Lisa Shock

We've got a variety of topics about chocolate tempering and finishes.

I don't have a lot of experience using them, but, don't some steam/hot water jacketed kettles have cooldown cycles? I realize that these cycles probably only go down to the temperature of your tap water (often way above 40°F, at least here in Phoenix) but, still, getting a large pot of soup made and then partway cooled in one vessel seems like an advantage. I see 20 gallon units for sale for just under $10k. You'd have to do a labor cost analysis to see if this sort of purchase makes sense, and, see if you have space to plumb one in. If it saved 2-3 hours of work a day, it might pay for itself in about a year or so, but, that's a rough guesstimate.

HERE's a list of popular cocktails of the period. Highballs and Planter's Punch were also very popular at the time, and would be easier/faster to make and they could also be made weak, if so desired. Punch could obviously be made up in advance and just poured over ice and garnished with citrus. Highballs could be offered in a couple combinations by having bourbon and brandy on hand with soda water or ginger ale offered, with simple citrus garnish.

I have a model that has a wide mouth and allows you to pour ice into it. No waiting to freeze, you can keep going all day if needed, and, it can be stored in regular dry storage, doesn't take up room in the freezer.

I had the opportunity to speak to a chemist yesterday and asked him about cinchona and extracting the quinine from it. (early on in this thread, thee was speculation about different solvents) He said that water with added acid, like the citric acid that's in most recipes, would be one of the best ways extract the quinine from the bark -for those of us without access to fancy extraction machines. This sync's up with my, limited research in old formula books where I found a recommendation to use hydrochloric acid to encourage the quinine to mix with the water. Essentially, grain alcohol would be better than plain water, but, water with acid works better than alcohol, in this case. Right now, I have a small jar of Everclear with the peels from a lemon, lime, and orange along with some allspice berries in it. The flavor is pretty intense and I am fairly certain that I wont need all of it. I am taking apart Jeffrey Morgenthaler's recipe and am probably going to wind up re-assembling it with different proportions. I am debating whether or not lemongrass is needed at all, but, I have a small amount in Everclear as well -I'll test the flavor as an additive at the end. -Same with the juice from the lemon, lime and orange -the fruit is waiting in the fridge right now. I am thinking of substituting my 'complex syrup' made with jaggery and gum arabic for the agave syrup.

I'm about to embark on a few experiments with making my own tonic. I recently acquired a Primo Flavorstation soda machine and a bunch of accessories on the cheap, it's discontinued, and want to make something special for my first batch of homemade soda. Anyway, I've looked around at some formulas here and other places online, and have some ideas for changes based on personal preference. I notice that some recipes have you boiling citrus peel and in some cases juice, along with dry things like allspice berries for about twenty minutes. IMO, cooked lemon peel isn't a great flavor. (ditto for lime and orange) I am thinking about finely grating the zest into a small amount of grain alcohol and letting it infuse for a couple of days. Then, adding the strained infusion at the end of the process, to the cooled, strained product along with freshly squeezed juice. Yes, it will make the tonic alcoholic, but, that's not really a problem when it's just for home consumption. I also know it won't have a long shelf life, but, I'll be keeping the base refrigerated and using it all up within 5 days. (if it's good, I'll take some to a friend's birthday party) I'm also willing to bet that my tonic will be cloudy, but, I don't care. Anyone foresee any issues I might have with this?

Rice and other grains has varying moisture content depending on age, storage conditions, etc. Even when using the same pot, I get different results with different crop years and of course different rice types. Sometimes, with really fresh, imperial Japanese rice I can get away with a 1:1 water:rice ratio while with the same pan, my aged basmati needs 2:1. The height of the pan is a factor. There's a big difference between a paella pan with no lid and a 12qt stockpot. In the stockpot the water and then rising steam is able to affect more grains of rice and you thus need less water. Also, a lid will retain moisture, meaning you'll use less water. If I make lots of rice, restaurant quantities, I use about 1/4 less water than I would if I made just a cup or two of the same type, just because of the height involved. (in general, in most kitchens, there's a limit as to how wide you can go, so bigger pots are taller. Yes, I have seen those paella pans that are big enough for a family to use as a kiddie pool, but, most of us don't have the setup to cook with one.

