jumanggy

I've read your blog, Fanny! Those look awesome. Can't wait for you to post some more. Good luck in your endeavors!

Oh no, it's me again. My version of La Pinay crêpe (a popular crêpe here): Chocolate Crêpes filled with mangoes, on a bed of mangoes, slathered with Nutella, and topped with Mango ice cream. I didn't puree any mangoes or use chocolate sauce to keep it clean (and hey, I know when to stop!!!-- despite what you may think, GTO) Edit: the original La Pinay crêpe is the usual crêpe filled with mangoes, with vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup.

dystopiandreamgirl - to steal a line from a movie, those aren't pizzelles - those are Audrey Hepbrun movies. I love the detail, notably the white chocolate leaves. I've never seen or tasted a currant before, though. I had banana fritters (Maruya in my language) and mango ice cream-- kind of a Filipino Banana Split if you will.

My first ever attempt at making bread. I chose to do an enriched bread (Dinner rolls) because I love the taste, and equipment-wise there isn't as much fuss. In other words, to get the hang of it... Those are supposed to be Parker House Rolls (recipe: here at foodtv.com. I have other recipes which include milk, but I wanted to find out (almost) how they do it at the original kitchen. I encountered several problems, obviously: 1. I might have added too much water. The recipe called for 2 cups, and I didn't take into account our extreme humidity/heat. I kneaded the dough by hand for an hour, and it would not stop being sticky, generally not smooth. I added about a quarter cup of so of flour over the recommended, but I stopped there because I thought I might ruin it. When it kind of passed the window test after an hour, I thought f*** it, I'm so tired. (great exercise though.) Also, the recipe called for APF, not bread flour. I guess it made for poor gluten development. 2. It rose to more than double in half the recommended time, because of the heat here. 3. After I'd rolled it (it was less sticky after proofing, thank God) to half an inch thickness, it was still rising while I was cutting it, hence the weird shapes. 4. There was too much melted butter called for at the end for glazing. Since they sat in the butter pan, after I'd baked them, the bottoms were super-greasy (but super-tasty). Increased sogginess factor. My grandmother thought they were undercooked (I'm pretty sure they weren't). 5. It's really pale. I baked it for more than the recommended amount of time but it looks like it can take more? Also, the recipe with milk would probably brown more, right? 6. The ugly cut edge is showing in the final product. Yikes. I'm not sure I was satisfied. It was soft and the crumb (?) was great, but I'm not one to slather butter on stuff, so the greasy bottoms turned me off. Edit: Pictures of the process, and my story of whoa, here: http://manggy.blogspot.com/2007/07/parker-...with-how-i.html. Also: I feel a little weird posting here, like I'm stepping into a new forum (probably would feel the same if I entered the Confections thread)-- anyway (Hi!!!), this is all-new territory for me, and I don't know a single person who bakes bread.. All I have to guide me is Dan Lepard''s book "Exceptional Breads" which is really the Baker & Spice book that's been cut up, I think. I've seen his newer, more extensive work but it was outside my price range. I also got "Bread" by Ursula Ferrigno and Eric Treuille. It's astounding how uniformly excellent pictures of bread are-- not just for these two books but each one I've leafed through.

Oh, definitely people queueing at the Express Lane when they shouldn't. I have never seen anyone put a perishable item on to the Impulse Buys, but I guess it does happen... It's just I haven't witnessed it (thankfully rare here I suppose). But I would get pretty pissed if that happened. (I don't usually think of the produce-bruising, but from now on I think I'll take notice.) Minor things: people paying for very cheap items with credit cards Uncontrollable things: the bar code not registering or the price tag fell off... Then the cashier has to order some poor employee to hunt for the item

Here in the Philippines (I'm sure Doddie's very familiar): Cheese (with real cheese bits of course) Sweet Corn Ube (Purple yam/ Dioscorea alata) Durian (I don't see this much anymore... Same with the Durian-bavarian cream filled donuts) Langka (Jackfruit) Atis (Custard apple - I may be just imagining this, but I'm pretty sure it was out there in groceries at one time) Avocado

I just saw the trailer for this at Televisionwithoutpity.com. It has Aaron Eckhart and Catherine Zeta-Jones, so as far as actors go, that's good... It was playing without sound but I could already tell it was schmaltzy. I don't know the story of Mostly Martha, so this looks interesting... (Opens July 27)

Mottmott: I had to give it away to my aunts and their families, but I tasted the individual components and it was great-- my Mom says the kids (my nephews) had to be stopped from eating it to leave some for everyone. I hope she's telling the truth! Have an effortless convalescence! David, I hope to someday have brownies that are just "on hand!" GTO, thanks for the link.. I'm always a little nervous buying a block of white chocolate because it expires in 5 minutes give or take. That's a great way to use it up (by the way, I hope you did add salt... That recipe had none). No fireworks here... Next time I'll use any liquor that is 140-proof!

French Banana Split from Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Herme. I tried flambéeing for the first time. It did not create an inferno, much to my chagrin. (I suppose I should thank heaven that it didn't, but still... it looked so wimpy.)

Bigfoot, I love your nicely packed lunches. I also love that you made sure your son got plenty of vegetables in his mac and cheese! Ham and Mozzarella cheese sandwich with caramelized onions, pineapple glaze, and onion rings as described in the Onion Rings thread. Best and most well-behaved onion rings I've ever tasted. I ate them with barbecue sauce edit: My bad. I thought I read my onion ring method from here, but it turns out it's not there. I just picked it up from the Inter-nets.

I'm not a big fan of coffee but that looks really enticing! The book has many variations for pastry cream? (The book's not out here yet. Sigh!)

