digigirl

Thanks for the input, that helps a lot. The cost seemed high to me, but I was thinking - if they were really *that* fabulous, maybe they were worth the cost. But it sounds like they aren't all that much more fabulous than what I can get at the store. Thanks! Valerie

Has anybody tried David Rosengarten's Fresh-Pressed Olive Oil Club? I just discovered this and his article is very convincing. But, naturally, since he's selling his own product, it makes me suspicious. Has anyone tried this? Are the oils worth signing up for? Any input at all?

Hey Dangerpirate, are you still planning to put this list / website together? I'd surely be interested in it as well. Valerie

Hey, y'all. I made this cake for Father's day yesterday and it came out great! I wasn't quite up to the task of the fancy white chocolate top (although I'm gonna get it next time, I will!), so I just put some strawberries on top and some white chocolate curls in the middle, but otherwise, it looked almost exactly like the picture (don't have a camera right now, so couldn't take a pic). I was amazed how incredibly simple this cake was! And it tasted darned good, too. My boyfriend, for whom I made it, was raving. The other great thing about this cake is it would be so easy to vary! You could use any kind of berries instead of strawberries, or bananas, or mandarin oranges, or..... Or, you could use milk chocolate instead of white chocolate, chocolate cake instead of vanilla cake. Etc.! I highly recommend this one for anyone who's looking for an easy cake with a big WOW factor! Just have to make it a day ahead so it can chill, otherwise, easy as.... well, cake! Valerie

I don't know if this is the right place to ask this, but.... here goes. How do you pronounce "au poivre?" I'm sooo not French!

Or C: he had a unusual sense of humor!

I went through this same quest about a year ago, trying to figure out which was the best software. I have an older version of Mastercook that's done all right, but I was interested in the others as well. Living Cookbook has some cool features. Another one I found was Big Oven (bigoven.com). As I recall, pretty neat, lots of features. But, ultimately, I stayed with the one I have rather than buy a new one. I think I ended up liking Big Oven best, but wasn't ready to shell out any dough for a new software when I had a decent one already. I'll be interested to see what you find out. Maybe a consensus will finally be reached!

We just closed on our first home ever and moved in last weekend. We're still unpacking everywhere else, but I can tell you - the kitchen is already unpacked and organized! I've asked everyone I know for Home Depot and Lowe's cards for all gifts in the foreseeable future. Now that I finally have my own kitchen - look out!! Fortunately, my boyfriend enjoys the fruits of my obsess- er, hobby, so he is all for a well-outfitted kitchen. Now, if only I could win the lottery so I could REALLY do it right!

I've been on a quest for the One True Brownie recipe for a while. Of course, everyone's OTB is different, but for me, it's creamy and fudgy in the middle, with a crisp crust. I definitely agree that Medrich's Steve Ritual is the way to go to help in that direction. But the best brownie recipe I've tried to date is this one (plus the Steve Ritual, of course): Andrew's Brownies For the peppermint ones, I made this recipe for my Xmas cookie boxes and got huge raves. They are pretty darn good, if a bit more labor intensive than the York's Peppermint Patty method: Grasshopper Squares After read through all this, I'm looking forward to trying Julia's recipe to see if it's the OTB recipe!

I was hired to do some Christmas baking for a co-worker (my first paid cooking gig!) just last month, and one of the things she requested was gingercake. So, I went on a quest for the perfect gingercake recipe. Of all the recipes I tried - several from Epicurious.com, FoodNetwork.com and a few from various cookbooks - the Gramercy Tavern one and the Baking Illustrated one were the favorites of all testers. The Gramercy Tavern recipe was quite good; very moist with a stronger bite - a little too strong of an aftertaste for me, and kind of sticky, I thought. The Baking Ilustrated one is softer with, in my opinion, the perfect texture and no aftertaste, but I thought the ginger flavor wasn't quite strong enough. So, I played with them a little - added a bit of Guinness to the Baking Illustrated recipe and used a mixture of ground ginger and grated crystalized ginger. That came out pretty well and is what I used for my customer. For my own preferences, though, I think I would leave the beer out, but the extra ginger in. Both recipes, however, are very good and received high marks from everyone who tasted it for me!

