Lisa Shock

Scones can be savory: cheddar, bacon, Parmesan & oregano, etc. You could make crepes and fill them with a cold filling like raw fresh fruit. If you could bring in chafing dishes with fuel canisters, your options would be greater: breakfast burritos, breakfast sandwiches, hot fillings for lunch sandwiches like pulled pork or sloppy joes.

I've done it, the main issue is that they can easily get too cold. The LN2 Primer is a good place to start. I have always used my stand mixer, but then I have only done this for groups, where I wanted fairly large amounts. You really do have to taste test everything, the cold affects flavor a little. Also, anything carbonated will lose the carbonation. Overall, I found it to be mostly too much trouble unless the group was large enough to consume a couple quarts of drink at once. Don't forget safety issues!

I don't recall seeing a thread on baked goods, but, since most pastry isn't normally kept in a cold case (refrigeration makes crisp pastries soggy) you could probably get by with a cooler and gel packs for it. I personally would not hold purchased items. You'll be held hostage when the time comes to leave if they don't return promptly. Also, I used to work as a district manager for a famous specialty food company that has seasonal stores in malls. We had to implement a policy of 'no holds' because we had consumers in several states claim that the gift wrapped, purchased food being held had been tampered with (seals broken, foods injected with poisons) while they were away. As far as we could tell, the claims were bogus, but we needed to reduce our potential for liability. So food never left the sight of the consumer and the gift wrapping program ended. I'd be wary of people returning and claiming that what you're handing over isn't what they bought, or worse, that you somehow tried to injure them.

You might just want to read up more on wine pairing in general, and go on a few tasting expeditions to some local wine shops. Just knowing that a meal will be vegan doesn't really help at all with pairing. You've got to look at the actual foods themselves and then decide. There are vegan wines, BTW. There isn't an enormous selection, but, I have had some very tasty bottles -especially from Oregon. Ask about them at your local wine shop.

I'd go straight to the oven. If you thaw, condensation will appear and wet them, causing some gluten development that you don't want. Also, the sugar in them will draw moisture and possibly become liquid, which would also be undesirable.

I usually refrigerate my pans of cookies after shaping. The end product tends to look neater.

The basic sherry cobbler recipe from Jerry Thomas is: 4 oz sherry 2-3 slices orange 2 bar-spoons sugar It's shaken with ice, hard. Then, it gets garnished with lots of berries. You could try this without sugar and see how it goes, maybe add bitters. Berries are in season right now, which is why I thought of this drink. Here are more cobbler ideas.

I'd use it for cocktails, a cobbler in particular. I'd just reduce the sugar content of a recipe a bit then adjust to taste.

Most woks make decent popcorn; they are my favorite vessel for stovetop popcorn. The pan may be worth holding on to if you eat it regularly. Have a big bowl ready. Just heat, brush oil all over (something you wouldn't have to do with an ordinary seasoned wok), then add a small amount of oil, about a quarter cup, and toss in 2-3 kernels and cover. when the test kernels pop toss in more corn, you want enough so that it's only about half submerged in oil. Cover and shake occasionally, turn the heat off as the popping slows. Shake one last time to see if that gets a lot more pops, or not, and pour into the bowl. And, yeah, I would try contacting the company, even with a handwritten letter.

That's pretty much the way I make my onion soup, although I got my recipe long, long ago... My advice is to use white onions, not yellow ones -the yellow ones never seem to break down properly. And, red/purple are too sweet IMO, although some people swear by adding a small % red onion. If it comes out too pale in color, add a tiny amount of Worcestershire or dark soy sauce.

I never thought to grind the granules, I always just tossed the ingredients in my Oster classic beehive blender (circa 1996, real chrome on steel not the newer wimpy one) and let it run for a while, maybe 3 minutes... It makes a paste sort of like honey butter, keeping it in the fridge may stiffen it up a little. It's not attractive, but it works. Sometimes I apply it by putting on a disposable kitchen glove and scooping it up and on the pan with just my fingers. It's always worked very well for me with baked goods: breads, cakes, etc.

The oil allows the temperature of the carrots, a fat free vegetable, to rise above the temperature of boiling water as it cooks, and, therefore to allow caramelization to occur. McGee covers this in a discussion of roasting potatoes with and without rubbing them with oil.

Silicone is an insulator and negatively affects the baking of cakes and the like. Cake sticks to the pan, cooks oddly (tops browning before sides or bottoms), and the pans need support structures to prevent them from deforming and producing odd shaped items. I've tried a lot of different items, from individual cupcake 'papers' to large molds and the cake stuck every time. The only thing I use silicone for is custards and eggy/wet things like cheesecake which for some reason do pop out cleanly. But, I could live without them. Flexipans hold their shape much better and can turn out much more detailed cheesecakes, I am not fond of them for cake. Also, they need to be handled and cleaned with care. I wouldn't use them in a large operation unless I could personally train and oversee the diswashing staff.

I really enjoyed it, the book takes time to explain the functions of various ingredients.

Cast iron can also get too hot and stay there for too long, making crunchy eggs... I toss out the oil/lecithin mixture after about a year, just in case. (I often make a half-batch at a time.) With the BHT, which prevents rancidity, it's probably ok for use for a lot longer, but, I don't have a lab to check on it. I am concerned -because it's whipped in the blender, oxygen has gotten to all of it, unlike a regular bottle of oil where just the top is exposed. (and, of course, oils can be rancid and full of cancer-causing compounds before you can smell that it's gone off) I vacuum seal the lecithin granules and store those in the fridge to use later. I have kept some of those for up to five years, sealed. It does create less brown sticky stuff, mostly because I apply it only where it's needed, there's no stray drops on odd areas like with a spray. It's also nice because it doesn't wind up oiling your kitchen, and can't be inhaled by you or your pets. (IMO, a goodly % of the greasy crud that forms on kitchen cabinets and range hoods is pan spray.) BTW, don't use olive for for this, it not only tends to burn but, it's super-firm when cold and difficult to use.