Yeah, that doesn't make sense. They probably mean a 2cm plain tip or something. Those tip numbers in recipes really just hurt more than help. They should just show an actual-size picture and say, "your tip should look and be as big as something like this."

Those look wonderful, Pille... That crust looks super-buttery. My aunt/godmother came in from Canada, and she's an excellent baker, so my mom asked me to make something to show off. I didn't want to repeat, so I made Black Forest, based on the Chocolate Rhapsody recipe of Flo Braker (in The Simple Art. It was the biggest mess I've ever made in the kitchen. That mousse would not stay firm for more than a few minutes (the climate, y'know... next time: gelatin?), and the top layer actually broke into three while I was flipping it because I'm hard-headed and I wanted to use a chocolate butter cake whose time had come instead of a reasonable genoise/ sponge (next time: genoise). I cemented it together with extra chocolate mousse. I hope I hid it well. It says "Gateau Schwarzwalder" on top for no good reason except to misguidedly mash two languages together (next time: er, nothing). The stars on top have crazy bloom on them, so they're all different colors (next time: stick to cherries?). p.s. some of you may remember my woes regarding whipped cream. The rosettes there are made with the local UHT cream spiked with stabilizers. I guess I'm happy with it? Edited to: change Flor Braker to Flo. She's not a Filipino!!

Thanks, Rob! The choux pastry is actually flavored with the yummy taste of my sweat, to give it a soupcon of salt. KIDDING! The chocolate sauce is a family heirloom, hahaha I can probably mail you a frozen brick of it and it will make an appearance in each of your desserts till you're old and gray. It's been almost a month. Thankfully (and weirdly) someone gave us 2 freaking gallons of vanilla ice cream (my mind is dancing with the number of ice cream-related stuff I want to make). If I had a penny for each time someone said my buns looked great... Ha ha I'd have a penny. I took the photo with a timer (10 seconds) and a heart bursting out of my chest, that the sauce won't create a gross mess and would pour in an appealing manner. Somehow, it worked!

Hey GTO, very inspired filling/topping for the eclairs. Looks yummy too. If they deflated too much, maybe the need some more time in the oven. The color of your eclairs is great, but I find that they can take a lot more time in the oven till they turn uncomfortably dark. Meanwhile, you've got me inspired to try my hand at bread-making, which I'm sure will be a disaster. I hope I've got some muscle left in my arms. Hit Tri2cook, that looks excellent. I'll just pretend I didn't read that it had lychees in it (hate that fruit!) I feel for you regarding the plates. Each issue of Bon Appetit has me drooling-- they really have some out-of-this-world ceramics over there. I froze some profiteroles before (and the chocolate sauce that won't die), and I reheated them just today for a filling of Häagen-Dazs strawberry ice cream.

Here in my country, with great variability, breakfast, lunch, and dinner have equal weight. That is, the same amount of rice for all 3 meals. However, since July 4 was Fil-American friendship day, I thought I'd give a light lunch a try with something (er) Italian-American: Italian Cornbread with Sundried Tomatoes, then I made up for its lack of sweetness (which I love in cornbread, sue me!) with a side of baked beans. Mmmmm.... Fiber-y.... Thankfully, I'm not hungry yet! Though it's 3PM already, which is about time for an afternoon snack (merienda).

Hi Qui, I've only made creme brulees once-- Pierre Herme's recipe (Triple Creme off the Chocolate Desserts book). I used a regular oven set at 100 degrees celsius without a water bath (as the recipe directed) and they set with no problem. As for your other questions, you make good points! I'll let the experts answer, though

Hmm... Crepe template? Baguette protector? Cheese slicer? Wine bottle holder? Beret hanger? I'm just kidding, by the way Loving your blog! My eyes lit up with the market photo.

The yolk cooks in the microwave fairly quickly and has a nice hard-boiled texture without the green color. I make sure that the yolks are pierced with a fork, though the same result might be had with whisking them all together, and I use plastic wrap on top of the microwaveable bowl. It cooks in a short moment. Egg whites, though, I have too many of... They might find themselves in a Concorde soon. That cherry/tapioca thing is an annoying curiosity!

Eat it! Very Atkins. If there are a lot, you can add a single/few whole eggs and make a less rich egg salad. Alternatively, you can separate the eggs, freeze the whites, then zap the broken yolks in the microwave.

Hi Linda, There is a thread on chopping chocolate here: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=93468&hl= To break my cold brick of Callebaut, I use a hammer and a chef's knife, but if I were more patient: if the chocolate were close to body temp (no problem here), a knife would go through it like butter.

Thanks, GTO! 'twas unbelievably easy to make, too, if a bit messy. My take on a classic, frozen banana. Do they have those in Britain? It's (I think) a banana dipped in chocolate and coated with nuts. Nobody sells frozen bananas here in Manila, which is weird considering a banana costs less than 5p (in your currency , <$0.10 to the others) here. There's been a lot of Clafouti going around, so I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I would have made pie but I've never had a clafouti before. I pitted the cherries. Not a good move. So when I cut it, it was so water-logged. I had to pour out about 2 tablespoons. After a few hours, however, it sucked up all the juices and I no longer had that problem.

Buttermilk is never available in the Philippines, so I used a quarter cup of sour cream in a cup of cream. Would that work? It's been out 6 hours in our 33C weather and smells just like sour cream. It separates from the sides of the container cleanly, though, which is great.

Oh, I LOVE cornbread and Boston baked beans. Those two are next on my list to make (after a cherry clafoutis).

Yikes. I've held my ground against a psychotic patient threatening to stab me, but reading these still makes me weak in the knees! How can anyone be so cruel over such benign things? - Sincerely, Naive me.