Patrick S

4ozs.

I think that the flour is the only ingredient for which there would be a substantial variability depending on measuring method, but Alton doesnt say which method to use. FWIW, bread flour should weigh about 5.6oz per dip-and-sweep cup.

I think the ground oatmeal is just for chewiness, because the flavor and color of the cookies are pretty typical for CC cookies.

Are you sure about that? I've always been lead to believe you should spoon lightly into the cup, then level off. ← Doh! I'd really only assumed that most recipes assume dip and sweep. I really can't purport to speak about 'most recipes,' because most of them just don't specify. So let me pull a few books of the shelf at random and see what they say . . . I pull out 'Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Herme', and it has 1C AP flour as 140 grams, which is closer to the dip and sweep weight (145grams) than the spooned weight (121 grams), as listed by Berenbaum in her 'Cake Bible.' I pull another book from my shelf, the 'Secrets of Baking,' and Yard says that "when measuring flour, us the dip and sweep method . . . the same goes fo powdered sugar" (p. 6). Third book I pull out is an old Southern Living cookbook, and it says to spoon the flour in.

There's nothing wrong with dip-and-sweep. I think most recipes assume that cups will be meaured that way, so if you spoon your flour into the cup, you could end up using too little flour. pattycakes, I tried your recipe tonight, and it turned out pretty chewy. I got about two dozen 50 gram cookies.

Welcome, Robert! The first couple of times I made macaroons, I did this. Herme's recipe for chocolate macaroons called for this procedure. Subsequently, though, I just decided to reduce the temp a little (I think 320 is what I settled on -- can't remember at the moment), cracking the door open a few times during baking, and to be honest I think they turned out the same. I assume that spoon-in-the-door is to vent steam, but others would know better than me.

Here is a pic of the best vanilla ice cream I ever made, topped with the best caramel sauce. Both recipes from Sherry Yard's The Secrets of Baking. The secret to Yard's sauce is the use of creme fraiche or sour cream and a little lemon juice. This ice cream has the virtue of staying soft in the freezer, due to its high fat content. IIRC, the base has 3C cream to 1C milk.

Ice cream is a fantastic idea, what with the 4th of July approaching here in the states, and daytime temperatures approaching those of the sun. . .

I didn't label these photos, but I'm pretty sure that the top one is Alton's and the bottom one is CI's.

I didn't find Alton's cookies chewy enough, though they certainly were not bad. I liked the Cook's Illustrated recipe better, but they are not very thick. The CI recipe uses AP flour. Also, the CI recipe makes a good peanut butter cookie if your sub peanut butter chips for chocolate chips, and add 1/2C or so of peanut butter to the batter.

Nice looking burgers, Nullo, Kristen, and Marlene! We had Marlene burgers tonight. We have a birthday party this weekend, and I wanted to try these out. I used a little more S and P than called for. I eyeballed the the peanut butter, so I may have used too little, but the taste was very faint, s carcel;y detectable. I probably wouldn't have noticed it at all if I hadnt known it was in there. I skipped the pre-grill chill, but the burgers still held together just fine on the grill. Overall I think these were great burgers. Thanks for the recipe, Marlene!

Okay, I took the KA cake out of the oven about an hour ago. Initial impression is that I prefer the WB cake, though my daughter says that she likes the KA cake "the same" as the WB cake, and my wife says she actually likes the KA cake better. On the positive side, the KA cake is more leavened and fluffy, and the almond extract gives it a more complex flavor. On the negative side, the KA cake seems slightly drier and could be slightly sweeter in my opinion.

FWIW, Cooks Illustrated has a smoked paprika and garlic mashed potatoe recipe that includes 3 smashed cloves to 2lbs russet potatoes. The garlic is sauteed in 4oz butter over low heat for 12-14 minutes. With this recipe, you could add the garlic butter bit-by-bit to suit your taste, but since there is only 1.5 cloves per lb of potatoes, I'm sure you would use it all and maybe a bit more. PS - Love your user name, crinoidgirl. I used to collect crinoids and other marine fossils near my old house.

I haven't made the King Arthur cake. But I don't have anything on the agenda for this evening, so I may try it tonight.

4.5

I usually assume that when Xozs of a liquid is referred to in a recipe, that this means fluid ounces, which is a measure of volume, whereas when Xozs of a dry ingredient is called for, this can only mean weight. But if the whole recipe is in weights, I will assume that the liquid measures are weights too. Its awkward having a unit measure for weight and a measure for volume both called ounces.

