Patrick S

Once you start banning food substances, 'tis a slippery slope..... ← That's it. There are plenty of people who would love to regulate things like the number of calories or fat grams that can be served in a meal. It would seem at least arguably arbitrary, from a public health perspective, to ban trans-fats, which account for a small portion of total fat intake, but allow the sale of things like giant dishes of alfedo, or Hardee's ThickBurgers. I really can't muster much indignation about missing trans-fats at the restaurant, I'm just leary of the slippery slope.

Right, and there is also a mountain of evidence linking saturated fat to heart disease, and sat fat happens to constitute a much higher proportion of our fat intake than does transfats. So, shouldn't we ban butter in favor of trans-fat-free shortening?

Be patient -- I have a feeling the government will get around to regulating this sooner or later. Just like the drug war -- the government will make the law consistent by banning things that are currently legal, rather than legalizing things that are currently banned.

Probably not, but I bet there are quite a few people who would prefer a butter and shortening crust to one that is either all-butter or all-shortening.

I don't care so much about shortening, but I get uneasy when the government wants to regulate the types of fats I can use.

I have successfully recooked a too-soft caramel, so it is possible.

If I were you, I'd recook the caramel to a higher temperature, maybe 250 or so. Or I'd cut it into small pieces and coat them in chocolate. Sorry you had such a bad weekend, Gary! ← Patrick, Can I chop up the squishy caramel, put it back in the pot, cook to 250, then pour it out again? Will this work? Will I get less-squishy caramel? Gary ← I've done this a couple of times, and it worked, though one of those times I went too far and the some of the caramel actually got too hard.

If I were you, I'd recook the caramel to a higher temperature, maybe 250 or so. Or I'd cut it into small pieces and coat them in chocolate. Sorry you had such a bad weekend, Gary!

That is an excellent-looking cheesecake, gfron!

Hmm . . . I can't account for the discrepancy. I have weighed several varieties of American AP flour and always got values between about 135 and 155g, with the average somewhere around 145. In fact, I recently found a dip-and-sweep cup of King Arthur AP flour out of a just-opened bad weighed 156g. I also verified that my scale was accurate to within 1g, and that the cup I was using was 235ml in volume. And I know its not my own idiosyncratic result, because many other people (e.g. Berenbaum in her Cake Bible) have reported a similar result. I wonder if there's any chance that the cup you are using has a smaller volume? Recently I looked at 3 liquid measures I have, and was suprised to find that one of them measured a cup that was a good 10ml smaller than the other two. I only have one dry measure cup, and it is 235ml, but I wouldn't be too suprised to find that there are similar differences in dry measure cup volume as well.

430g is actually pretty typical for 3C of AP flour measured by the method used in the video.

FYI -- the new Scharffen Berger cookbook has a macaron recipes which uses nibs in place of almonds.

All the santas look lovely EXCEPT the blood-splattered one. What is the world coming to if Santa's sleigh is the victim of a drive-by shooting. ← I'm guessing (correct me if I'm wrong, schneich) this is a representation of Jesus-blood, which, according to the gospels, is salvific? For instance, John 6:53-54 (NIV) says: Maybe its supposed to be like communion wine and wafers -- except its candy. . . or something like that?

If you perfect it, merrybaker, I hope you'll be so kind as to come share some tips with me. I love pannettone, and I've made a few that were pretty, but none of it was as good as the ones Ive bought at the store. I'm not familiar with fior di sicilia -- whats in it? To me, pannettone tastes like amaretto and citrus.

Kerry, Desederio, John, alanamoano et al -- can you recommend any good books on candy-making? Love those snails, Kerry!

Wow, those sticky buns look really good. . .

In a nutshell, as long as you write the recipe in your own words, there is no problem.

I'm looking forward to seeing how they turn out, Nick! Incidentally, MikeB posted a macaron recipe a few pages back, also from PH10, and his version instructs to "add the TPT to your meringue, then the fresh whites (un-whipped) and coloring." Your version on the other hand has the TpT mixed first with the fresh whites before combining with the meringue. I tried MikeB's version 2-3 times, and while they produced a macaron with excellent taste and texture, I had a hard time incoporating the dry TpT into the meringue, and the appearance was somewhat off. Now that you've posted this recipe, I'm thinking the order of combination was the problem I had.

FWIW, I checked RLB when I got home, and she gives 3T+0.5t as the volume for 1 large egg, which is >20% less than 1/4C.

A large egg is generally not 1/4C in volume. I remember RLB giving a value soomewhere around 3.5T. I'll check when I get home. According to this primer on eggs (PDF file), it takes about 5 whole large eggs to make a cup, and 4 jumbo eggs to make a cup. And it takes 14 large and 11 jumbo yolks to make a cup.

Thank you, ray! I was wondering about that very thing, ie. how long it would take for the centermost portion of the egg to reach the temperature of the water.

For the caramel sauce, if you want one without cream and butter, just caramelize a cup of sugar, add 1/2C of water, or apple juice or another fruit juice. Boil till you get to the desired consistency - check consistency by dropping a tiny bit on a cool plate. Too thin -- keep boiling. Too thick -- add a little more liquid.

Interesting. Would you mind explaining why, exactly, people who prefer sweeter chocolate to bitter chocolate would need "re-education," and what this "re-education" would consist of?

I'm talking about regular carton eggs which have been pasteurized, not yolks. If the carton does not say pasteurized, they are probably not pasteurized. Pasteurized eggs are sold in some location, but not others. At this point in time, I think most supermarket eggs are not pasteurized.

Its been around for at least a couple of years, because that's when I tried it. The description on Chocosphere says that "L'Harmonie chocolate is a harmonious blend of Criollo and Trinitario beans that yield light floral aromas and raisin brown top notes, with a deep chocolate finish." I couldn't find the bar in the products section of guittard.com, though oddly enough there are several recipes on their site that call for it.