cakewalk

I can top that. I have the same jar of Taster's Choice - and it's decaf! I have a particular friend who, when she's in NY to visit, drinks it exclusively. I love her anyway.

I have a couple of recipes that call for toasting the flour before using it, but it's done on the stove top rather than in the oven. They're both for Arab ghoryebeh (sp) type cookies, and both from the same book. I had never heard of this before, and I've never seen another recipe that does this. Nice to know there's a name for the process. The cookies are great, although I suspect that a cup and a half of toasted ground sesame seeds adds something to the flavor in addition to that toasted flour. I've never tried toasting the flour in a recipe that didn't call for it, just to see what the flavor difference would be. But it's an idea ...

Beautiful menagerie, DianaM! I have made them several times, but your details are much more well-defined. What kind of flour did you use? My elephants would often end up with their heads chopped off after I pressed the plunger to make the contours!

I dunno. I see "00" and I think "flour." I like looking through this thread because I learn a lot, but sheesh, that's a lot of liquor! Have fun with it.

Very nice, Franci. I'm still looking for that remilled fine durum. They didn't have it in the Italian store in Chelsea market, which surprised me. I won't pay the price Amazon is asking! In the meantime I'm making a loaf with regular fine durum (rather than the coarse semolina I usually use), bread flour and rye flour. It will proof overnight in the fridge then I'll finish it tomorrow. (Such backbreaking work!)

You seem to be all over the map here (intended in many different ways). Maybe you need to decide who your real audience might be? I think people who eat baked goods, but do not themselves bake, don't want to mess around with figuring out different measurements. They want a simple recipe, the easier the better (if they want a recipe at all), and there are many recipes out there. Just Google "scones" and you'll get hundreds of thousands. Conversion from volume to metric is also fairly easily found. (And there is nothing exotic about scones in the U.S. Maybe 20 years ago they were exotic, certainly not now.) There is more of a demand for different types of baked goods because they are now more readily available. I'm not sure this means people want to bake these items. They want to eat them. These are two very different things! This is true of even simple items like muffins. People who don't bake might try to make muffins once or twice, but for the most part if they want a muffin they'll go to a shop and buy one. The people who do actually want to learn about precision in baking science do not (in my opinion) want a simple chart. They want to learn. And that's much more involved than what you seem to be trying to do. So I think you should try to figure out who your intended target audience is, and then work on how to give them what you want them to have.

@liamsaunt the food looks great, but I have to say - I really like the bowl that the string beans are in.

I'm drooling over those white peaches, blue_dolphin.

Focaccia. This is from a Nick Malgieri recipe. It was nice, but a bit too greasy for my taste. A little less olive oil next time.

Maida Heatter's ginger cookies with dark chocolate filling.

The savory black and whites look like they're filled with something? You're in my back yard, so to speak. Enjoy, and watch out for all those tourists!

Well then, it should be easy.

The point is that "food fraud" is much too vague a term to be useful.

Does "food fraud" have a legal definition? I don't see how anything can move forward without that. Saying that food shouldn't contain anything it's not supposed to isn't really very helpful. It sounds more sensationalist than anything else. I mean, my Bubby made chicken soup every Friday and she never put ginger in her soup. So I can say that chicken soup that contains ginger actually contains things it is not supposed to. If the terms are not well-defined, it's just going to end up with a lot of people screaming but nothing being accomplished. The whole food fraud thing is so huge, I don't think it can be approached by using that term only.

Franci, that is beautiful. But now I feel that I need a tutorial on focaccia, because I have never seen that type. It looks like something is spread in the middle of the dough? I'm used to focaccia flatbreads with all the dimples in it, this is a new version for me.

Those figs are stunning.

Hey, Soba. Y'know, when I first started on eGullet I thought your name was a typo. Had no idea what soba was. And you're the one who made that meat-intensive lasagna? Here's to change!

Wow. I'm having people over next weekend, and I was planning to make lasagna. But mine is gonna be veggie. I'm almost ashamed to say it after seeing yours. Looks beautiful. Only 6-8 people? It looks like it should easily feed a dozen!

I like working with sourdough and love the results of a slow rise and baking in a high heat oven. But there's something unbeatably gratifying about starting a loaf at 6 pm and pulling it out of the oven at 10. (Not to mention slicing into it before 11.) This is my regular Pullman loaf.

The cheesecake looks great, but what kind of cheese is that? It is so white! Are there eggs in it? (If it's no-bake, I figure probably not.)

I have frozen and then used the defrosted sourdough. It took a bit of daily feeding to get it up and running, but it worked fine. I'd suggest freezing small amounts in a few containers rather than a large amount of starter in one container. I froze starter made with bread flour and starter made with rye flour. The bread flour worked well, the rye flour never came back to life. I don't know why. I've never dried sourdough, but that also sounds like a good option. Maybe try both and see how each works?

Thanks so much for your response. I make Sherry Yard's lemon curd, which calls for 1/2 cup lemon juice and 1/4 cup lime juice. The lime juice works wonders. I was thinking for orange curd I'd use 1/2 cup OJ and 1/4 cup lemon juice. Presumably I start with more OJ and reduce until I have 1/2 cup left? Or am I reducing the 1/2 cup of orange juice? Seems that I'd be reducing it to almost nothing.

I was looking around for a recipe for orange curd, and I came across this old thread. I'm bumping it up because it is so worth being bumped!

I haven't made this in quite a while, but I don't remember having any issues with baking time. It's a great cake. I seem to remember that there were a lot of apples but not really a lot of batter. I'm wondering if your apple/batter proportions were somehow a bit askew. IIRC, she doesn't give a weight amount, she says four apples. Maybe the type of apple makes a difference? I always used Fuji and Golden Delicious, I love that combination. The knife test is a bit difficult with this cake because of the scant amount of batter. Sorry I can't be more helpful.

What is on top of the salad??