The articles I read were very clear that this cow was caught before and never entered the food market. No worries! ← I agree. Everything I've read on the subject of BSE leads me to conclude that I should be more worried about getting hit by lightening. After all, there has not been a single case of vCJD (variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease) in the US that has been tied to eating US beef, and there has only been like 153 case of vCJD worldwide, despite the fact that in the UK and elsewhere hundreds of thousands of BSE-infected cows entered the food chain. Don't let a little BSE spoil your fun, coquus!

I remember seeing an episode of Good Eats on TV sometime recently, I think it was either the burger or meatloaf episode, but I can't remember. Anyway, Alton Brown just threw some cubes of meat into the Cuisinart and pulsed it like 10 times to grind his own meat. Haven't tried this yet myself, but it seemed to work pretty well for him. ← I've used a seriously wimpy 3-cup processer to grind together sirloin and chuck for burgers, and it worked fine for me too. I just cut the meat into smallish chunks first.

For reference, below are 3 pictures of the white cake I made using this recipe. I followed the recipe in all respects, except that I put the cream of tartar in the egg whites rather than with the flour. I just made it to test the recipe, so I didn't bother to frost the cake. The batter just after folding in the whites. The cake -- remarkably flat. The crumb --poor shot, not enough light.

Hickory-smoked pork butt sandwiches with South Carolina Mustard Barbecue Sauce, with fresh strawberry ice cream.

I smoked a small, 4lb butt today. I was looking for a big ol' butt, but all I could find at the neighborhood market was the 4lb-er. I dry-rubbed it last night, smoked it for about 4 hrs with hickory chunks, and gave it another hour and a half in the oven. I didn't have a chimney, so I kept lighting little pyramids in the regular grill and moving the briquettes to the smoker. The pork turned out good. Not transcendental, scuse me while I kiss the sky spectacular, but good. The borrowed Brinkmann smoker I was using was not so good -- it had one hole in the bottom of the charcoal pan, with no way to adjust the flow. The thermometer had no temp markings, just three zones: warm-ideal-hot. I made Mark's sauce to go with the butt, and it was indeed as good as advertised. The butt before going into the oven: The sandwich I had for dinner:

Ruth, I had a couple of cups of whites left over from making canneles, so I tried the white cake recipe tonight. I admit, I'm pretty impressed with it. I'll post some pictures soon, but here my initial observations. 1. The cake is very sweet. Not too sweet for my taste, though. 2. The cake baked out very flat. I baked it in a 10x14" pan, and it looks like a used magi-strips, though I didn't. 3. The cake is springy, and cuts cleanly, as you said it would.

I've never frozen it, but I don't see any reason why you couldn't do that.

Is anyone trying variations on the cannele other than rum/vanilla and chocolate? The other night I tried to make a raspberry version by adding some Chambord, and I tried chocolatizing Paula's recipe by pouring the hot milk over 3.5ozs noir gastronomie and then adding the chocolate to the sugar/flour/yolk mixture. Both turned out fairly well, but everyone who's tasted them thinks that the rum/vanilla is best. Paula has been kind enough to direct me to two different "parfums mélangé" recipes that are mixtures anisette, lemon essence, rose water and other ingredients that sound exotic and interesting, but I'm interested to hear what if any other ideas are out there. Alternatively, you tell me that raspberry or lemon canneles are inexcusable affronts to tradition and should not even be considered. Also, how dark does everyone like their canneles? I cooked the last batch to 2 hours, and there were very dark, and very crunchy. I like this fine, but I think my daughter found them slightly too tough on the outside.

Let me help Ruth out: "Yellow and white cakes, search for the perfect" "White Cake, lets find the BEST recipe for this" And some others: "The Best Chocolate Cake, tweaking the recipe" and another on Chocolate: "Finding the best Chocolate Cake recipe, do you want to participate?" "World's best carrot-cake recipe" "banana cake recipe, Searching for the perfect one" "I want a Spice Cake recipe, Show me your best!" "The World's Best Coconut Cake, Gimme" "Looking for good flourless choc cake recipe, Whose got the best?" "Strawberry cake recipe?, Like the box kind, only not from a box" There was also this discussion about Yellow Cakes: "Need Tried And True Yellow Cake, Preferably moist (duh)" And these aren't cakes, but were under "the best" category: "Lemon Bars -- best recipe, anyone interested?" "Best pecan pie recipes, looking for some buttery goodness" ← Thanks for posting the links, Toliver. Maybe we could pin a list of "best of . . ." threads to the top of the forum, so that when new people come to the forum, and they have what they think is the best recipe for X, Y or Z, they would be encouraged to post it. Or maybe not.