miladyinsanity

There are colored tapioca balls. Not sure where you could find them though.

I hear you. Mom doesn't buy farmed shrimp any more, because there'll be leftovers that remain untouched.

Cake cake cake cake cake cake. No contest. I don't do pie at all, because I don't like crust--unless it's the crust on a really good loaf of bread. Chocolate cake, cupcakes, flourless cake, you name it, I'll eat. I don't do frosting either. I admit to making extra ganache to lick though.

Sure. The recipe is from Sherry Yard's book, The Secrets of Baking. Well, sorta -- the recipe and the photo in the book portray two different assemblies, and I assembled according to the photo. From top to bottom you have a chocolate short dough, a whipped caramel cream made with Yard's caramel sauce, a chocolate glaze, and a vanilla tuile garnish. ← I saw an equally pretty one on Kuidaore just a few days ago. Seems that the Tart is named for a retired chocolatier who worked at Mars. I'm drooling over the brownies.

Hey, if he's worth keeping, he won't bat an eyelid. Cheesecake for me. At breakfast, no less. ← He's worth keeping. A dessert tasting at Mistral followed by desserts from the Barking Frog on our first date? WORTH KEEPING. Cheesecake for breakfast! You do me proud! I had prime rib (leftovers) and peanut butter cookie dough for breakfast. ← I actually planned to have chocolate cake and brownies for breakfast. But then I woke late, so had to run out the house without cake or brownies. There is, of course, always tomorrow.

Hey, if he's worth keeping, he won't bat an eyelid. Cheesecake for me. At breakfast, no less.

Shaloop, if you go to Amazon, I believe it is one of the Look Inside Me pages.

Baked goods. There's something about the smell of pastries and cookies and cakes--even if they don't turn out as good as they smell. This has to explain why I managed to inhale practically half the oatmeal raisin cookies I made today while baking, and then washing up.

Malamute5, how are your experiments going? I mixed up a batch and baked them off--according to numbers/ratios I pulled out of my head. They turned out find, but need more liquid to they'll spread out a bit more and definitely more raisins.

The little blue balls are copper (II) sulphate.

I *think* you can thin out the cream of coconut to use as coconut milk. I can get it fresh here, so I've never tried.

Austin, depending on the distribution of the book, you might like to have a list of possible substitutes for the harder to find stuff. Yeah, it won't taste the same, but it'd be useful.

JeanneCake, I've a recipe for Alfajores, but I've no idea where I got it from. I could PM it to you if you like--it's already in my computer.

I haven't made this yet, but I'm thinking if you pour your next layer onto the previous layer using the back of a spoon to soften the "pour" it may prevent the first layer from moving. ← It does. Well, it does for agar-agar, so I imagine it'd work just fine for Jello too.

Cool. That's how ice packs work, right? Ammonium chloride dissolving in water is an endothermic reaction and reduces the temperature of the solution. That's the textbook example. ← Yeah. I couldn't find anything stating that it is, but it should be.

If it tastes of anything, Steve, you should be throwing the entire box out. I'd say that it's got to do with the enthalpy of dissolution aka the enthalpy change of solution usually being endothermic. That means the overall enthalpy change is positive, because more energy is taken in than is given out. If more energy is given out, the enthalpy change is exothermic, and the surrounding temperature will increase--and vice versa. So if you infer from the fact that icing sugar dissolving on your tongue feels cool, therefore the enthalpy of dissolution of sugar is endothermic. That does not make a lot of sense even to me, and might be completely wrong.

Mmmm... that sounds delicious. Thanks for adding this technique. I will look for a recipe for kaya! ← Oh no! I forgot. I told an eGulleter I'd get my mom's recipe, but I never did. Edited to add: She should be making it soon, so I can PM you if you want (she makes it in number of coconuts, not cans of coconut milk).

Flapjacks make good cereal if you smash them up some and douse them with milk. But that's my pre-gym meal. (And the reason I abuse them so was because I didn't quite bake them enough) Seriously though, I go for nuts and fruit as a rule.

You'll need a mixture that sets up as soon as it carbonates. I think it'd be best left to the professionals.

I have not made it, but I've had it a number of times. What I can say is that it's quite nice to have some chestnut bits in it because it cuts the richness and sweetness somewhat. Of course, you are making it yourself, so you can mess around with the sugar until it suits you.

Pounding it a few times is pretty much the classic Asian way of releasing aromas from herbs, spices etc.

Oh god, yes! I know just how that feels--wonderful! I had brownies today, and now I'm having double egg instant noodles. I'm definitely PMSing.

Congratulations! I've been following this thread, because I recently baked my first loaf of bread--yeast, and relatively successful--and because I'm thinking about baking bread rather than baking cookies/cakes (might be less fattening in the long-term :laughs:)

Grinding raisins should make the cookie more chewy as a whole. And I'd be very interested in your ultimate version, malamute5.

You could try subbing table water crackers, I think.