patris

It is happening again! Kerry is due to arrive shortly and tomorrow the elves will again overtake my wee home. We’ll share the festivities as they unfold. For now, a little photo of the prep so far: I rarely drink, but I am really looking forward to tonight’s cocktail. Any suggestions on that score?

Update! The fine folks at Croquade held on to my money for a month after they cancelled my order, only refunding me after I initiated a dispute via my credit card company. Happy ending, though - I managed to find one at Gygi.com and snagged it for a cool $110.49 with the holiday discount code they are offering on their site. I checked to make sure they actually have them in stock, and evidently they still have 17 left - if you're interested, get it while you can!

And how! I made some feuilletine earlier this week and got obsessed with making a 2-layer piece with marshmallow and peanut butter meltaway with the feuilletine mixed in. I made the marshmallow last night, and this morning before I left for work I put together the feuilletined meltaway. Total time from sticking the chocolate in the microwave to melt it, to finished product, was less than 30 minutes - including the time it took for the meltaway mixture to cool enough to add the silk. Then about 15 minutes in the refrigerator and it was ready to cut. Can't wait to get home tonight to dip them - which will also be done in a trice thanks to the EZTemper!

Nope - those have the cookie pieces in them - what I'm looking for is just the naked cookie bits. I had a package left over from last year - this is what they look like: (Sorry it's so blurry) I spent a fair while last night hunting for them and came up empty. I'm thinking I might just make chocolate feuilletine and use that - not as crunchy, but I'm sure it will make for an equally moreish peppermint bark.

In preparation for Santa's Spectacular Tonawanda Workshop 2018, I went to my local candy making supply store to pick up some chocolate cookie bits for my peppermint bark. They used to sell the perfect kind - just like the ones in cookies & creme chocolate bars - not chopped up cookies, but little individual pellets almost. Anyway, turns out the shop has undergone some changes and their selection has drastically diminished - not only did they not have these in stock, they had no idea when or if they ever would. I have scoured the internet and all I can find are cookie shards and mangled Oreos, and even nuts.com doesn't have what I'm looking for. I can't think nobody makes or sells them; I think I must be using the wrong term - permutations of the words "chocolate" "cookie" "pieces" and "bits". Does anyone have an online source for these little buggers?

Welp, my dream is dashed for the moment - after the difficult process of actually ordering and paying for the thing, I got a note this morning indicating that they don't have them in stock after all, and suggesting I check back in January!

So out of curiosity (and impatience), I checked their website just now and it appears to be available for purchase... so I bought one. At $160 US it was not resistible, and the size is really great for my typical smaller-volume home projects. The actual transaction was difficult - evidently both of my visa cards strenuously object to overseas merchants - but eventually it went through, and gave me some confidence in my financial institutions' fraud alert systems along the way. Remains to be seen when it will ship, but I'm hopeful to have it well in time for the holidays! Edited to keep this on-topic: I fear for my waistline and those of my friends and colleagues, as this, in combination with my EZTemper, is likely to make me extremely productive.

I e-mailed them and they told me that it will be available in the US in mid-December - I already have one melter courtesy of a kind and generous friend, but this one is pretty tempting!

Mendiants with dulcey and dark chocolate, made today with my sister who plans to serve them at an upcoming dinner party.

Having some friends over for dinner tonight - wanted to put together something that required very little last-minute work and ended up with a wonderful summery spread. Dessert is on the left - Dorie Greenspan's salted butter breakup, with fresh fruit, lemon curd and chocolate ganache for embellishing. Dinner will be an orzo salad with tomatoes, arugula and feta; hummus; tzatziki; kasseri, which will be fried up for saganaki; and @ElainaA's slow roasted cherry tomatoes. My original plan was to make pita to accompany, but neither time nor energy was on my side, so I picked up some excellent pita and markouk from a local Lebanese bakery.

Our employee fun committee hosts a monthly event, usually a lunch, at which the main meal is supplied and staff contribute desserts and sides and such. We had one on the schedule for today and just lately realized it coincided with EclipseMania (only 72% totality here in Buffalo, but still...). Inspired by the Eclipse thread, I went on the hunt for Moon Pie recipes. Using the cookie recipe from The Chew and the filling recipe from Serious Eats, these turned out pretty good. The cookie is wonderful - kind of a shortbread with a small amount of graham cracker crumbs - crumbly and a little salty, and the marshmallow filling piped beautifully and set quickly without a lot of rubbery marshmallowiness. I coated the dark ones with confectioners coating, because I had some reasonably decent stuff I bought from Albert Uster some time ago for another project. As much as I don't care for those melty wafers, I have to say the finished product really works in a nostalgic, Ho-Ho kind of way. Made me wish I had white wafers, because the tempered white chocolate cracked all to bits as it crystallized and the marshmallow filling (flavored with white peach puree) just pushed right back. Still, I suspect they'll all be eaten.

