on top? The stovetop recipe from Dessert University works pretty well for piping onto the top of the baked cake. Let us know how it works out With Pictures, please!

If you don't like her, you're going to hate anything she does. If you like her, you'll let a lot of things that might otherwise annoy you - slide. That would hold true no matter what celebrity or personality we know. I don't like or dislike her - I haven't watched a show with her in it for years but that's because I'm not watching a whole lot of TV in general not because I am trying to avoid the silliness that seems on whenever I do get to watch TV!; the accent is a little too thick for me sometimes, but I could take it or leave it. What I don't understand is why it's generating so much conversation. If you don't care for her, you won't buy her cookbooks; if you do like her, or her style of cooking and do buy one of her cookbooks, does that mean you'd feel duped or fooled because she has diabetes and that her cooking is responsible for the diagnosis?

s'mores are hot and are being offered by caterers around the country as interactive dessert stations or even centerpieces for events. Check out the caterbuzz blog post that offers many suggestions on s'mores variations http://caterbuzz.blogspot.com/2011/12/some-more-smores-or-is-it-smores-lots.html Loved the presentation with the sterno in the river rocks... but seriously who points a torch at someone holding a marshmallow! One of my accounts has been doing a smores station since the fall, and it's fun to make different marshmallow flavors. We've been doing a tart with graham tart shells filled with an enriched ganache and topped with mini marshmallows and torched before going out for display or passing; I really like the "interactive" presentation! I see more of those push pop things and wonder about that... is it messy? It can't be cheap, what with buying the pops and covers and a stand....

It wasn't until I was in grade school that I learned "gravy" could be something other than the red sauce we had all the time, and especially on Sundays!

Ok, who has a copy of Modernist Cuisine, lives somewhere in the East (south of Boston, because of the blooming crocus), has a wok, and eats Greek yogurt? All I can come up with is LindaK but she's here in the Boston area. Maybe she has a warm spot in her yard for the crocus....

I like pecans, dried cranberries and milk choc chips....and I started eating that when I was using that combo when I first started making coconut macaroons. It's the only time I eat milk chocolate or even like it (I usually prefer dark choc)

It looks like the kind of crocus that pops up in my front yard; but usually they don't come up until the middle of March; I was thinking someone further south would start seeing them now.....

That looks like a crocus poking through; my guess is that it is somewhere on the southern part of the Atlantic seaboard? Is Yoplait yogurt available nationally or just the Northeast? I've only just started seeing Yoplait Greek style yogurt in the Boston area in the last few weeks/months. Fage is distributed from New York or manufactured under license there?

I've made crusts from all kinds of cookies (pepperidge farms, oreo-type sandwich cookies, biscotti) even dried cake crumbs (using the tops that I level off after baking, drying them out in the oven). I'll bet it would work to even use the right kind of breakfast cereal if you've got that (granola type), Maida Heatter has a graham cracker recipe in her cookie book; you can roll it out as for sugar cookies and line the pan with it, or make cracker shapes and grind them for crumbs...

It does freeze well When you are pouring it into the mixer, with the speed at 8, you want to aim for the "sweet spot" (no pun intended) which is between the bowl and the beaters. If you pour in a thin, steady stream (right from the pot, you don't have to pour it into a greased glass measure first, but that's helpful) - about the width of a pencil - you'll be ok. Practice pouring with plain water in an empty mixer if that helps. You want to get as much of the syrup into the whites as possible; this will give you the maximum amount of buttercream at the end.

Rose Levy Beranbaum has a YouTube video of her making IMBC, where she dumps the meringue into the mixer bowl of beaten butter, rather than add the butter to the meringue in chunks and yes, you don't see the meringue collapse and get soupy doing it that way The minimum sugar syrup temp for this to work is 235 and you will get a very soft buttercream; the highest temp is 248 which will get you a firmer buttercream (but this is all relative); usually I pull the syrup off at 240. I beat the whites at speed 6 on a KA, then add the syrup at speed 8, let it run for about 30 seconds after it's all added, then bring it down to speed 6 to cool. It's ready when you can put the inside of your wrist against the bottom of the bowl and not feel any heat (just barely warm). You can beat the butter first, mostly because I don't want another bowl to wash, I don't.

What a wonderful blog! Thank you for taking the time; looking forward to the next installment.

