Patrick S

That certainly explains why the lemon cream is a lighter yellow than is a typical lemon curd, but I think Seth was wondering why the same recipe would turn out different shades of yellow on different occasions.

Thank you for the correction, alanamoana. I had always thought of the digital probe thermometers as being the instant-read thermometers, but apparently that's not always the case. Anyways, as I said, I've found my cheapo digital thermometer to be perfectly adequate for every candy making task I've thrown at it, and it has IMHO a far more readable display than the old glass mercury candy thermometers.

A candy thermometer/fry thermometer can be any mercury thermometer with a range around 200-400F and that clips on to the side of a pan, like these.. Instant-reads are always digital, and usually have a probe connected to the body by a wire. I prefer my $15 instant-read, and use it for everything.

Patrick, are you a scientist? ← Nope, just a voracious reader!

Difference in yolk color are due primarily to different concentrations of the carotenoid pigments zeaxanthin (yellow) and capsanthin (red), and these differences are caused mostly by diet as Betty points out. Most chickens get their zeaxanthin from corn, but there are other dietary sources as well. Interestingly, if chickens are given a diet that contains little or not zeaxanthin and capsanthin, their yoks will be white.

I think so, but I'm not totally sure how altitude affects the relationship between temperature and sucrose concentration. Assuming the temps should be changed the same way that the boiling point changes, you can use this boiling point calculator to determine the appropriate correction for your altitude.

Actually that was Carl "billions and billions" Sagan: “If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.”

Thank you for the compliment, Shaya. Eclairs aren't difficult to make, but like lots of other things, after you make it once you think of things you could do differently the next time. You could certainly make them in one day, but if you want to take you time, you can make them over several days. The choux dough can be baked and stored in advance. The pastry cream I would make when you are ready to use it. ← Actually, I do mine just the opposite. I make the pastry cream the night before. I make the choux and bake it off the day I'm going to use it because I find they are at their crispest then. When the choux is cool, I fill then glaze, then eat. ← The reason I don't make the pastry cream in advance is that I want it to be fluid enough to be injected into the eclair from one end -- I prefer that to cutting them open like a bun. But that's just my personal preference. Also, I find that if you dry the choux out really good in the oven, and then store them in a zip-lock so that they can't absorb moisture, they actually keep really well.

Thank you for the compliment, Shaya. Eclairs aren't difficult to make, but like lots of other things, after you make it once you think of things you could do differently the next time. You could certainly make them in one day, but if you want to take you time, you can make them over several days. The choux dough can be baked and stored in advance. The pastry cream I would make when you are ready to use it.

That looks great - congratulations! Obviously you put a lot of work into that cake.

I doubt there is sufficient evidence to give you any kind of definite answer. Coconut oil is packed with saturated fats (92%), which have generally been considered one of the least heart-healthy types of fat. Now, there are different types of saturated fats, and if you read the pro-coconut oil sites, you'll see that they all point out that coconut oil contains a significant amount of the medium-chain variety which is thought to have a neutral of even beneficial effect on cardiovascular disease. The ones I looked at, however, did not point out that most of the saturated fats in coconut oil are in fact the long-chain varieties, like those in butter, that have often been considered "bad." In fact, coconut oil is about 75% long-chain saturated fats and only about 10% medium-chain saturated fats. I'm not saying that makes it "bad," only that quite a few people appear to be under the mistaken assumption that all of the saturated fat in coconut oil is of the medium-chain variety, as opposed to the long-chain varity that dominates in animal fats. ETA: Apparently some of this confusion stems from different definitions of medium chain and long chain fatty acids. The above assumes that medium chain is defined as including 6-11 carbon atoms, and long chain is 12 and higher. If you assume that medium chain means 6-12 carbons, then about 50% of the saturated fat in coconut oil is medium chain, since coconut oil is 44% lauric acid, which has 12 carbons.

In addition to what milady said about inverting onto a pan, you can also chill the brownies. If they are butter and chocolate-rich, chilling them will make them much more sturdy, and less likely to break apart when you pull the foil off.