Correct. Although I love the Dutch oven version, it is nice to confirm that loaf pans are a good option as well. The crust is not nearly so robust, but I imagine it will make a lovely tomato and mayo sandwich later today. edited to add additional info: I prepared the dough early Saturday morning, with all three folds done by 8:30 am. The dough hung out in the bucket until about 8 pm, when I divided and shaped and tucked the pans into the fridge for the night. Out of the fridge around 6 this morning, into the oven around 7:15.

Forkish overnight white, rested in loaf pans overnight in the refrigerator and baked this morning after about an hour on the counter. Gosh, I love this bread.

Whoops! Looking at the wrong line!

That must have been an odd looking chicken, but I bet it could run really fast.

I would never serve other people way too much of anything I wouldn't eat way too much of myself!

Quality control is my number one priority, which Is why I can say with some confidence that white peach and caramelized white chocolate is an excellent combination.

Every 4th of July a friend hosts an all-day, all-night pool party/food and drink fest, with a bonfire before the fireworks display. It's a pot luck sort of thing and we all try to outdo our previous year's effort. This year I put together a little s'mores bar for the bonfire, which I hope has a little something for everyone: Marshmallows in ultra vanilla (lots of vanilla bean paste added to the sugar syrup), white peach, raspberry, and brown sugar espresso; graham crackers (Smitten Kitchen's recipe), some sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and some not; and three kinds of chocolate bars, made with the help of the EZTemper: milk, dark, and caramelized white. Enough to feed an army and then some.

Kouign amann bake off today with my sister. We are pretty equally matched in the pastry kitchen, so the only true winner was the jeans company that will make a little more profit on the new pants we will need after we eat the fruits of our labors.

After looking at all these wonderful meals, I almost regret to say that I have dropped Hello Fresh after just 5 deliveries. Three of the boxes had problems - the first two chronicled earlier in this thread and the last one involving substandard produce (arugula isn't supposed to be yellow, right?). The final straw was a text from my sister, to whom I forwarded an offer for a free box, reporting that the meat in her delivery was 45 degrees. Ultimately, I just can't justify the expense for such uneven quality. Looking forward to seeing your continued successes, though!

My dear friend and pottery mentor is having a birthday, and he adores the combination of lemon and fresh berries. Inspired by @Darcie B's post in the "Dorie's Cookies" thread, I made the Corked Breton Galettes, making the imprint with the smaller end of my tart tamper rather than a cork to create a larger well. Filled with lemon curd and topped with blueberries, blackberries and strawberries, these are destined to be shared at the studio with plenty left to send home with the birthday boy. Lucky for me, the recipes for both the cookies and lemon curd made enough extra to supply me with sweet treats for a few days to come.

Earlier today I was fortunate enough to have a visit from @Kerry Beal on her way to the airport for yet another adventure. She was joined by @Alleguede, who very kindly brought me some of his extraordinary baguettes (and equally extraordinary kouign amann), which I enjoyed at the 2016 chocolates and confections workshop in Toronto and of which I have dreamt ever since. Given such a windfall, I wanted something simple that would let the bread shine. And so: Garlicky blistered tomatoes, pan deglazed with a bit of white wine, reverently applied to gently warmed baguette bite-by-bite, punctuated here and there with bits of cheeses (cheddary, but not sure exactly what kind) left from other uses but well up to this task. All consumed al fresco with a spiked seltzer on a gorgeous late spring Buffalo evening.

One of my sisters is preparing to re-enter the workforce after quite a long time and she came over this morning for a bit of wardrobe assistance and an encouraging word, which I supplemented with Ina Garten's lemon pound cake: It calls for the warm loaf to be soaked with a lemon syrup, which enhances both flavor and moistness to such a degree that I almost regret sending her home with the second loaf.

Sadly, I was forced to take one (a couple, actually) for the team. It was hard, but I managed.