paulraphael

I originally made them with dark muscovado; they worked fine but were just a bit too dark and molassesy (is that a word?) for my tastes. I felt that it overwhelmed the butter a bit. Some might prefer it with the dark sugar; the only way to know is to try. I suggest substituting the sugars by volume instead of weight.

Some helpful definitions here: http://www.baking911.com/pantry/sweeteners_brown.htm My abbreviated take is this: Muscovado sugars (light and dark) are partially refined, very flavorful brown sugars. They can substitute for regular brown sugar when you want a more 3-dimensional molasses taste. Turbinado sugar (also called sucanat or sugar-in-the-raw) is a paler partially refined sugar that tastes much less like molasses Demerrara sugar is a partially refined sugar with a bit more molasses than Turbinado, and large crystals. It's usually used undisolved, so the crystals can contribute texture (like coarse salt).

Does anydrous butter contain milk solids? That would be a big difference. In clarified butter the solids (and therefore much of the flavor) are removed; in ghee the solids are browned (adding toasted flavors) and then removed. If you remove the water but leave the solids alone you'd have a different product.

I'm intersted in experimenting with the extended aging also. I have to admit that I've chilled the dough anywhere from a few hours to 48 hours (just out of convenience), and haven't noticed any difference in taste. The sprinkle of sea salt sounds like an interesting addition; if I did this I might cut the amount of salt in the recipe (which in my recipe is abundant) I don't at all like the idea of the huge amounts of chocolate, or of using dark chocolate. In most chocolate recipes I like to use the best, darkest chocolate possible, and to use as much of it as possible. But I found with chocolate chip cookies, when I arrived at a cookie dough that really tasted good, using lots of dark chocolate just competed with the flavor of the cookie. So with a really tasty base recipe, I cut back on the chocolate chips and use ones in the 50% to 60% cocoa solids range. If I'm using chopped couverture, I try not to get the crumbs and small pieces into the dough. They melt into the cookie and turn it into something else (Jacques Torres says he goes for this effect; I don't like it with my recipe).

Yeah, I'm convinced it's nonsense. I think it's a mix of what Colicchio said, and the deeply ingrained prejudices in kitchens, and the negative psychological environment this creates for a lot of women. I have female friends who were line cooks. I never heard a peep out of them about the hard work, long hours, heat, or chaos, but I got an earful about how they were treated by some of the borderline cro-magnon men in the kitchen. As an aside, my passtime besides cooking is alpine mountaineering, which often involves 24 hour-plus days, covering multiple thousands of feet of vertical elevation in technical terrain, with nearly constant fear of rockfall, storms, and the ill effects of gravity. These are days that would leave any of my macho cook friends unconscious and with poop in their pants. But I've had my ass kicked--hard--by more female climbers than I care to count. It's true that at the elite levels male athletes in most sports edge out female ones. But I don't believe any of these line cooks who say the girls can't hang are operating on anything near an elite level of athleticism.

How about "Boil-In-Bag" ...? Chris has it exactly right; the vacuum pump in sous vide isn't about pressure (as a pressure cooker is). It's about getting rid of the air, plain and simple. So the title is silly. Unless it refers to trying to cook with Thomas Keller looking over your shoulder. Obviously it's not a deal breaker. Having to buy lots of big, expensive equipment is probably a deal breaker, but that's not the authors' problem.

Can anyone recommend a Chinese kitchen store in Chinatown in NYC?

I made a lapsang souchong creme anglaise a couple of times (once for a chocolate dessert, once for a pear tart). Not sure how I feel about it. I think the idea was better than the execution. Worth trying again, though. I love that tea.

I decided to try it again in spite of the bad memories ... there are lots of compelling reasons to add it to most ice cream recipes. So I bought some Organic Valley brand, in a resealable plastic bag. Hardly any smell at all! Either when dry or when mixed. Just slightly sweet. Not at all like my previous experiences (like attempting to bake with the stuff on backpacking trips). It will be interesting to see how long it lasts in the pantry.

I've had my eye on that recipe. Would definitely like to try it. Smart idea browning the cream; it has a higher concentration of milk proteins than butter.

Actually, it does. Just less per unit than milk. I wouldn't be surprised if lower fat cream has more per unit than higher fat cream, although I don't know for sure. The purpose of hardening isn't to freeze all the unfrozen water; if it were, the ice cream would be an unscoopable brick. The idea is to freeze enough of the unfrozen water in order to get the right consistency. Different percentages of the water will be frozen at different temperatures, thanks to the curious, selective freezing point suppression properties of the disolved solids. The main reason hardening needs to be done as a discrete step in commercial ice cream making is that the quantities are large, so it's difficult to harden the ice cream quickly. If you're making a quart at a time at home, a regular freezer will harden it fast enough to give you small ice crystals (and a smooth texture). You can just pop the fresh ice cream into the same environment you'll use to store it and it will turn out fine. Not so if you're trying to harden a stack of five gallon tubs. So ice cream shops typically have a hardening cabinet, which is just a freezer set somewhere between -40 and -80 degrees F. After 24 hours at these temps, the ice cream is indeed 100% frozen, although this is just a byproduct of the process. It then goes into a regular walk-in and gradually warms to storage temperature, and will eventually end up in a scooping cabinet which is even warmer (serving temperature). I assume all the same considerations apply to sorbet.

