Lisa Shock

I make citrus syrup by extracting flavor from the peel with Everclear, then putting some (a few drops to a few spoonfuls) into simple syrup. Some fruit can be extracted well into alcohol, others not so much. A few, like water melon would probably do well centrifuged, with some components then added to syrup.

Agreed that the mainstream appliance makers are building their machines purposefully to wear out faster.

Well, that should freeze just fine. That said, try tossing a cup of frozen corn kernels in (or in the summer, fresh corn straight off the cob), a little brunoise carrot for color, and maybe some finely diced celery to amp up the 'green' flavor. And, of course, diced waxy potatoes like reds are very good too.

How you handle it depends on what you put in it, IMO. I like to put vegetables, like potato cubes, in mine and they, potatoes especially, don't freeze well. I'd start by making a base chile with your meat, the chiles and stock, then split that in half, freeze half and add vegetables to the batch being served first. Then, I'd thaw the second half on the day of the second event, and add the veggies as it's heating up. -In order, carrots take longer to cook than say, corn kernels which only need to be warmed through.

biscuits (the savory bread type, not British cookies), pate choux -then make cream puffs and stuff with savory sandwich things, pate choux -then duchess potatoes, roasting vegetables in general, popcorn, mayonnaise, hollandaise, crackers, laminated dough like croissant or danish dough, pie crust -then make a duck pot pie, roux for sauces and some soups,

350° is too high for cheesecake, a lot of suzie-homemaker recipes call for #25°, but, that's also pretty hot. I prefer to preheat at 350° then reduce the oven to 200°, it takes longer but gives a better, custardy texture.

Everything doesn't infuse into everything else. There's chemistry involved. Vanilla beans are tough husks filled with very oily, very flavorful seeds. Infusing an extra flavor into something oily is possible, but, the flavor compounds have to be fat soluable, and the fat has to be a type which will readily absorb more flavor. Rum gets its flavor from it's ingredients and from aging in barrels. All of its flavor compounds are alcohol soluable, most of them will not be fat soluable. Nobody makes rum (or any booze/wine) flavoring by adding rum to odorless vegetable oil, because it doesn't work. (whereas, with the application of some heat, chile peppers infuse wonderfully into oil) Also, when soaked in alcohol, the vanilla beans themselves lose flavor over time. It takes a while, generally years, but, the rum is getting infused with vanilla, the vanilla seeds (which is what you'll actually be using) aren't being infused with much if any rum because they are mostly oil. So, you're leaving a lot of flavor behind by just pulling the beans out of the rum, leaving the rum behind. There's also the issue of quantities. As John points out, many vanilla extracts are made with rum. I personally added 50% rum to one of my vanilla extract bottles (started with neutral Everclear) and none of my baked goods made with it taste of rum, just Tahitian vanilla. The vanilla flavors are a lot more powerful. To get some distinct rum flavor out of it, you'd have to use a lot -as much or more than you'd use if you just added rum in the first place because the strong vanilla flavor is masking some rum flavor components. And, by the time you used enough vanilla beans to taste the rum, you'd be way, way overdoing the vanilla. Rum or any drinking alcohol, keeps the vanilla beans moist by preventing evaporation (which regular home-use plastic wrap and bags don't do) and keeping them in a solution which happens to have about 50% water, give or take based upon the proof. BTW, some vegetables turn hard in alcohol because they normally have a lot more water in them and the alcohol pulls that water out via diffusion. If you really need the rum flavor without the alcohol, reducing it in a pan and flaming it off (yes, start a fire in your pan) will remove most of the alcohol and the rest should leave as the custard bakes. (alcohol has a very low boiling point) That, or just use a commercial extract, they compound it by using the flavor components (sourced from all over) of rum in a stable base.

I'd use OxyClean before I ever let bleach touch the enamel. Bleach will eat it away over time, I have a relative who ruined a set of pots with bleach, and, I have seen bathtub surfaces ruined by it as well. A quick search of the Le Creuset website's care areas finds no mention of bleach. While the site warns against 'harsh abrasives', Bon Ami does not fall into that category. It does not contain bleach, so it doesn't eat away the surface, and, the original 1886 Formula (look for the red can at hardware stores) is recommended for cleaning glass -even car enthusiasts use it on antique car glass.

