MelissaH

I'd sooner say that two loaf pans would hold the batter from one bundt pan. If a recipe is specifying a bundt pan, it's often because it needs the air circulation you get from the hole in the middle to bake properly, if you do the whole thing in one pan.

I've never seen it butterflied. I live in upstate NY.

We first tasted speculoos spread in Belgium nearly two years ago; I think it had been around even before then. I first noticed it in the U.S. shortly after we returned from that trip. I love the stuff. My husband, who adores speculoos cookies, doesn't care for it.

Lotus sells their speculoos here under the name of Biscoff (and they are familiar to anyone who has flown Delta airlines, possibly the best part about flying Delta these days). We can also buy Biscoff-brand spread, which claims on the label to be nut-free. Both are readily available at even the one yucky supermarket here in my town.

No photos here, but I'm adding my loud voice to the chorus of thanks. Kerry, it was a marvelous weekend, and I'm really glad I was able to come and stay for the whole weekend this time. I can't remember the last time a whole table laughed so much while eating dinner—and it's probably a good thing the beaver was not served earlier in the meal because I don't want to know what other jokes might have come out. I wish I got to play with chocolate with other people more often!

I'm on Verizon for my mobile phone needs, and I know that in the right parts of Niagara Falls (mainly in view of the river) it's possible to pick up an American tower. As long as you're picking up an American tower, your phone doesn't care that it's across the border. So if you're concerned about racking up international charges on a U.S. phone, keep it off but once a day, drive somewhere there's a clear view across. That said, text messages to and from Canada (for me, anyway) are covered on my plan. YMMV.

Y'know, if you're going to make some of that so-called "cassoulet" without duck, you could just send that horror show to me, and I'll make it disappear. Here in the sticks, I doubt that most people will know (a) what cassoulet is, and (b) that it's "supposed" to contain duck...or is that goose, perhaps? You know your audience, and will best know whether they will expect to find duck in something you call cassoulet. If your audience isn't a stickler for names, don't worry about it.

10 AM is also too early for me and my friend. But we'll be there for the show and tell. We'll be looking for somewhere to eat dinner before that, preferably not too expensive. Anyone got ideas? Anyone want to join us?

I would argue that, depending on who you're inviting, there's no such thing as too cheap for a wedding registry. I've been to several weddings where we don't know the bride or groom all that well (but work with the parents) and depend on the registry to guide our gift choices—either to get something directly off the list, or say, "Oh, they've registered for X, but I bet they'll also enjoy having Y." And then there was the wedding where the registry didn't include much in the price range we were planning to spend, and the few things that were less than $200 per item apparently went quickly. If you anticipate inviting people who are students, or who have recently been students, or who may incur significant travel expenses to get to your wedding, or may otherwise not necessarily want to spend a lot of money, you may want to have some less expensive items on your list so they can give you something tangible. After all, people can always put together a collection of less expensive items if they have more money to spend. That said, one of our favorite wedding gifts was a second bowl for our KitchenAid stand mixer, which my sister bought for us and had engraved with our names and wedding date. If you're specifically looking for bar tools, don't forget about shakers and spoons and zesters and measuring devices. Maybe an atomizer, if you're the sort who prefers your martini with just a spray of vermouth over the top? Let me, too, add my congratulations to you!

Is there a complete schedule somewhere, that I just missed? (Are we that far yet?)

Wish I'd known you were going to be stopping, as I would have joined you for sure!

Lisa (and JAZ), the thesis is still available here: http://www.realbakingwithrose.com/2009/03/the_cake_biblein_the_beginning.html I'd also wonder about the amount of leavening. Rose Levy Beranbaum makes a big deal in the Cake Bible about the amount of leavening that layer cakes of a particular size need. (IIRC, the short story is that the larger the cake, the less leavening, proportionately, they need.) I don't know how this translates across to a loaf cake. (However, the science teacher in me sees this as an ideal case for "combinatorial cooking" in a class setting: each person or group of people uses a different but prescribed amount of leavening, and the end results can be measured by the class!)

