TurtleMeng

Well, actually they DO offer dipping sauces @ Little Lamb, at least 4 of them. Little Lamb is "Mongolian Hot Pot" (although there's a lot more restaurants in Shanghai) It's just diffrenet from Ta Pian Lu. The idea is that the broth has a semi medicinal taste to it. Does everything taste the same coming out of the pot...sort of, but it's a good taste. The dipping sauces they have is very Northen--fermented bean curd, chives, sesame paste, satay sauce (the last one is not northern though) I grew up with the regular hot pot. I like putting an egg in my dipping sauce too. But again, this kind is just different. They also serve some noodle dishes @ Little Lamb, and Xiao Bing (the little hard bun things) I am beginning to sound like Little Lamb rep...I just eat there on cold days. Besides, I still complain about the MSG and need to drink lots of hot tea with my meal.

Well, it's not really NEW, but the LITTLE LAMB has opened 3 (maybe 4) restaurants in Los Angesles. It's directly transplanated from China. It's the Chinese Hot Pot without a Dipping Sauce. The broth is simmered with multiple herbs so anything you cook in it comes out flavored already. Supposedly these herbs can warm you up also. (Unfortunatley one of the ingredients in it definitely tastes like MSG) I wonder if other cities in US already have it. If you are visiting LA, consider trying a meal (esp on a cold day, rare but it DOES happen). I had the same thing in Shanghai, pretty much "authetic".

like mentioned above, in Shanghai you can find a lot of cold dishes, some of them definitiely look like salads and are not meat dishes. One common one is lotus root. OK, not raw (do you really want to eat that stuff raw?), a little sweet but I would not call it a dessert. It's the usual dish where it's stuffed with glutinous rice and steamed and served with a very light, scanty syrup on it. Shredded cucumber and daikon together is very common.(with a dressing on it) Of course you can add jelly fish to it, but you don't have to. "Tiger veggi" is lots of raw cilatro and shredded bean curd and scallion. It is quite strong and tasty. In summer we always eat quick pickled cucumber (it takes like 1/2 hr) and chill it in the fridge. After all, this is Los Angeles.

well, I've been thinking. The problem is the middle layer is lighter in color, to look different from the bottom. So I would not use bittersweet, which is used in the bottom layer and darker. semi...perhaps, and just using less chocolate may help...

Ah Ha!

长崎蜂蜜蛋糕 Hope that helps. If you go to a more Kantonese style bakery, they won't have it. The more Taiwanese ones have it.

Oh, this is called "kasutera"? I grew up eating it in Taiwan, but we call it "honey cake". (it is from Japan. The Nagasaki one is apparently famous) The way they make it in most Chinese shops is to use a perfectly rectangular wooden mold. I will try to find a pic. ..... OK, I looked, but could not find a pic of the mold. There are many pics of the cake. One reason you don't want to level this cake might be that the top brown layer is desirable. This sucker is often baked in paper or wood so ONLY the top layer browns. The rest is all uniform in color, so when cut it forms a perfect squarish slice with the little brown strip on top. It has a mellow taste, with a very fine crumb. Compared to most cakes I would say it's not sweet. It's not rich, but not light/airy either. Boy, I've done a great job describing it. Often it's just eaten plain. I know you can flavor it with green tea, etc. If you are in LA, you can buy it @ lots of bakeries. Anyone wanting to try one let me know. ...... OK, edited this twice because I did some thinking in the tub. (good place to do so). If you baked yours in a metal pan, it would rise in the middle because the sides heat up first but then stop rising (because the sides would set first), just like any other cake. The Japanese, however, bake this in paper or wood (at least like I just mentioned, the Chinese do), so it rises uniformily. Therefore, Patrick's suggestion of cake strip makes sense. I always use cake strips when I bake, and it helps make the cakes flat.

Well, if I know how to do it... ← Use 100g (a shade under four ounces) of espresso grind coffee, and pour on 300g of boiling water. Stir to combine, leave for five minutes, and strain our the solids carefully; use muslin, cheesecloth or a fine sieve. Place the liquid in a saucepan over a medium heat and let it reduce to about 50ml. Bottle this; you can keep it in the fridge quite happily. ← That sounds manageable. If the recipe calls for a tsp of espresso powder (which is dissolved in a tsp water), can I use about 1 tsp of this extract?

Well, if I know how to do it...