They're having a moving sale. For a while it was just minor discounts on their crappiest products, but now it's pretty compelling. 50% of list price on all Mauviel copper, for example. Discounts might get deeper as the final hour approaches.

I thought of that, but strawberries are listed (along with peaches) as very low pectin fruits.

I made some strawberry sorbet, using David Lebovitz's recipe (really simple ... berries, sugar, a bit of lemon juice and salt). Not only was it delicious, but it was much smoother than I expected. And it stayed smooth. It seems like there's something in the berries stabilizing the mixture and preventing ice crystals. Very much unlike my last batch of peach ice cream, which got icy right away. Does anyone know what it might be in the berries that has this effect? And more to the point, is there a good source of information on which fruits are likely to need help with some other stabilizing ingredient and which aren't?

The trouble with chlorine bleach is that it pretty quickly disintegrates sponges. Are you guys using peroxide or something similar? And what's the best way to microwave sponges without filling the air with cooked nasty sponge aroma?

I had a less stellar meal than U.E.'s last Sunday (and wrote a brief review on Yelp.com). His review adds to my suspicions: that we were there on an off night, and that the tasting menu is probably the way to go (we had the regular 3 course prix fixe). We really didn't love the large plates.

That Kaloric oven looks pretty nice. I wonder how it would be compared with the Cuisinart brick oven. I lean toward the commercial unit. The home ovens always look so great in pictures but feel so flimsy in person.

so how is it that this substance that you'd only drink if you were dying of thirst is incapable of giving something else an off taste?

It smelled terrible while I was mixing it. I didn't dare taste it. I'm just worried about putting it in something delicately flavored (like a vanilla or herb flavored ice cream), in case any of that stink remains.

It seems that a lot of professional ice cream recipes call for this, in order to boost milk solids percentage. I'm hesitant, because the times I've used it it's just smelled terrible. Some web research reveals that the problem might be freshness; that the stuff oxidizes easily and can pick up bad flavors. First, is it true that when fresh the stuff can taste and smell good (like fresh milk)? And second, is there a way to store it to keep it fresh? I'm thinking plastic bags with the air evacuated, in the freezer ... or something to that effect.

I've had viral bugs like this several times before (once every few years or so). It seems different frome. For one thing, I always get the virus when it's going around and I've had direct exposure to other people with it. Not the case this time. This hit me about a half hour after lunch, which was the only real meal I'd had all day. When I finally tossed up lunch, over 5 hours later, it was completely undigested. The one other time I experienced something like this, the aparent culprit was a calzone! I suppose it could be completely unrelated to lunch, but i'm still suspicious.

I just had my first sick day from work in over 10 years. flat on my back, couldn't keep food down for 24 hours. Finally feeling better. The culprit: a Panino from a takeout joint (only food I ate since breakfast yesterday). Is there anything you're supposed to do in this situation? Call the panino place? The health dept.?

Chantiglace, I'm not sure why you're lecturing me on Richard Dawkins neologisms, or implying that I'm some kind of lemming, blindly following a herd of gelatin users off the edge of a cliff. Maybe it would help if you read my initial question. I wasn't actually looking for different stabilizers, because I'm getting excellent results with the current one I'm using. I'm familiar with gums. I've already outlined my reasons for not using them, at least at the moment. Your defense of them confirms my reasoning; I just don't have the time or resources to experiment with all the reasonable combinations. I can be more productive working with a smaller number of familiar ingredients. If you have any actual information on why gums might be superior (you haven't offered anything besides implication) I'd be happy to hear it. All the advantages I know about apply more to industrial applications, but perhaps I'm missing something. As far as starch goes, I don't know what to say except that you're wrong. Cornstarch has a long history of working effectively in ice creams and gelatos. Freeze-thaw cycles do tend to reduce its thickening ability, but that's not at issue here. Other starches, like arrowroot, are unaffected by freezing.

For the ice cream, I'm trying to use fewer egg yolks, simply because I don't like the egg flavor, and I don't want too much heaviness. But I like the smoothness and mouthfeel of custard based ice creams, and also the freezer stability. So I decided to cut down the yolks (from 6 to 2) and make up for the rest with some stabilization. I want to get the mouthfeel and the melt just the way I like it, and I want to be able to keep it in fridge for a week or so without getting any iciness. I'm not willing to put up with any off flavors or aftertastes or any weird films left behind in your mouth. I rejected arrowroot based on this last issue ... it gave me a slight sense of pastiness after the ice cream melted in my mouth.

The composition of the ice cream also influences the overrun (amount of fat, emulsification, etc. etc.). But I'm still skeptical of the whole egg foam thing for the same reasons you are. In order for whipping the yolks to make a difference, either the foam would have to survive (which I agree seems unlikely), or the eggs would have to be altered on the molecular level (which I've read does not happen from whipping). I do think it would be a reasonable to base final judgements on the churned ice cream, but only if you can eliminate all the variables in the churning process. Not easy to do.