If you have a pressure cooker, you might consider doing one of the Modernist Cuisine vegetable puree soups where you quickly pressure cook the vegetable with some baking soda, and then puree it and thin it into a soup. The broccoli soup is a real showstopper, if nothing else because of its electric green color.

I could see where a little water on the outside might make salt adhere, which would go a long way towards making the stuff edible. Then when you toast it, you'd get rid of the water and crisp it up.

Do you have a ready source for the bags (other than stealing a few extras from the produce department every time you shop)?

Point of clarification: are you talking hand mixer like the sort of thing you'd use to make a quick batter, or like an immersion blender aka blender-on-a-stick? I associate the Bamix brand with the latter, but to me "hand mixer" means something more like this: http://www.amazon.com/KitchenAid-KHM5APWH-5-Speed-Ultra-Power/dp/B000BVZ5X0/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1364316077&sr=8-5&keywords=kitchenaid+hand+mixer. We have a KitchenAid hand mixer, which I use when I don't need the oomph of a stand mixer but am too lazy to beat by hand, such as when I want to beat a few egg whites stiff. It's lasted through probably 15 years of intermittent use, so take that as you will.

I also like bits of them on pizza.

I work my way down the list of topics with unread content, going to the bottom of page 1, then clicking to page 2 and scrolling down that, and if that's still all new content I click to page 3, until I put a page where there's content I've seen. Then I work my way back up, right-clicking on the star or circle to open that topic in a new page. I do that on each topic I want to read, and when I get to the top of the page I hit the back button, which (in Firefox, anyway) takes me back to the bottom of the previous page. I then work my way up that page, again opening each topic in a new tab, and so on and so forth till I get back to the top of page 1.

I've never had much luck with bar cookies, because I can't cut them without losing a lot to crumbling, regardless of what temperature I cut them at. If I want something bar-ish, I make brownies. And if I want drop cookies, I make the dough ahead of time and scoop it into balls, which I refrigerate or freeze, and bake as needed. That said, I might have to give the concept another try.

The old KitchenAids are great. I read lots of reviews complaining about plastic parts failing on recent models, so I spent the extra money for a Viking. But who knows, they might have fixed their recent problems.http://www.amazon.co...duct/B0007WLJ3I Do you like it? I have Viking cookware and I love it. They make a solid product. I have both a KitchenAid (circa 1992) and a Viking. My KA is a tilt-head model with a smaller bowl (only 4.5 quarts), and it's just not big enough to handle a whole batch of many of the bread dough recipes I enjoy. After one too many hair-pulling-out disasters, I got a Viking with a 7 quart bowl, which has no problems making bread dough recipes that call for 1 kg of flour. However, I still use my KA for things like cake batter and cookie dough, as I think the smaller bowl is easier to handle for smaller amounts.

Yup - 250 ml. They were $7.50 each at Sur la Table and under $6 at the other place. I don't think Whole Foods in Canada carries it. Although their online list of places that sell it is clearly a bit skint. My bag will contain well padded and ziplocked bottles of all sorts - so indeed hope it makes it home safely. I've had a few leaks in trips past. There was the one of 21 bottles of single malt that leaked on the way back from Scotland - all carry on in those days. We smelled like classy rummies. I picked up a 375 ml bottle of St George's Absinthe and a regular sized bottle of Pierre Ferrand Dry Curacao to protect too. I long for the days of carry-on liquids, when buying a bottle of something wouldn't cost you an extra $35 for the checked bag it now needs to go in. Did you get the 40 °N or the 50 °N Red Boat?

I'm not awake enough to use my pressure cooker for anything in the morning.

Um, no. A favorite general chemistry practice problem is having students calculate the boiling point of salted pasta water, or calculating the amount of salt that you'd need to add to a pot of pasta water in order to make a noticeable difference in the boiling point. It's not for that.

As soon as Padma looked at the contestants and told them they had to make a breakfast on a stick, I looked at my husband and told him that I felt the shark circling. We've been watching on DVR, so I don't remember what episode that was, but I feel like this season we've been zipping through a lot of content that wasn't worth our time to watch.

I seem to recall Jacques Pépin using strips of tenderloin to make quick beef stews, also.