Patrick S

Hi Sugarella, I suppose my preference is clear from what you quoted -- recipes should be as precise as possible. At the very least, weight measurements should be included in recipes.

This thread should answer all of your questions about ImageGullet, but here is the short answer: First, view the picture in your album. Then click on 'Click for Actual URL. This will display a URL that looks something like: What you want to do is copy that URL. If the URL is not blue/highlighted, double left-click on it to highlight it. Then rightclick on it, and select 'copy.' Now you have the URL ready to use. To use it in a post, just add the first image tag, which looks like this: [img] Then right click next to the tag and select paste. Now you should have something that looks like this: [img]http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1094228968/gallery_18_2_1094281298.jpg Now, just add the close image tag, so the complete tag looks like this [img=http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1094228968/gallery_18_2_1094281298.jpg] When you post your post, this will display your image.

Thanks for complimenting my cake, Megan and Ling! I made this using the cake recipe you (Ling) recommended, and I think I'm pretty much converted to it as well. Thanks for posting the recipe, Ruth. These are some great cookies! I made mine with Lindt 70% and left out the nuts.

I've never had it stick before. I use parchment and pan spray. ← Ditto here. Parchment should be standard operating procedure for very moist cakes.

Chocolate cake, what else? This one is frosted with a bittersweet espresso ganache. Actually the cake got eaten at work today, but I had the scraps and leftover ganache last night.

Remind me, Patrick -- have you tested the Whimsical Bakehouse chocolate butter cake as part of the quest? ← No I haven't tried that one. Was the recipe posted somewhere?

Well, to be fair to CI, the word bias implies prejudgement, when in reality their across-the-board preference for dutched cocoa was discovered in a blind tasting. They make it sound as if they were quite surprised by this result.

I tried Ling's favorite cake recipe tonight (Double Chocolate Layer Cake). I baked the batter in three 9" pans, and the cakes were done in about 40 minutes. I used Callebaut cocoa and Ghirardhelli bittersweet chocolate. I've only had one bite so far (the cakes are still cooling), but my initial judgement is that the cake is very good -- very chocolatey, very moist, and a little on the heavy side. I'd say this cake is definitely a contender for the title.

I moved my stone on the bottom rack, and that definitely seemed to help my crust.

I tried the Sue B cake last night. I increased the cocoa to 1C since I was pretty sure that 3/4C would not be chocolatey enough. It was certainly not bad, but was not outstandingly good either. The flavor was fine, but I thought it could be less leavened/more heavy, and could probably be more chocolatey. I'll try to post some pics later.

SB cocoa is natural, and is still probably my least favorite.

The quail salad and mascarpone tart look delicious! Looks like I need to add the Southern Table cookbook to my Amazon list!

And just to reiterate what others have already said, you always save money when you buy in bulk. For instance buy your flour and sugar in 25lb bags, your chocolate 5lbs at a time, etc.. If you have access to a warehouse club like Sam's, definitely check that out. To the extent that you can do that, you'll save money.

Definitely dump the NM extract in favor of a cheaper version. I use Tone's brand, because I can get 16ozs for a great price at a warehouse club. I would definitely NOT try to save too much money on the chocolate. You can get great chocolate for just a little bit more.

The Ducasse method for cooking ribeye, which was discussed here at some point, was basically to cook it in butter over medium heat, for like 10 minutes a side (this was assuming the steak was 2" thick, I think), adding some garlic towards the end. I only tried this once, but I have to say it made a fantastic ribeye!

We're having caramel apple pie. Yum!

Patrick, I made a precooked apple pie filling almost exactly the same way -- except for the ginger, which I must try next time -- and filled it into a pie crust based on Wendy's all-butter pie crust recipe in RecipeGullet. It was fantastic. I am wondering if you made a 9" pie and if the 3 lb. measure is the weight before or after peeling and coring the apples? I use IQF apples and I'm never quite sure how much to weight out for a 9" pie, 10", etc. I just kinda wing it as I go along ← Beanie, 3lb was the pre-peeled, pre-cored weight. I used that because a) that is what I had, and b) I can get all those apples in the skillet at once and therefore dont have to do batches. But I'm sure I could have used 4lbs or maybe even a little more and still fit it all into the pie dish (I used a 9" pyrex pie plate).

A made another apple pie this weekend, and this one turned out just the way I like apple pie. I caramelized 3lbs of apples in a large skillet with a cup of sugar and 4oz butter for almost 20 minutes, until the apples were soft and the sugar had cooked to a thick, caramel sauce. I scooped the apples out into the pie shell with a slotted spoon, added 1t vanilla and a pinch of cinnamon and ginger to the caramel sauce, then poured the sauce over the apples. I egg-washed and sugared the crust, and baked on the bottom shelf at 425F for 30 minutes. The last caramel apple pie I made, from Secrets of Baking, tasted good, but turned out way too watery. This pie, by contrast, was not watery at all, just caramelly. One thing I will change next time is to add some sour cream or lemon juice to the caramel sauce, to balance some of the sweetness of the caramel.

Is this the recipe you're referring to?

I tried this tonight, and its delicious! I deviated from the recipe in the following ways: I egg-washed the puff sheet and coated it with grated paramsan, ala CI tomato tart recipe. This gives a supercrisp crust, as the bottom photo shows, plus it tastes damn good. I added some basil to and subtracted some parsley from the pesto. I used a mixture of gruyere, parmasan, and mozarella. Thanks for the recipe, ellencho! Before the last trip into the oven: The finished product: The crispy crustage:

Amazing. Somehow I missed that thread the first time around. Thanks.

Sure! The recipe I used is here.

I tried making another of my favorite chinese dishes, General Tso's chicken. Again it turned out well and was delicious. One small problem I had, though, was that when I drained the oil and then returned the chicken to the pan with the sauce, the sauce immediately became very thick and it took a good bit of stirring just to get all the pieces coated. I think I either didn't leave enough oil in the pan, or I used too much cornstarch in the sauce.

I tried several methods and this is the one that worked best. I made several shells this way, and found that I had to make them fairly thick (about 1/8"), otherwise the shells broke apart when I peeled the paper off. I found it took me several coats to get a thick coating, so I ended up spending way more time than I think is really practical on the shells. I'm sure that's mostly a function of my inexperience working with chocolate, of course, but I'm still looking for a quicker way. Thanks for the advice, everyone!

I would like to make mini tart shells out of white chocolate, to be filled with pastry cream. What is the simplest way to do this? Can I just melt some white chocolate, pour a bit into a chilled mini-muffin cup, swirl it around while it sets, and then tap it out? Any tips would be greatly appreciated!