Lisa Shock

Yes, you are correct, many places buy dough/batter mixes from one big manufacturer. The stuff is cheap, and it's super-simple to handle, so, untrained staff can get consistent results.

I like ones similar to what Kerry has linked to. Some of them have temperature alarms built in so you can walk away, knowing the alarm will sound when it gets to a where you want it to be.

I like to use my wok to make them. The shape of the pan means that less oil is used, and I get a wide surface area.

What kind of cake is this? Seventy minutes is a really, really long time to bake a cake.

Stock contains plenty of food and water for microbes and a pleasant environment for certain spores (which are not killed by boiling) to germinate. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/24/dining/bending-the-rules-on-bacteria-and-food-safety.html?ref=dining&_r=0 You want to get it to 40°F as quickly as possible. In a restaurant setting, the health code allows 4 hours for that process, after that amount of time the quantity of bacteria growing may be at unsafe levels and, they may be releasing larger and larger quantities of toxic chemicals. -However, a really large stockpot represents a large thermal mass. If left out untouched, it can take much more than 4 hours to cool down just to room temperature. And, most home fridges cannot handle a giant mass of almost boiling liquid -you wind up heating up everything in the fridge making it all unsafe. An ice wand is SOP for cooling pots of liquid because it works well,

I have been meaning to get a copy of How to Cook a Wolf by M.K. Fisher. I only hesitate to really recommend it because I have not read it.

Beans, I cook up a large pot then use them all week or freeze some. I think that canned beans are slimy and don't like them. But, I do have several kinds of cooked beans in my freezer. I also use mine to make flat enchiladas.

I got one of these: San Jamar Ice Paddle. You can fill it with regular ice and you use it like an ice wand, but, unlike a regular ice wand, you can easily empty it and put more ice in and keep going. I freeze mine in square or rectangular containers either various steam table type pans or Camwear squares. Once frozen, I pop the stock out and vacuum seal it in bags-essentially forming bricks that stack in the freezer. If you don't have enough containers to do it all at once, refrigerate some of the stock overnight until the first batch is vacuum sealed, and keep going.

It works just fine. I made them for an exam in school, and have served them on catering gigs. Just remember to not fill them until the last minute so they don't get soggy.

The supermarket stuff uses a special type of yeast that is more resilient and tolerant of freezing. Check the ingredients, there are probably also cryoprotectants, and, some frozen doughs also have chemical leaveners (baking powder.)

Usually the culprit is over or under mixing, followed by oven issues. Here's a very good guide to troubleshooting: http://notsohumblepie.blogspot.com/2010/08/macaron-troubleshooting-new-recipe.html#more Happy Baking!

I make it in my blender. Be careful, do not inhale deeply after opening the top.

Thanks for a job well done! I'm sure that I'll be seeing a more relaxed you around the forums. Cheers!

It's the gluten-free flour. Flour is used in roux for its resilience. Substitutes aren't going to work the same way -most gluten-free flour is designed to work in pancakes or biscuits, not as a thickener. A lot of these are rice four, potato flour, or sorghum with various gums and maybe gelatin, and those starches and additives don't have the properties of wheat flour. You might try arrowroot. It's not the same, but, it holds up to hot holding and reheating.

I used to use MasterCook, but, it's not compatible with modern operating systems. I have a handwritten notebook of notes on works in progress and WordPerfect files of finished recipes. I have a separate Windows folder of saved recipes from various sources that I want to try.

The darker glass items do cook faster than the clear. Generally, you can set your oven 25° lower if using dark glassware. That said, I don't trust it anymore. Pyrex isn't what it used to be. Try searching for 'exploding pyrex.' I'd use ceramic over glass. But, it does hold heat and doesn't cool as quickly as metal.

When I worked for a caterer, we'd get requests like this. Often it was people who saw someone on TV make something and they printed the recipe from the tv show website and then expected us to make it for 600 people. We'd just price accordingly and give it to them no matter how stupid the method or how silly the food. That said, we did give people samples of or regular menu items, but, the temptation of a picture is hard to beat. I think people imagine some things taste better than is actually possible in some circumstances. One vivid instance was a woman who wanted us to make about 100 loaves of a dill cottage cheese bread. (which she handed out for Hanukkah telling people that she made them at home all by herself) She didn't want us to scale up the recipe and use professional bakery methods. And, of course, the recipe used volumetric measure for dry ingredients. She wanted each loaf measured and mixed individually and kneaded by hand. We did it, it took the whole team of eight two days to do it and we did nothing else at all during that time. But, she paid us $27 per loaf and she came by to supervise the kneading part. If I'd been allowed to re-work the formula for weight-based measure and used the big Hobart, 1-2 people could have been done with it in 2 batches (maybe six hours total, tops) -at a retail cost of $7 per loaf. In the end the customer was happy, and we got paid.

It's really very easy to make at home: http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/02/how-to-make-fresh-ricotta-fast-easy-homemade-cheese-the-food-lab.html

The fresh can be eaten raw, think of them like halfway between a bell pepper and a jalapeno. When I lived in Santa Fe, I saw people put them raw in a lot of things. They can be good, seeded and sliced, in salads. (I like them in gingery cumber salads with sesame oil, rice vinegar and soy sauce.) Seeded and diced they are great in guacamole or salsa. A lot of people just chop them and toss them on top of foods as a finishing touch.The skin is only an issue when the peppers are cooked, then, it's like plastic. If it were a little later in the year, I'd suggest adding the fresh ones to raw cranberry orange relish.

In many countries, including the US, they are illegal to sell to the public in their raw state.

BTW, When I think of Ruhlman on water, I think of these: http://ruhlman.com/2008/09/in-defense-of-w/ http://ruhlman.com/2007/11/thanksgiving-th/ And, as an aside, I'd like to point out that vegetable stocks can be made for pennies by using scraps, peels, etc. I freeze scraps until I have enough to make vegetable stock. But, for a lot of things, I like water.

About risotto, I know this isn't perhaps traditional, but, when I was in culinary school, on the day we made risotto, I decided to be a rebel and use water instead of the chicken stock. I doubled up on the herbs and cooked them in the water as a huge bouquet garni before starting. I got the top grade in class that day, and only after the grade was recorded did I tell the instructor that I didn't use the stock. -He didn't believe me until I showed him my pot of hot liquid.

I agree, for certain soups and sauces, I'd rather taste the ingredient than stock. I've had artichoke soup where all one could taste was chicken stock. In a lot of cases, I would prefer to have a stock made from the main ingredient of the soup, like carrot stock for carrot soup, or a complementary flavor like some onion stock in a miso soup. But, I have been places where everything tasted the same because they cooked everything in one stock. I have really become enamored of clean, pure flavors as of late and the easiest way to accomplish this is to not throw everything into the pot, so to speak.

The original thermometer you linked to can be used to take the temperature of oil, you just need to be careful to just keep the plastic part out of the oil. Its range is: -67to 572F/-55 to 250C, deep frying temps fall well withing that range. (the brief description at the top of the listing is wrong, check the product details)

The top of that thermometer will melt if placed inside an oven.Here a regular oven thermometer, here's the newer digital oven thermometer.