What about those of us with regular, old standard home ovens without convection fans? Are we just out of luck, or are there still other tricks to help with domes? I've been very disappointed with all of my muffins and cupcakes, as they all come out much flatter topped than I would like. The only time I got a good muffin dome, it was with a recipe that wasn't nearly as tasty as my standard - and taste wins over looks at my house, every time. But, me being me, I want it all - taste AND looks! Back to the drawing board! Any tips or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

I received that one from Crate & Barrel as a gift, and it is actually a Wilton cookie press. I can't remember now if it said it on the press itself or on the box somewhere, but it did say it. I don't know if that's the same model as the one reviewed by CI. I've used it once and after a few false starts, it worked pretty well, once I kinda got the hang of it. I discovered that using parchment paper - which I normally always use - didn't work because it relies on sticking to the pan a little bit to pull the dough off the press. I was worried the cookies would then stick to the pan after baking, but they didn't. The plates it came with are metal, not plastic. Overall, I'm pretty happy with it, but I'll qualify that by saying I'd never used one previously so I don't have anything to compare! lol. Oh and one click did seem to dispense the right amount for one cookie (after a few empty clicks just after filling the barrel to get it going). Two clicks worked also, but it blurred the design quite a bit. Valerie

I've seen these both as "kolaches" and "kolachkys" - both pronounced ko-lah-chee (or ko-lah-khee). I was doing a bit of searching for a recipe on these not too long ago and found tons of them online. Just google a bit. Seems to be originally more of a sweet thing, but has evolved into a savory breakfast thing, at least here in the Houston area. If you discover the trick of successful freezing, I'd love to hear, so do let us know what you find out!

Hey, y'all. I'm fairly new to the Houston area; just moved here about a year and a half ago. I'm originally from Southern California, where there are sushi restaurants about every block or so. I haven't had any sushi since I've been here because my boyfriend is extremely anti-sushi. Consequently, I am now REALLY jonesing for some raw fish! Anyone know of any good sushi places on the Northwest side, that's not toooo terribly expensive? We live in Cypress, near 1960 and Jones. Look forward to hearing what y'all have to say! Valerie

For sugar - take a look at your store brand, rather than reaching for the name brand. I only recently discovered that not all sugar is cane sugar - some of it is beet sugar, which apparently doesn't always act the same in baking as cane sugar (although I haven't personally experienced this). At first, I thought I had to buy C&H or Imperial, which specify cane. Then I noticed the much less expensive store brand also specifies - right on the front - "Cane Sugar." Yay! So, be sure to check. A lot of times store brands are even made by the same manufacturer as the name brands, but cost much less. Oh, and on the wholesale club buying - yes, often much less expensive. However, it is important to price things on a per unit basis (per ounce, per pound, whatever). On certain things, I find that grocery store prices are just as good as or better than warehouse prices and if I don't need the larger size... (specifically things like soft drinks - but the point is, make sure you check).

Ooh, great ideas everybody! Thanks! I will definitely do one or more of these! I knew y'all would know.

I have some leftover bittersweet chocolate ganache and I don't know what to do with it. We're really broke right now so can't afford to buy any special ingredients, but I have typical pantry items on hand - butter, flour, sugar, milk, nuts, etc. Anybody have any suggestions for something fairly quick and easy? My boys are very "sweet" oriented so I need something that will counter the bittersweetness of the ganache. What would you do?

I used my teaspoon sized disher, so it was just about a teaspoon. I think it was the right amount, but they just came out really lumpy, if you know what I mean. Not smoothly distributed throughout the muffin cup, so they were thicker in some parts than other. Just my inexperience, I think. It was good pastry, though. I would recommend it. Came out nice and crisp.