Me too. I was at the New England Mobile Book Fair a week ago, and I can do some serious damage there. But this time, I had to struggle to even find something I was remotely interested in. And so I didn't get anything

Wow this sounds good! I've never seen something like this; do you think you could take a photo so we can see it?

I've only ever used this recipe to spread in a pan and let set up overnight, and cut into squares or shapes. I saw a marshmallow twist pop on Facebook and I want to replicate it. It looked as if the marshmallow was piped in straight rows on a silpat (alternating colors or flavors) and then when set, twisted around a lollipop stick. The rows were an even thickness, which makes me think that they used a large, open tip (e.g., an Ateco 8 or 9 maybe) to pipe them Is it really just that easy? It is so sticky after beating it, that I cannot imagine being able to wrestle it into a pastry bag and then piping it out. Has anyone done this? Is there something different you have to do to the recipe, or will it work to pipe without any adjustments? ETA: correct typos

Where did you find yours? The European website listed some US retailers but the listed ones in MA (Circle Furniture) don't stock it This is a much better solution than the mechanic's stool.

I need to find a US distributor for this marvelous looking stool! I was considering buying an adjustable mechanic's stool for use in the kitchen (when we are embroidering on a cake, which can sometimes take hours, this would be a godsend) but now I want this.

A long time ago (in a galaxy far far away... ok sorry); I bought some Kitchen Aid silicone muffin "things" that had a detachable metal frame so you could put it in the oven without having to put the thing on a sheet pan. It was useless. Anything I baked in it seemed to me to take on the faintest odor of silicone and the metal frame made it harder to move in and out of the oven, so I stopped using it for baking and started using it for holding the petals of the gum paste flowers I make. Then when I moved my kitchen, I tossed them out because they took up more room than they were worth. I wonder if this is supposed to be some sort of cookie sheet type thing; but I would not advise using it like that if the rubber stuff is that stretchy and trampoline-like in the middle! The metal frame may preclude using it in the microwave. Maybe use it for your lollipops? Kind of like perpetual parchment paper?

@tigerwoman - How did you store/transport/present the pops? I'm a little concerned about storing them when they're filled (upside-down maybe? use the lids and garnish onsite?). I'd like to be able to offer something "trendy" (because anything on a stick seems hot right now) but I don't want to worry about transporting these (could I put them on their sides in a fish tub for transporting?) Maybe the freeze pop bags would be better?

Please tell the sufganiyot ladies from the supermarket that theirs looks FAR better than anything I could get at Dunkin' Donuts (a local coffee and donut chain in the Northeast USA). Far, far better!

Everyone's always looking for something new and different for their special event; and I've seen these push pops at JB Prince; wondering if any of you have used them on your menu or had them at a party... what did you think? What did the guests think? what works best in them (less messy looking)?

I love Maida Heatter's books -all of them - and make things from them often. So when people ask about the Chocolate Cheesecake Brownies, or Oreo Pound Cake or Pecan Bars, I give them one of her books, with my comments on the recipe on a post it note. For novices, I would want to give something comprehensive but not intimidating; a gift certificate and then perhaps a list of books that they might enjoy. If they are really just breaking into cooking, they might not know what to buy and having someone suggest anything by Jacques Pepin would be a help to them; as opposed to buying a Rachel Ray book for anyone other than a teenager. I have nothing against Rachel Ray; my son got one of her for-kids cookbooks when he was 11 and it was perfect for him at the time. Now he doesn't touch it but he looks at my Julia Child Way to Cook...

First and second ones; you want the buttercream at rm temp before you start to beat it otherwise it gets grainy and can separate when rebeaten. One of my chef instructors used to melt a small amount of buttercream (to a very very soft stage) in the microwave before she rebeat the rm temp buttercream in the bowl (using the mixer paddle).

I like the second one (white with red leaf pattern). How big is the gold ribbon (wide satin ribbon? thin string?) What about printing the label in red with white lettering for contrast?

Working from an ounces perspective, the original recipe calls for 29.3 ounces of corn syrup; if you keep dividing that in half, then a half original recipe would call for 14.65 ounces to 3 pounds of white chocolate; then for 1 and a half pounds of choc it would be 7.3 ounces; for 3/4 pound of choc it would be 3.75 (rounded up a little) then half of that would call for 1.8 ounces of corn syrup; so you might have used a little too much corn syrup. Welcome to eGullet!