equality5271

I placed a pre-order through B&N.com on February 22. I still haven't received my book. I have contacted B&N and heard these dates: March 16, April 6, April 29, May, July 1, and now September 1. I was already pretty frustrated in May, then, I read on here how quite a few people ordered through B&N in May and received their books very quickly. I called them today with the help of an Egulleter's order number, and they informed me that the reason why he received his book was because he was located closer to the warehouse it shipped from. I live in NYC for goodness sake. They had told me each time I had called previously that they were filling order as they received them. It is so unbelievably frustrating. I definitely don't advise ordering through Barnes & Noble.com. This is not the way to do business or treat your customers.

I have been making a lot of jams lately, but I will never be able to use up anywhere close to the 10lbs of pectin I purchased. I bought it from Pacific Pectin (the link to the pectin is below) Pacific Pectin's 150 Grade Rapid Set Pectin Is anyone interested in purchasing some of it from me? Not sure what I want for it yet, but we could negotiate.

I attempted my very first sausages today. a friend and i decided to pick up this hobby. so, we split up the start up costs and the results! this is the soppressata (not in the traditional casings). the kitchenaid wasn't big enough to mix everything together, so we had to do it by hand. halfway through the stuffing, we felt that the sausage was getting a little less cold, so we put it back in the freezer. while we were waiting, we dined on some delicious duck prosciutto she made with brie, baguette, and arugula. then back to the sausage. no huge issues. she had some problems trying to get the sausage to stay uniform, but she got a hang of it. we used the kitchenaid grinder/sausage stuffer. as some of you must know, the plunger for it sucks. so, i went around manhattan looking for a 1 1/2" wooden dowel with no success. i ended up using 1 1/4" dowel just for today. i still had the same problem with the sausage coming up the sides of the dowel..getting over worked, and warmer than i had liked. so, for next time, i will scour the city for the correct size. now, i need to hang it. i'm worried that something's going to go wrong while it dries. any hints? and we made boudin blanc we were deathly afraid of breaking the emulsion that we kept our meat too cold. we also added the liquid ingredients too fast. so at first all we had was ground pork and chicken pieces in a custard. we strained the liquid out and worked the meat to more of a batter, then added the liquid back in. success. we're both in pastry, so we used pastry bags to pipe the sausage into the casings. we immediately poached them. unfortunately, i forgot my thermometer. we know we ended up overcooking some and undercooking the rest. oh well. the results are extremely delicious, though. a little spicier than i was expecting. i may freeze a few of them.

Thanks! I still do not know what's up with my refractometer. It appears to be calibrated correctly. I am going to stick with my thermometer for the time being and give this a try.

I just checked my refractometer, and you are so right! I should have checked it before. The cherry puree should be at 26% and it was at 30%. The strawberry puree should be at 18% and it was at 8%. Obviously an issue! I only cooked them using my refractometer...not my thermometer. Bad ebay purchase I guess... Thanks!

So, I just bought the entire set up for making pate de fruits... 0-80% refractometer thermopen tartaric acid boiron fruit purees apple pectin (from l'epicerie) 500g / .01g scale So, i have been following the boiron recipes from their website and have been failing. I have been making half batches if that makes a difference. I tried out the cherry and the strawberry recipes. The cherry recipe I tried as is, and the strawberry I tried with 14g of pectin instead of 12.5g. Both of them came out too soft. The strawberry came out better. I can put a knife through it, and it slighly holds its shape, but it is still gooey and not cuttable. I tried recooking them with a little water and added pectin back to 75%, but that did not make much of a difference. Instead of wasting more money on purees, I figured I would ask you guys. Has anyone had a lot of success from the boiron puree recipe as written? Does anyone have the apple pectin from l'epicerie and made pate de fruit from them? I am going to try the cherry one again tonight with 17g of pectin instead of the 10g stated. My other question is that if I up the pectin do I have to worry about the amount of tartaric acid? Do I have to up that too? I would appreciate any advice!

ok, here is the recipe of the macarons from the CIA cookies class. Almond paste 8 oz. Sugar, powdered 1 lb. Egg whites 3 oz. Egg whites 4 oz. Sugar, powdered 2 oz. Mixing 1 Mix the almond paste and first sugar with a paddle until pea sized pieces have formed. 2 Add the first amount of egg whties to this mixture and cream until just smooth. 3 Make a stiff meringue with the second whites and sugar. Stop when the whites stop climbing the bowl. 4 Fold meringue into creamed mixture. Add 20% of the merg to make it pliable using a bowl scraper, and then add the remaining meringue. Do not over mix. (often i do overmix..to get it to the right consistency) Piping Instructions: Using a #4 or a #6 plain tip, pipe batter into rounds the size of a nickel onto parchment paper lined sheet pan. Make sure the bag is straight up, not at an angle. ****Allow to sit unbaked on a rack for approx 1-2 hours before baking. Baking Instructions: Bake at 350F until “foot” forms and product takes on color. If using a deck oven, place a piece of foil in the door to let the steam out.

I was thinking about macarons. I'm always trying to think of a way to make the cookie taste better/different

I wasn't going to get complicated, but we had two products. One was this...which is bigger chunks. and the other was a more powdered. anywho, this is great and i think what i am looking for. thanks. i wonder if i can grind this into a powdered product without it caking.