About those walnuts: baklava!

There's a small chance that you have a fine, almost invisible layer of protein stuck inside the pan. Like, maybe you slightly overcooked/burnt a stew, and the hardened-on residue is stuck where it was the worst, under the burner. I'd try soaking for an hour, then scrubbing with Bon Ami. However, I'd like to point out that it's probably more likely that the enamel is damaged in those areas, like from being scrubbed too much in the area with an abrasive, bleach-containing cleanser. edited for spelling

There are a bunch of traditional French dessert pies/cakes based on almonds: pithiviers, almond tarts, apple-almond tart, etc.

Don't convert dry weight measure to cups, use a scale. An added bonus is that most electronic scales, even the $20 at the drug store, weigh in both metric and US customary so, you can just follow metric recipes as written. While this item appears to be fairly difficult to make, trying to use measuring cups for dry ingredients may have thrown off your measurements enough to ruin the end result. Most recipes have some 'tolerance' built in into them, so cooks can make errors. But, since using volumetric measure (cups) for dry ingredients can cause the measurement to be 25% too light or 25% too heavy there simply aren't many recipes out that which can withstand such wild swings in ingredient amounts. Try reading eGullet's Kitchen Scale Manifesto. And, remember that there's no regulatory agency in the US checking on the accuracy of measuring cups sold to the public for non-commercial use. So, cups from different manufacturers can hold differing amounts of liquid, meaning that a cup isn't always a cup, or a cup at my house is different from a cup at your house. On day one of my pastry courses, I have students measure a cup of flour however they like and weigh it. Then I have them do it again. No two students in the room get the same number on the scale, and, no student gets the same number twice. And, yes, chickpea flour is VERY different from wheat flour. It does not contain gluten, which is a binder in bread products, so, it needs to be handled differently than, say, AP flour.

You know, we'd like to see pictures of the spread, if possible...

I have baked in similar unglazed cookware, it was from a company that made unglazed posts in shapes specifically for bread. The instructions for their pots had you butter the inside, dust with cornmeal, then soak. Now, this wasn't for no-knead, it was for regular loaves. (you could stop buttering after a few bakes, when it was seasoned) I'd be afraid of the bread sticking if there isn't some sort of layer of fat involved -or parchment paper. If you've baked a lot of chickens in it previously, it should have a seasoned fat coating. If it's new, I'd be careful.

Using butter and oil instead of just butter is a smart move, you generally get moister cakes and longer shelf life with oil.

I have made this pie for clients fairly successfully, changes I made were adding 50% more nuts and changing the corn syrup to dark corn syrup. Once I did half regular corn syrup, half very dark molasses. Anyway, making the brown butter is the key step here, do not skip it.

What's your goal here? Sugar amounts will affect the texture a bit, you'll have to run tests and see if you like the flavor and texture with reduced sugar. If you're trying to make something lower calorie, you really are better off just eating less cake but make it really good and satisfying cake and keep the recipe the same. If you are trying to make a cake more diabetic friendly, remember that the white flour is almost as bad as the sugar is on the glycemic index. And, the fat in the cake helps slow digestion, making it more diabetic friendly. Overall, cake is not a diabetic food, but, the fat is not the culprit here. (with modern medications, diabetics can make more choices and small slice of cake may be fine for certain individuals, when in doubt, ask the individual!)

Panna cotta and blancmange can be flavored with clear flavorings, molded in small silicone molds. then placed onto baked (cookie, pie crust, etc.) bases.

Beautiful scale! Actually, his whole setup looks wonderful.

I really like those photos of that B&W dessert buffet djyee100 linked to. Note that they were creative in using plain black, plain white, and patterned b&w papers, sheaths, cups, etc. to hold some of the desserts like the cupcakes. A lot of the items shown are pretty simple, the papers act as a garnish. The mix of black and white serving pieces also helped the visual appeal. I had one other thought about the food, you may wish to talk to your produce purveyor and see what specialty items they can get. There is a white strawberry, a white watermelon, and some other varieties of melon have white flesh. They could be used in fruit tarts, sorbet, pavlovas, Strawberries Romanoff, etc.