I took my tricolor mousse to work. It was so rich I was cutting small pieces to give the nurses. Then I started my usual survey.(I always wonder how accurate it is when you interrogate your staff about your baking quality). Everyone likes the top (even me), the white chocolate, so I'll keep that. The bottom is too rich, dense, ok I can deal with that, next time will whip some more cream into it (it had only butter/eggs/choco). The middle layer is the MOCHA. I think it's crazy sweet. How can I fix it? Perhaps the coffee powder sucked so all I tasted was the milk chocolate. So, what instant coffee powder (regular and espresso) is a good brand to use in baking? I am staring @ my can which is completley in...Portugese? God forbid. It's this instant coffee from Brazil. ("Cafe Iguacu"). Someone gave it to me. At least it doesn't look like freeze-dried stuff. Hmmm, there is Englsih. "pure instant coffee". Recommendations?

Hi Wendy No I did not grease the pan. I just threw in my bottom parchment liner. I think if the pan is big enough the weight will pull it out, but yours doesn't? What is the secret.... The nurses were making themselves fat again this morning with the cake. (if they saw this they would tear me into pieces). I tasted the chiffon, it's pretty good, but I still scratch my head about this falling out problem.

I hate stale coffee too. For a while I was thinking about getting a coffee maker with a thermal carafe because the glass thing burns coffee in 5 minutes. My nurses always make this huge pot that goes to waste. It's conceivable the Senseo is not even that much more expensive considering our saving. Should I buy one for the clinic, hmmm, deep question. I make cakes. Give everybody good coffee. The staff are getting...larger. What happened to their AM walk? Need to ask them tomorrow.

Baked a chiffon today, put it in a 9-inch (3 inch high) pan and it rose pretty nicely. Inverted it straight on a cooling rack since the cake was lower than the pan, then left for science fair @ school. Came home and found the chiffon out of pan on cooling rack, sides curled up. Well, what do I expect. But does this always happen or do they stay in the pan sometimes? Perhaps 9 inch is too big. Since it fell out, did I lose height? It looks about 1 1/2 inch tall. What the heck, I'm sure it will taste ok. Will put the leftover mocha mousse in it and feed the nurses. They like sweet stuff.

Wandered to this forum. Saw this thread from a while ago. I got a Senseo recently too from Costco. One thing I don't understand: what is the machine doing in the 60 seconds it takes to brew? The water level in the tank stays the same, so it's not being heated or pressurized?.... Please enlighten the idiot. Also, you do need to push the button twice--once to turn it on and once to select the cup size, but you have to do the latter after the machine is ready (in 1 minute), right? (if wrong, I don't know what I've been drinking, but it tasted pretty decent)

Cakes can rise to some extent even without baking powder. Baking powder releases CO2, but vaporized H2O itself can act as a leavener, because gasses expand when you heat them. Gas cells in whipped egg whites for exmple expand when the air inside them is heated. At the same time,the heat causes chemical changes in the dough to occur which harden the structure of the cake, so that when the cake cools, it retains the puffed-up structure when the cake cools and the pressure in the air cells drops, rather than reverting to it previous low-temp structure. ← Thanks. I guess the whites beaten with all dry ingredients result in a more stable batter, hence it does not deflate and can keep, in contrast to a souffle batter. I just like to think about the chemistry. A genoise, on the other hand, is very fragile (i mean the batter) after the dry ingredients are folded in. I wish I could ride the magical school bus and see these molecules, but before that I will be happy just eating these cakes.

Many books tell you whites can be frozen and used later after thawing. I am just a little scared to try it, but sometimes I don't want to make creme brulee and angel food cake (actually, I wouldn't want to make one. Doesn't taste good) back to back. Anyways, are they still perfectly fine after being frozen? Can you beat them as well?

Patrick, it is encouraging to see I am not the only one. I always think something is wrong with me when things turn out "nothing to write home about". I still don't know how this cake ever rose since the Sherry Yard recipe has no baking powder. Sherry made it sound like such a magic thing plus the batter can be kept there waiting to be baked in the fridge, I thought I could throw genoise out of the window. Well, guess not. A while ago my husband and I had dinner @ the Restaurant in Bel Air, the dessert was this half-muffin looking thing with some cream on it, it tasted like a (very ordinary) MUFFIN. My husband kept saying "famous and popular restaurants don't necessarily serve good food..." Now I think that was a financier. And PLEASE don't take offense if you know the PC there or ARE the PC...it's just a personal taste issue. BTW, what almond flour does everyone use? I actually had to do with TJ's almond meal, which is very coarse (and not a flour), and I sifted so many times to get the fine part. I do not own a nut grinder and have not been able to find one. Probably can live without it anyways. I will try the recipe metioned in this thread. I have to use those cute little molds.