I have not been able to make a spray, but, I have been making the non-stick pan coating from the Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book for years. It works really well with baked goods, I keep a jar in the back of the fridge. My only change to the recipe is that I add a tablespoon of BHT to a quart of oil and let it dissolve overnight before using. (prevents rancidity) 1/2 cup lecithin -I have only used the granules from the health food store 1 cup vegetable oil (use a type that will not burn at high heat, I use peanut) Pour into a blender and mix well for a minute, store in the refrigerator. Apply evenly with a pastry brush or paper towel.

Worth thinking about. Baking may satisfy me ... it's certainly healthier. Never cooked with silicon ... You can use a regular muffin pan or ramekin or tempered glass cup, just oil or spray with pan spray. I like silicon because it's easy to pop the final product out of and, because it's an insulator, you don't tend to get dark sides. I hate silicon for everything except eggs, custards and cheesecake. I would not heat the ham and cheese with the eggs. The ham will dry out in the oven and probably release water into the egg making them watery and hard to cook. The cheese also interferes with the egg cooking, it will be hot and runny making unmolding difficult, and, it can be heated simply by putting it on the muffin as soon as the muffin is done toasting.

People cooked eggs for a long time before the advent of teflon and Pam. Generally, you use more oil than you would of Pam. Cast iron is fine, but you need to work quickly as it is less responsive than steel. I grew up with steel and learned to turn out eggs (scrambled, fried, omelets) in it as part of learning to cook. My suspicion is that you are heating the pan too high for eggs, and you may not be using enough oil.

Sugar is hygroscopic.

Depending upon how you like your eggs, you may wish to consider baking them rather than frying. Silicon muffin (or other shape) pans, if sprayed with pan-spray, work very well for this purpose. In the oven, you'll get even cooking and don't have to worry about flipping. You can also make several at once.

Several people have run tests in the past. Here's a good analysis of what happens when you cook with this method: http://www.amazingribs.com/tips_and_technique/debunking_beer_can_chicken.html And, here's the results of a test by one of the guys at Cooking For Engineers: http://www.cookingforengineers.com/article/171/Beer-Can-Chicken Essentially, aside from the position of the chicken allowing the entire skin to crisp, the method is worse than useless.

Try checking out Jeff Varasano's Youtube channel.

Got myself the MC baking steel. Haven't had time to try it yet, but my plan is to freeze it and then pull it out and see how quickly it can (if it can) chill pie crust dough that's been rolled out on a silpat. (I may run a time test comparing silpat to parchment.) I also want to see if it will chill scooped out cookie dough, which I usually refrigerate for 20 minutes before baking, and if it will help me with unleavened pate sucre style cookie dough (mix, chill, roll out, chill, cut into shapes, maybe chill, place on silpat and bake.) My idea is to see if I can use the steel instead of the fridge, or freezer, especially at home where it's BIG deal to clear out even a half sheet pan's worth of space. If I make chocolates at home anytime soon, I will also play with piping on the steel and just placing molds on it instead of in the fridge.

You should probably read this NYT article on cookbook ghostwriters. I wouldn't trust most celebrity cookbooks nowadays. My exceptions are: Raymond Blanc, Hervé This, The Ideas in Food team, the Adrias. This all depends on what you're interested in, but, I'd say get a grounding in the basics first. You can pick up perfectly usable reprints of Escoffier (although watch out some of his are condensed editions), Ranhofer, Soyer, etc. Also pick up one of the CIA or LCB's basic texts on cooking. They will take you through material a bit more in-depth than Julia did. Older editions of these are mostly fine. There are a few occasions when a scientific discovery makes a procedure obsolete. (for example, modern pasteurization makes scalding milk unnecessary for use in bread doughs) Honestly, you'll do fine at first with a $10 copy of Professional Cooking that's 9 years old. New versions come out every 2-3 years, so, you'll be ready to buy a newer one maybe in 5 years. Anyway, I am always amazed at how many recipes I see in celebrity cookbooks that are just basics that could be found anywhere. I now mostly focus on in-depth books on world cuisines and confectionery, in both cases I look for those aimed at a professional audience; I don't need to be told how to make a basic roux or ganache.

There shouldn't be any problem scaling up the doughs. That said, how much experience do you have with yeast breads? The temperatures are critical, especially for large batches. A large mass of dough proofing can become fairly warm just from yeast action, something that isn't as apparent in smaller batches due to faster heat diffusion into the room due to small size. Temp the water you start with get a friction factor number for your mixer, and temp the dough along the way to get consistent results. We used a handheld depositor, but, this was in the early 1980s, so, I am sure everything has changed. I do not have a cake recipe offhand. I will check my older professional baker's books. In the meantime, you might want to experiment with making small batches of muffin batter (check page 222 of my link in my first post) and frying that and seeing how it turns out. I am thinking that a cake doughnut should be a bit more like an old-school, slightly dry muffin to hold its shape. Modern muffin recipes are almost indistinguishable from cake recipes, and, super-moist cake doesn't hold together very well. HERE's a guide to troubleshooting both kinds of doughnuts that looks useful. Oh yeah, I've been slowly testing old recipes intended for use with cake scraps and using stale vanilla cake doughnuts and posting results in the Cake Scraps thread. Just a heads-up if you have leftovers to deal with.