I don't think it would kill you right away, water generally isn't as acidic as many foods, but I also don't think it's good for you. You can get an electric kettle for under $20, or a new classic stovetop kettle for under $10 -I'd recycle the old pot and get a new one.

I like to drop them into a bowl of noodle soup at the last minute. Just a little cooking in a simple broth is perfect for me.

Well, reporting is very infrequent. Even the CDC admits their numbers are only estimates. It's thought that one in six Americans gets a foodborne illness every year. Yet, look back through these forums at how many people claim that they've never known anyone who has suffered a foodborne illness. (I myself had salmonella when I was eleven and e.coli when I was 28.) Most people don't go to a doctor for mild cases. Those with worse cases may go to a doctor, but might not be tested for the precise cause. Outbreaks, cases with more than one victim, and those with younger victims tend to get reported more frequently, but not consistently. When an elderly person who is already ill with some other condition dies, often times no autopsy is performed and no screening for other illness, so, foodborne illness is vastly under reported in the elderly population. I volunteer with a non-profit that works with people in hospice, we almost never see someone autopsied. (food gets brought in from outside all the time) I've heard anecdotal evidence from friends that they were made ill by food in a restaurant, but, they never bothered to report it to any officials. That said, I think people are far more likely to report bad food in a restaurant than they are to turn on their grandmother and report her for making them ill. You can see improvement in the number of cases of most foodborne illness as education mandates became stricter for frontline foodservice employees. Most large outbreaks in the past 25 years have been related to large corporate raw food producers or packers, not individual restaurants like that Canadian one in the 80s that sickened 37 people.

Room temperature can be different temps to different people. Here in Phoenix, in the summer, people often let it get into the high 80s (F) because of air conditioning costs when the outside air is around 122°F. Some other places, in the winter, it might be 58°F. I have seen some wedding halls hold cakes in hot hallways next to their kitchen, or in unheated hallways near the outdoors where it's close to freezing. So, try to get an accurate number from the venue. Yes, cream stabilized with gelatin will generally hold up for a few hours at least. Run tests, and let the bride see results. She might not be happy and decide to switch to italian buttercream or white chocolate ganache at the last minute.

The whipped cream used as frosting on supermarket cakes is real cream but it also has a bunch of chemical stabilizers. Safeway sells theirs in the dairy case. It's not labelled as icing, it's in the dairy case with other packages of cream, IIRC it says 'whipping cream' with a subtitle implying that it's already sweetened. Just look at the ingredients, and the one with more than 4 is it. That stuff will remain good looking for days, if kept refrigerated. Safeway customers just love this stuff, it's their number one icing in stores located in wealthier neighborhoods. I think customers believe that it's healthier, somehow. Your best bet is to try and do a tasting and show her a cupcake with your whipped cream on it after it's been sitting out for several hours.

I make cookies both ways, I have a nice spritz formula that uses raw almond paste -something you can buy at the supermarket, if you like. I make an almond butter cookie made with roasted almond butter (like a peanut butter cookie), you can buy this at the health food store or grind roasted almonds with an immersion blender to make almond butter. For anything else, I lightly roast the almonds first.

I think that pronunciation comes from the fact that the rolled type of icing was extremely popular in Australia before it was big in Britain (where it's alternate name used to be Australian Icing) and then finally finding popularity in the US. I think some people (influential television personalities) were simply imitating instructors they had worked with from AU/UK who would naturally pronounce it this way -disregarding the fact that it's exactly the same word as we use for the poured icing we use on petit-fours , napoleons, and in Cadbury Eggs.

That company is ok, but, that's not a great board. You want end grain wood,not sideways wood. Check out this thread on choosing a cutting board. BoardSmith boards are the best.

One reason why I'd be nervous about freezing vacuum sealed garlic is the number of times we've had people start message threads here about how their electricity went out and the contents of their freezer got warm. Freezing doesn't kill botulism spores. It just slows their activity and they won't reproduce. But, bring them up to 50°F+ in their their favored anaerobic environment (vacuum sealed) with plenty of low-acid, low-salt food (mushy, formerly raw garlic) and you'll potentially have issues after about 2 hours. If you live alone, and remember to toss the package if it gets unfrozen, great. If you go on vacation and let a house-sitter live there for two weeks every year, or have a forgetful mother-in-law who leaves food out on the counter, it might become an issue. You can freeze it with some air in the bag, you could make a chopped mixture and add some salt and acid and freeze in a container with some air in it (easier to scoop out), you could make a chopped mixture and freeze it in tiny ice cube trays then pop out into a zipper baggie or seal with some air, etc. Oxygen, acid, and salt are the main ways to prevent botulism growth.