I was wondering if anyone has ever made or heard of macarons using almost paste instead of almond flour. The reason I am asking is that the macarons that we are taught at the CIA are with just almond paste. I will not post the recipe due to it being copyright. The ingredients are just almond paste, powdered sugar, and egg whites. Here is a photo of one that i made last year. They have a very strong almond taste and are sickly sweet. On the other hand, they are gorgeous and bake perfectly every time.

At my last job, we had powdered brown sugar in bulk. I do not recall what company made it. Has anyone heard about such a product? It does not seem like anyone is selling it. Or is there a way to make my own?

if you are really interested, i would have no problem mailing them to you.

unfortunately, all of us are coming up one variable short. mine is...not 12 but 4. Available at Target and Cooking.com

When I was at the CIA, a couple the chefs said we could use metal bowls in the microwave as long as the bowl did not touch the sides of the microwave. The microwaves there were not the home use ones..but more heavy duty. Nothing ever caught on fire. Is this true in all cases? I'm scared to put a metal bowl in my home microwave, but it would help a lot when I am in the kitchen.

Just remember that what you are making is nothing like rolled fondant for a cake. that has gums and such (i think it can sometimes have gelatine) Sugar, corn syrup, water, palm oil, natural and artificial flavor, gum tragacanth, titanium dioxide, glycerine, cellulose gum, modified corn starch, potassium sorbate, acetic acid. (satin ice rolled fondant)

ouch. i take that one personally. your theory is very incorrect.

in Manhattan at Kitchen Arts & Letters...I saw it at JB Prince too.

hah! i've been talking about doing the same thing. (over in the thread about flavored caramels). the more i think about it, the more i'm figuring it out. i'm very familiar with that recipe (greweling's). I believe you are definitely on the right track with the cream idea. If i did it, I would not use any cream..and substitute reduced passionfruit puree (by half). Now, the problem with this is that the water activity is too high and this could spoil. So, i would add more fat to counteract this. I believe my reasoning is in Greweling's book somewhere about water activity or spoilage. Something about free water and bound water. Basically, i would add more butter to compensate not having the fat from the cream. So, i would either simply add the reduced passion puree instead of the cream. how much, i dunno. if it's not enough, you could always add more puree (or cream) ...or add the reduced passion puree instead of the cream and some additional butter. how much, i dunno. all of this is a shot in the dark. our answers lie within a water activity meter. maybe someone could help us out with this. i'm sure someone has done this before and been successful

Take 5 is being discontinued. Soon enough...you will no longer see them on the shelves at all.

I just purchased Fine Chocolates 2. I was debating whether to get the first one or the second one, and I decided I liked the unique recipes in the second one better. Eventually I will splurge and get the first one too. I must say that this book is extremely gorgeous. I am so excited to try the recipes out and read the theories all the way through.

I had a really awful experience at Robert's. My friend and I had extremely high hopes after reading Heston's recommendations. The steak was nothing special and cried for salt and proper cooking. It was a waste of $150. My friend made me an amazing steak a few days before, and I would take it over the Robert's steak anyway...and i'm ignoring the price tags too. Maybe it was because we are a couple of youngins....because our server had absolutely no respect for us.

the moisture is migrating from the marshmallow to the caramel. a fat barrier might be needed between the two. i am not sure about the manufactured products, though.

I am looking to compile a list of dessert books that have their recipes written in metric. I am sick of converting from "housewife" measurements, and I know that metric recipes are more likely to turn out as the author intended.

here are some rhubarb marshmallows i made earlier this year

Maple Pumpkin Caramel - Molded, round, dark chocolate w/ gold & bronze luster dust Salted Honey Nut Caramel - Square honey caramel mixed with cashews, almonds, & macadamia nuts. hand dipped in milk chocolate and garnished with gray salt Rosemary Caramel - Square rosemary infused caramel hand dipped in milk chocolate with diagonal line Peanut Butter Caramel - Molded, round, dark chocolate w/ sponged milk chocolate (for marbling) I made chocolates for a wedding a few years back and just realized that I have all these extra boxes and inserts. So, i figured I'd make some chocolates/my christmas card to give out this season. I mailed out half and gave the other half out personally. I hope they make the rough ride without getting too scuffed up. I am obsessed with caramels. Plus, I did not want to cut ganache. All four are caramels. The square ones use Greweling's soft caramel recipe with evaporated milk from the book, Chocolates & Confections. For the salted honey nut, i replaced the glucose with honey and cooked the caramel about 10 degrees more. I randomly guessed on how much rosemary to use to infuse into the evaporated milk. It ended up being perfect. Definitely not too heavy on the rosemary. I preferred this one undipped. For the maple pumpkin caramels, i used this recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/re...6_34565,00.html I thought that they did not taste pumpkin-y enough and would add less pumpkin pie spice next time. For the peanut butter caramels, i used Greweling's liquid caramel recipe. Instead of adding butter at the end, i simply substituted peanut butter. I hope this did not throw the water activity off too much. They tasted great when I made the caramel darker. I loved the bitter caramel and peanut butter interaction. I ended up making about 70 salted honey nut, 65 rosemary, 32 maple pumpkin, and 32 peanut butter. I hope you enjoy the caramel/maillard joke.