Oreos are made with a special cocoa that is really dark. Do a search for black cocoa and you'll find it, or something similar from a different manufacturer. It's super processed, and isn't quite as flavorful as some cocoas -I'd try to use a little chocolate extract to boost flavor in some recipes. Also, a little black food color will probably be helpful in some cases, like cakes. Flavor wise, there are a lot of extractsand oils which are clear and can be used to flavor creams, icings and fillings. Here are some random ideas: fruit tarts: black cocoa cookie shell, stabilized chantilly cream (maybe flavored with pear essence or orange flower water), topped with glazed blackberries and black grapes and peeled thinly sliced pears or apples (only use types with white flesh) Battenburg cake: use a white sponge cake recipe and a chocolate sponge recipe, work cocoa into marzipan for the icing black cocoa cookie with macadamia nuts, half dipped in white chocolate entremet with layers of cocoa mousse and white mousse (coconut, vanilla, white chocolate flavor) with crispy layers of macadamia nut crunch and black cocoa cookie, dark chocolate glaze on top marshmallows have a good white color, they could be served half-dipped in dark chocolate Italian buttercream also has a nice shiny white color, this would be useful for whoopie pies, mini cupcakes, mini cake slices, etc. meringues are a lovely white, they can be used alone, sandwiched with black cocoa buttercream, and, used for mini-pavlovas with blackberries and black grapes if frozen desserts are possible: coconut sorbet and chocolate sorbet, fleur de lait gelato with chocolate chips, black liquorice ice cream and vanilla ice cream -cups or cones can be made with the black cocoa, or dipped in white chocolate you can buy white or dark chocolate cups (and swirled ones) and make a quick candy or dessert, say, pipe an orange flavored white ganache into a dark cup, or put lychees in them, etc. white and dark chocolate curls are an easy garnish

Were you trying for that multicolor effect, or were the tops behind the transfer supposed to be solid chocolate? (I am assuming the transfer colors were just white and blue.)

Amen. I'd rather eat nothing than a big bowl of ersatz. I know someone who always said he hated whipped cream and did not want it on his desserts. One day, he was where I worked and I handed him a sample of chantilly from the mixer. He loved it, absolutely adored it. Turns out, he grew up in a household that served the ersatz all the time, slathered onto everything sweet, and he never liked the taste -he also felt that it obscured the deliciousness of the actual dessert. Pie was better without it, Jell-o was better without it, etc. I prefer to serve real foods, especially since I serve food professionally to the public. I find it extremely condescending for anyone to attempt to control another person's diet without a directive to do so when they aren't a physician or primary caregiver. Practicing medicine without a license is not the moral high ground here. (as the ex-wife of a doctor, I know a wee little bit about this) I'd be really upset if someone replaced real food with white fluff at my meal. Once again though, I don't understand those who need to slather every dessert with a white foam that more often than not masks the flavor of the dessert it is obscuring. If the dessert is bad, don't serve it. If the dessert is delicious, let it shine on its own. I don't understand why any feels that it's important to have a white foam on a plate at any cost. If the dessert relies on whipped cream, like a mousse or Strawberries Romanov, then just serve the real whipped cream/chantilly for what it is and let individuals decide how much they wish to eat, if they eat it at all. Making an ersatz version doesn't do anyone any favors, and makes checking dietary charts and such for those on special diets more difficult. For example:looking up whipped cream in a chart for diabetics is easy, checking every recipe for whipped, milk and milk-like products not so much. And, since real whipped cream is lower on the glycemic index than most recipes I saw online, it might be preferable to non-fat, sugary whip -at least for diabetics. Now, I have worked professionally as a consultant for a group of diabetics and had my recipes tested for actual numbers, so it is what I am most familiar with in terms of special, dietetic foods. That said, it drives me nuts when lay people think they know what's best for patients and cook them meals without any formal education on the subject. (Dunning-Kruger effect in action) So, before going out and making what you personally think people 'need' you might want to stop and ask yourself why you imagine that the real food is bad, and why you think serving an imitation of that bad food is a good thing -when in fact you could simply serve a different real food (warm fruit compote? cheese & nut plate?) that has all of its flavor and appeal intact.

Read THIS NYT article about wine and cooking. It's my favorite wine review of all time, btw.

Also, try brushing the tops with chicken fat instead of butter.