I wish I had a good answer for you, but the truth is I don't have a lot of experience baking with margarine. My guess would be that since stick margarine has about the same melting point as butter, you wouldn't get the additional spreading you need to form crispy, lacy edges. On the other hand, tub margarine is softer, less hydrogenated and I think has a slightly lower melting point than butter or stick margarine, so that might give you what you need.

Partially hydrogenated oils are usually only a concern insofar as they have been a marker for trans fat content. But shortening made with the new fully hydrogenated oils contain essentially no trans fats. As jgm poins out, the new Crisco is probably the closest thing to what you're looking for, a fat that is solid at room temperature like butter. ← Wouldn't a fully hydrogenated oil be completely solid//hard/unspreadable? ← Yes. This problem is solved, in Crisco's case, by adding unhydrogenated sunflower and soybean oils to the fully hydrogenated cottonseed oil.

Its amazing how shoddy the science is behind many health scares and food fads. 99% of all health claims made about food, whether about risks or benefits, are based on inadequate evidence, misinterpreted evidence, or no evidence at all. Even supposedly solid dietary health claims, like the claim that reducing the proportion of calories in your diet from fat will reduce your risk of heart disease, turn out to be on shaky empirical grounds. I'm sure you remember the saccharin scare -- saccharin was supposed to cause bladder cancer, but then it turned out that this was only a risk for rats (no such effect was observed in any other species, including mice or primates) who were fed the equivalent of hundreds of cans of soda per day for an entire lifetime, and the cancers were being caused by those megadoses of saccharin actually crystallizing in the rat's bladders, and humans who consumed lots of saccharin had not greater risk of bladder cancer than those who consumed none . . . Back on topic, what factors determine the suitability of a butter substitute for baking? I imagine that melting point is probably a big one, but is there anything else?

That's interesting. How does it taste? Is it widely available? Amazon is selling it for like $7.50 a pound. Is that typical?

Partially hydrogenated oils are usually only a concern insofar as they have been a marker for trans fat content. But shortening made with the new fully hydrogenated oils contain essentially no trans fats. As jgm poins out, the new Crisco is probably the closest thing to what you're looking for, a fat that is solid at room temperature like butter. ETA: Being a butter devotee, I haven't tried this product or the other products mentioned above, so take that for what its worth.

Hi Patrick - That glaze looks gorgeous - and I had no idea you could do one so shiny that was previously frozen. Did you let it come to room-temp, defrost in fridge, heat, or a combo? Thanks, Lani ← I took a few ounces of the glaze stright from the freezer, cut it into small cubes, and warmed it gently in a double-boiler. Except for a few tiny bubbles, the glaze looks as good as it did when I first made it.

That looks and sounds really good. After reading the thread about Lady M's MilleCrepes, I've been wanting to try something like that. Elie, sorry the Criollo went squishy on you. I've been waiting to hear how you liked it ever since you mentioned a few days ago that you made the coconut dacquoise. One thing I tried to keep the meringue layers in the Concorde from losing all their texture was coat them with a thin layer of ganache before assembling with the mousse. That helped a bit, though I still lost most of the crunch. If I ever try the Criollo I'll try that and see what happens.

Yeah. I checked the USDA nutrient database, and they have a couple of entries giving values of about 0.17-0.30g lipids per 100g of Capsicum annuum, which means they are about 99.83 to 99.7% fat-free. So, they are fat-free for all practical purposes. Olives are like 10-15% lipids.

I was going to tell Fresser that I fear he hadn't found the right woman, but the little voice in my head said "Don't be a smartass, Patrick!" And for once, I listened.

I have a feeling that I should go and browse some hardware stores. I'm sure there has to be some kind of nozzle or tube fitting or something that fits the bill.

Thanks for the links, K8. I was actually referring to the choux itself, so that giant basketweave tip might be worth trying out. I didn't think of it before, but maybe I could also try using the plastic tip holder --without a tip in it-- to pipe out larger cylinders.

Yep. A 10" round cake pan with a removable bottom and a hollow column in the center.

The "official" altitude of Eugene is 130 meters asl. The boiling point of water at 130 meters is 210.6F/99.27C. You'd have to be about 1km asl before the boiling point would be 205. Did your fruit mixture ever boil?