rickster

I'd add a vote for both the yellow and white butter cakes. One I did not have as much success with is the one I think is called the white velvet cake - the one with white chocolate in the batter. It was fine just out of the oven, but became brick like when I refrigerated it.

Exactly right about preheating the stone.I usually pre heat the oven for at least half an hour.

Yet another trick for a non gooey bottom crust is to put the pie or tart directly on a pizza stone

Recipe sounds OK. Apples sound like they might be Royal Gala, which are OK but not great. I've made decent pies with them. Glass pan will heat up a little more slowly than metal but shouldn't be a problem. I'd still check the real oven temperature.

Some apple varieties give up much more liquid than others. Crunchy filling suggested it was baked for too short a period or at too low a temperature. You might need to check the accuracy of the oven. More detail on the recipe/steps you took would be a big help.

One source for fruit is the King Arthur Flour catalogue website. They have much better citron orange and lemon peels than you can get in the stores.

I have to agree with LindaK and some of the other negative feedback on this thread. I bought this when it first came out and remember trying a panade and an artichoke recipe and was very disappointed with the results. I recently took it down of the shelf again, flipped through it and couldn't find anyhting that grabbed me to bother making.

This is very interesting. I know I tend to rush the turns, being impatient. May also be working the dough too much too. Thanks for the input!

I haven't had one of these in a long time, but it's not the sfogiatelle ricotta filling or straight pastry cream. I'd guess it's the whipped cream/pastry cream mix, maybe more heavy on the whipped cream.

I've made croissants a number of times and after an initial terrific success using a Jacques Torres recipe from Dessert Circus, I've had the same problem with sponginess instead of flakiness in experimenting with other recipes, but have suspected the issue is something in the technique rather than the recipe. I've wondered whether overproofing could be part of the cause. Also, I have been suspicious of recipes that recommend putting pans of water in the oven for steam (ala RLB whole wheat croissants). Intuitively, this would seem to result in sponginess rather than flakiness, but I could be wrong. FWIW, the worst ones I ever made were the whole wheat ones from the Pie and Pastry Bible.

On another website, Louisa said the next round of shows begins with Sicily on early October

Don't use a greased or non stick pan

I got a free copy of this yesterday and have to admit that when I flipped it open to the recipe for saltines with melted chocolate chips, I thought this is not for me. I love Penzey's products and am puzzled that this is the route they went.

I've got to add a vote for Russ' recipe. I had some great farm market apricots last week and used them in this recipe. Probably the easiest and fastest baking recipe I've ever made and the results turned out delicious.

You could check Amazon's gourmet food section. I know they had one vender selling Meyer lemons in the spring. By the time I got around to ordering, the season was over.

One can be "smart" enough to "get" it and still think it's self indulgent and not that amusing. The show is better without them.

The New Jersey show was definitely the best so far. Warm, nostalgic and funny. I hope the series begins to hit its stride.

FWIW, there's an interesting recipe for pie crust by Jim Dodge which doesn't rely on a food processor or a pastry cutter. I'm pretty sure it's in a Julia Child book called in Julia's Kitchen WIth Master Chefs. It's in one of his books too but probably our of print. The concept is that you cube the cold butter, mix it with the flour and pour on a work surface. Then you flatten the cubes with a rolling pin, pour the butter flour mix back in a bowl and add the cold water and mix by hand. You then pour the dough, which is still loose back on the work surface and go through a process of rolling and folding. This ends up with a pie crust which is almost like a rough puff pastry.

One thing to point out is that not all TJ's and Whole Foods are created equal. I recently moved to the midwest from CT and the selection in Whole Foods especially is quite different. The CT WF was much more gourmet oriented, with more exotic produce, estate olive oils, etc. The WF I go to in Deerfield IL has a much better bakery. From what I read on Chowhound, the TJs in California carry quite a different selection of products than what I've seen.

These all look delicious. What's the other fruit in the raspberry frangipane? Is it pear?

I've got to agree that the show last night sucked. I thought the first show on France was OK. Last night really smacked of 15-20 minutes worth of material blown up to an hour. How much time did we have to spend watching weightlifting or a guy wandering around in a snowstorm? I did like the bit on the traditional Icelandic feast. Somehow I though the show would be more about Iceland, not so much about Bourdain making "outrageous" comments.

Interesting to see the different taste perceptions. Coke Zero tastes to me like regular coke, but I prefer the less sweet diet version. Diet Coke with lemon, and especially with lime, tastes to me exactly like they were sweetened with saccharine.

Well, a word to the wise. The Deerfield market strawberries looked great last week and were very juicy, but had almost as little flavor as a supermarket one. I've visited Deerfield, Highland Park and Ravinia farmers markets in the past year and have to say I've been disappointed in the variety of produce available. Did find some unique apples in Deerfield last fall though.

Regarding doctors pushing this surgery, I think I read in a recent New York magazine that many surgeons are dropping out of doing this due to the very high malpractice insurance costs related to the high rate of complications. A former work colleague of mine had bariatric surgery and was in a coma for two weeks following the operation (he eventually recovered).

In the Middle East, they use mahleb, which is ground sour cherry pits, as an ingredient. It's dried, don't know if it's cooked first. I suppose the amounts used are too small to poison you anyway.