Lisa Shock

Honestly, I use the probe type with the long cord for sugar and haven't found anything better. I like the alarm feature, it means I can step away from the pot for a few minutes without worry.

I use a screen with a stone. The screen helps me build more topping-heavy pizzas. At the pizza place I worked at as a teenager, we put the pizzas in the oven (gas fired deck ovens) on screens and pulled the screen out after about 3 minutes. Total cooking time per pie was about 12 minutes.

Callebaut packages their chocolates with a chart showing which types are appropriate for certain applications. The chart has little drops on it. The fineness of the conching as well as the split are what's important. Generally, couveture has more cocoa butter and less cocoa mass, and, is conched for a longer period of time for greater smoothness. Callebaut chips are definitely a step up from grocery store brands, but will produce a coarser coating than the Callets or their other couvetures.

I'd love to know why he's so attached to this since most customers won't even recognize this as a big technical achievement. That and has anyone pointed out that while the custard is optimally served cold, cake is not at its best when chilled?

THIS article, 'I Was a Cookbook Ghostwriter' just appeared in the New York Times today. I think it explains some of my lack of interest in most modern cookbooks. The chefs whose names are on them didn't write them after years of work on the recipes, heck the recipes are often barely tested. The prose isn't by the actual chef, there's virtually nothing genuine in them at all. My current favorite books are theme cookbooks from the 1960s like The Pyromaniacs Cookbook or Scheherazade Cooks! -these are books by non-chefs, but the recipes are well tested and represent a labor of love by the author. My other obsession is older (pre-WW2) pastry books showing techniques rarely used nowadays. Pastillage hats anyone?

What about something with a cherry gastrique? -maybe duck or pate, or maybe quail legs.

The Kenwoods are sold in the US as Cuisinart brand. For a while they were sold by DeLonghi. I have made bread several times a week in my Delonghi since 2005, no issues so far.

Are Kenwoods available there?

Cheesecake doesn't take much time to prep, and can be frozen. The only issue I see with it is the cooking then cooldown. But, you could bake it one day, then freeze and pull out to sell at the next event. It can be made in mini sizes for single servings. Most cookie doughs can be frozen. Cake can go straight to the freezer, so you could be pulling out rounds and just making icing on the day. You could make mini or full sized fruit tarts if you have pate sucre made in advance. The pastry cream doesn't take long to make. And, once you make pastry cream, you have the basis for a lot of desserts like Napoleons. You could prep a bunch of foil pie pans with sucre dough in advance and keep them frozen.

I usually serve a savory pie for dinner, plus a pie dessert. In past years, I have done a pizza rustica, golden curry filling, and a korma filling.

You need to regulate the temperature to maintain quality, the health department likes 125° for holding. And ,try not to make recipes with acidic sauces because the longer the broccoli sits in the sauce the more it develops an ugly khaki color.

The curdling is due to it being baked at too high of a temperature. You're trying to marry two things with very different oven needs into one pan.

Blitz from Professional Baking.

I was surprised to get coffeecake at several places in Tokyo and it was coffee flavored -what appeared to be a cinnamon swirl in a cake style was actually an espresso swirl. Also, here in Phoenix, I was asked by some people from India for a good coffeecake recipe because they hadn't been able to get any at local bakeries. They didn't understand why it was never coffee flavored.

Every good food related job I have gotten was from a lead I got networking. Keep in touch with people from old jobs via LinkedIn. Join the ACF. If you went to culinary school join their alumni association. Work Facebook for connections. Do volunteer work cooking when you can, it allows more people to see how you work and give recommendations to others.

I'd make mayonnaise with the juice and a liqueur from the peel.

Full sized taco shell makers are metal with rubberized handles. I wouldn't use wood to deep fry with as it will get cooked along with the food. If you can fabricate something, I'd start with two perforated metal discs, bend them to the proper shape then figure out a way to attach a handle or hold with tongs while they fry nestled together with the shell inside.

Same here. I keep telling myself that I'll use them for glazing pastry or something, but I have lots of unopened jars of things like pear jelly in the cupboard.

The first picture isn't of a baked pie. The browning is from a torch, that's why you see so much glossy white underneath. It's food stylist food, not real food. (years of grading cheating students comes in handy on occasion...)

Chilling allows time for the gluten to relax. It also affects baking in that the cookie will start to develop its final texture on the outside which then helps prevent spread, making a taller overall final product which steams itself a little bit as it cooks making it a little more cakelike. Sometimes little touches like this can really affect a final outcome.

I haven't done it, but, I know that you'd have to be careful about temperatures because the peanuts in peanut butter are already toasted and would be more likely to burn if it gets too hot.

Thing is, I have seen tempering machines for around $400...

The catering company I work for occasionally refuses to provide chocolate fountains because you have to add so much oil to make a fountain run that the chocolate winds up being not very good -like 40%+ oil, not very tasty.

Sometimes I use animal crackers, don't know if you have those. When I do, I never say what I used, but, people always comment on how it reminds them of something from their childhood....

Probably on sale because places stock up on these things before the fall/winter holidays and now they need to get rid of overstock to make room for spring/summer items heading into season.