I think I am getting addicted to the site. A couple of weeks ago I made the chocolate financier from Sherry Yard's book. I adapted a little and made it in a 6-inch pan (proportinally adjusted the ingredients) as a trial. As it came out, it looked nice, had a good height, and I handed husband a warm slice with creme fraiche. He ate it. I tried it. Hmmm, decent, but really good? I don't know. The next day I tried it again. Now cool, it tasted denser, beginning to taste like a brownie, and withouth the creme fraiche I would not even eat it. Is it (1) me (2) the way financier is (3) not-good-enough chocolate (Trader Joe Pound Plus) And also, Sherry Yard says the financier batter can be made ahead and kept in the fridge. I love the idea, but want to know if you guys all agree. Which, brings up my next question (now I've been told they are welcome ) What makes this cake rise? It's made of egg whites, so that's the only levener. But you know you can't keep a souffle batter for a long time. It deflates. For the financier you beat the whites with all the other stuff. The batter is not a "fluffy" batter, like beaten whites or beaten whole egg foam. It amazes me this batter even increases its volume once baked. I plan to make a regular (non-choco) financier soon. If it still tastes that dense (and if that's the way it is), I don't know what to do with it...make the cute savarin mold ones and pipe cream onto them I guess...but not a huge cake sliced up then, no one would eat it. (just as an aside, since I practially live in "China outside China" in this part of LA, I cater to the Chinese likes. Most of them grow up eating light and fluffy cakes, like chiffon. The "American" cake (i.e., supermarket kind) is unthinkable. Too sweet. Frosting? Ugh. Whipped cream, mousse, custard are the norm. A cake tasting like brownie would get polite nods from my friends)

I emailed the link to my friend. She is now stressed out because she had her eyes set on the Accolade from amazon. She used her friend's KA over the wknd, which is a tilt-head, and she thinks it's easier to add the ingredients. Speaking of that, I kind of have a problem with my bowl-lift from Costco sometimes, but I think my KA on the countertop is a little too high for me (I am 5'3" ). Does anyone find tasks such as "sifting flour over the eggfoam" easier with the tilt-head? (in reality I don't sift over it, that's impossible. I just pick up parchment paper and dump in) I also told her it's easier to exchange since we all have Costco around. She said she doesn't want to bother to exchange so she wants to make sure she gets something that doesn't break down. I went back to some old threads...looks like KA CAN break down if it wants to...my 1st one started dancing so I took it back to Costco and got this one...good luck to her...

I feel I've already asked too many Q's. This one is for my friend's sake though. She has finally decided to buy a KitchenAid after my long lectures. For the homebakers out there, do you guys prefer a tilt-head or bowl-lift? KitchenAid now has Accolade (tilt-head) @ 400 watts, which I feel is pretty decent for home use.

Hi Neil Are you able to share your black forest recipe or is there a link somewhere? I made one according to the Cake Bible but the supposedly "moist" genoise was quite dense, with the chocolate cooked in water added, I did not like it.

I think I will take a trip to officemax and homedepot, to get inspired. All these ideas motivated me into action at least. I cleaned out some cabinet in the family room--medical journals from 1999? Symposium notes from 2000? I was asleep during the conference anyways. All the less-used stuff went in there for now. I am quite proud. It is so funny. This inner pot from the rice cooker doesn't belong to my baking stuff and I constantly put in in the normal-kitchen-stuff area; the next thing I know it is back to my cabinet space. I think the saying that 2 women do not share peace in the kitchen (something along that line) is a little true. I buy a lot of eggs in preparation of baking, next thing I know my mother-in-law is making huge portions of scramble egg to feed everyone.

I started murmuring "Pixian" to myself 30 times and could not figure out what this was, then I realized there was a picture of it, which had the Chinese writing on it, thank God. Never realized bean paste is also referred as "broad bean". Ignorance. Anything you use regular unspicy bean paste for you can add a little of that stuff to make it hot. I think it keeps for a long, long time, just kind of dries out but doesn't go bad because it's pretty salty. Might grow moldy...if you are like my family you can spoon off the mold and shrug

Beyond amazing, but...am I the only one that thinks the Korean piece is not too...appetizing?

sour cream coffecake ring with lots of streusel inside and on top, lots of walnuts or pecans. People just eat. They often ask what the "good brown stuff" is made of.