I think it's a variation of the various quick cakes people make with the siphon. I do not have a recipe, but, if you imagine using something between a quick bread (say beer bread) recipe and cake batter minus the sugar and flavoring, it seems fairly straightforward. I think a burger bun was made because some types have a softness similar to cake. -Unlike, say ciabatta bread. I am guessing that egg binds it because there isn't a lot of gluten development, and a fairly high fat content keeps it tender.

Part of the issue here is that modern tomato varieties are less acidic than they used to be. There were some really drastic changes in tomato types in the 60s and 70s that improved storage but changed the flavor and pH. So, wisdom from one's childhood no longer applies.

Sorry, I let my membership lapse a couple of years ago, but, thought I seen good formulas there. (I have a weight-based muffin recipe, now I wonder where it came from...) Very sorry to have mislead you.

Check the date, that recipe appeared in the January 1997 magazine, before they added weight based measurement. Try a recipe from 2003 or later. Also, I would like to add that I based my comment above on a memory of discussion of scales and weighing ingredients on the tv show.

They look very good, really. These are just one of those things you have to practice for a while to perfect. But, you are clearly going down the right path.

But aren't non-TCS foods those that don't require time/temperature control for safety - ie - not potentially hazardous? It's my understanding that non-TCS foods, the page 23 description of which includes raw meats, are not recommended for packaging and some types of storage. In terms of numbers, some years it's 37 people dead, others 22 dead and in others 11 or 5, so yes, it varies and the numbers are far less than they were before electric refrigeration was commonplace. " I started with this recipe and over the years I've gotten way more casual about quantities and steeping times. It works." The steeping time referred to here is at room temperature. With garlic oil, once you exceed two hours you enter the danger zone.

Page 23 of the 2013 food code does a pretty good job of explaining untreated garlic-in-oil concoctions; the pH and Aw scores place it squarely on the chart as a non-TCS food. Storing garlic oil at all is a bad idea; refrigeration slows the botulism spores but does nothing to kill them. Even sites recommending refrigerated storage specifically mention 3 days as the maximum time it can be kept. About 145 people die each year from botulism, about 15% of them from foodborne toxins. When there's an outbreak, meaning multiple people being poisoned, it's usually from poorly home-canned goods. But, the high number of garlic oil related deaths was the impetus for the FDA to add mention of it specificallly to the 1998 food code.

Annie Sommerville's linked recipe uses just raw garlic and oil, no salt, no acid. It recommends allowing 30 minutes 'steeping' at room temperature. It also recommends storing garlic oil in the refrigerator indefinitely. Even older sanitation references that mention refrigeration give a three day maximum for holding the oil. I have never seen any reliable source recommending indefinite storage under refrigeration. Most guides also note that freezing will not kill the spores, just slow them. And, of course, any toxins produced are deadly at any temperature. Of course, best recommendation is to eat garlic oil immediately. Even two hours at room temperature can result in significant amounts of toxin. Botulism isn't one organism. It's a group of them and each type has a different ideal temperature for spore growth. Some types are slowed by refrigeration (if the refrigerator in question is reliably under 41°F -if the fridge gets to 50° most botulism will thrive) some types not so much. With a 30 minute room temperature steeping followed by months or possibly years of refrigeration, people are bound to culture a significant amount of spores and their toxin.

I think at Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen/Cook's Country they test by weight then convert. Yes, flour has a lot of variation. At the beginning of a semester of basic pastry class, on day one, I have every student scoop out a cup of flour, then weigh it. Then, I have them do it again. If they like, I let them go for a third and fourth round. I let them do it however they like. No two people in a class get the same result, and, no one ever gets the same number twice themselves. It's the one part of day one that never changes, no matter who I am teaching. Sites that give a number of ounces for flour conversion tend to give different numbers from each other, too. King Arthur Flour says 4.25 ounces. Rose Levy Berenbaum and Julia Child say 5 ounces. There are lots of answers all over the web, and, it's no better in metric -I see 110g, 120g, 150g and lots of numbers in between.