First, a disclaimer. Not only am I sooo not a pro, I, in fact, have only gotten into cooking and baking within the last year. So I'm a complete noob!! But, inspired but all y'all's posts, I got ambitious. After reading a recipe in the Pastry's Best Magazine for a fancy, gourmet "Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup" I made some minis to take to work, day before yesterday. The original called for using a premade Dobla marbled ballerina chocolate cup, fill 1/3 with chocolate ganache, then fill to top with peanut butter mousse, garnish with thin peanut brittle and a white chocolate rose. I was looking for more of a casual peanut butter cup cookie kind of result, so here's what I did: I used the chocolate tartlet pastry recipe from Flo Braker's Sweet Miniatures and made 4 dozen chocolate tarlets. I painted the interiors of these with melted bittersweet chocolate because they had to sit in the fridge over night with the very soft peanut butter mousse in them and I didn't want them to get soggy. I made the chocolate ganache per the Pastry's Best recipe, but it came out waaayyy too runny for what I was envisioning, so I just left that out. Besides, the tartlets were a little thicker than I had thought they would be, so there wasn't tons and tons of room in there. I made the peanut butter mousse per the recipe and piped them into the tartlet shells to the top. I skipped the suggested garnishes and just grated some more bittersweet chocolate over the tops. They came out looking very nice. The shells stayed crunchy and the peanut butter mousse was light and fluffy. Overall, a pretty good success. If I was serving them immediately, I would definitely skip the painting the interior part because that was time-consuming, but it did keep the shells crisp. The things I'd like to improve are: My shells came out very uneven. Thick in some spots and thinner in others with very craggy interiors. Is there some trick to pressing them evently into the pan (I used mini muffin pans) or is this just an experience thing? I think I needed to use milk chocolate instead of bittersweet in there somewhere, as the peanut butter mousse was a little overpowered by the strong chocolate taste. Something a little sweeter would coordinate better, I'm thinking. Anyway, that was my first "mini" experience! Loved it and will definitely be doing more. I've always loved little things and my main culinary love is baking, so this is right up my alley. Thanks for the inspiration guys!

I had the same problems. I looked EVERYWHERE for those stupid cinnamon chips - never did find them and eventually gave up. Then, about 2 months later - just at the store for something else, and lo and behold, there they were. Someone told me they may be seasonal. Now that Fall is getting a little nearer, maybe they'll start showing up at the store again?

I recommend CI's blueberry muffins also. I got it out of the Baking Illustrated book a few months ago and have received major raves with it. They're definitely the best blueberry muffins I've ever made or eaten!

I'd like to add my vote to the request for a demo on this. Based on the conversation here, I'd say I probably haven't been whipping mine enough - as suggested, I'm always afraid I'm going to end up with butter! Next time, I will try whipping longer. Another question though - could climate have anything to do with it? I live in Houston - very humid here. Would humidity, or lack thereof, affect how long the cream will remain stable before weeping?

Moet & Chandon is Dutch?? ← Sorry, I'm wrong. I was thinking Jouet, and got carried away. And with Jouet I'm only going on the word of someone I trust, so maybe that's not wholly true. Retracting, retracting, retracting. . . Moet is FRENCH. Has NEVER been Dutch. Named after Claude Moet. But the "t" is still pronounced. ← Both Moet et Chandon and Perrier Jouet are French Champagne. As matter of fact any Champagne appelation is French. As for the "t" in both names, unfortunatly it is not pronounced whatsoever. ← ← Was this copied in answer to my question about Bonnes Bouches? If so, I don't get it. Can someone provide a phonetic pronunciation for me? Is it something like "bone-ay bo-shay" or am I screwing it up entirely? I know absolutely nothing about French.....

Maybe this was listed in this thread somewhere, but I didn't see it in my scan. Okay, I admit it - I didn't have the patience to read every word of this 12 page thread, so I just scanned! You can shoot me later. The one I want to know how to say is: Bonnes Bouches Anyone?

I just recently read a tip on stabilizing whipped cream that I am looking forward to trying. Rather than adding gelatin, just put marshmallow (don't know how many, though) into your whipped cream a while before you are ready to use it and let it dissolve. Then whip as needed. Since marshmallows do have gelatin in them, I thought this sounded like a reasonable tip. Has anyone tried this before?