Tri2Cook

Yeah, you said it better than I did though. I came off sounding more snooty than intended. I've just had leftovers start losing flavor and texture quality long before they showed any signs of being unsafe to eat.

I don't mean this to sound as flippant as it probably will but, in all honesty, I don't want my bonbons to last for months. Putting aside spoiling in a manner that would make you sick if you ate them, because I know that can be done, there has to be a degradation of flavor and texture over that much time. If not, I probably don't want whatever it takes to prevent all those things happening in my bonbons... because it's going to be something a lot more powerful than a bit of booze.

That's the part I've been seeing in most of the stuff I was able to find that makes me want to do the comparison. Depending on the ganache, I'm thinking there may be cases where I'd rather have a little grapeseed oil than a fair amount of additional sugar.

While doing some Kerry and Jim inspired searching regarding the Paul Young water ganache, I stumble across this quote... "I love champagne and chocolate. You warm the champagne just enough so that the chocolate melts in, then whisk it together to create the creamy ganache for the center." So it sounds like he keeps it super simple with champagne. Maybe that with some orange zest in the pot while heating and then strain it out at the end would work as a place to start.

I suppose it might at that. I'll have to do a side-by-side one of these days.

That would be my first shot. Some flavors are just really difficult to push past the cream and chocolate in the smallish amounts used in most ganaches so anything that lets me get more of that flavor in the mix is a good thing. Orange isn't difficult to keep forward, champagne, recognizable as such, is. Eliminating the cream and using puree and a neutral oil in a ratio to mimic heavy cream at Kerry's suggestion made a huge difference when I was trying to do a blueberry ganache.

I can't say I've met a frozen pizza I actually enjoyed but the kid talked me into buying the Delissio limited edition stuffed crust pepperoni pizza that showed up in the local store. I still wouldn't say I actually enjoyed it but it was probably the least objectionable frozen pizza I've tried... keeping in mind there's not a lot of choices where I live. Nothing about the pizza was great, nothing about it rendered it inedible. The cheese stuffed crust made the, usually discarded with frozen pizzas, edge crust edible. Especially after thoroughly soaking it with garlic butter as soon as it came out of the oven. My biggest problem with frozen pizzas (comparing apples to apples, not comparing to fresh made pizza) is they tend to be stingy with the sauce so they end up being on the dry side. But enough parmesan and dried chili flakes can make anything taste better.

Where a large portion of my family is from, corn pone was unleavened corn bread with no wheat flour baked in a cast iron pan. It was heavier, denser and more moist than cornbread. I personally prefer it. The stuff dropped by spoon into hot lard was hot water corn bread. It was just a mixture of cornmeal, salt, lard and boiling water. But it wasn't the Ozarks so, there again, variances based on locale and no strict definition regarding corn pone vs. bread. I don't know that the definitions I mentioned were necessarily regional. Or, at least, the region could have been very small. That's just what I remember from my youth.

I think there could be a market for it. How large that market is, I couldn't even guess. I'd be at the opposite end though. I enjoy baking, filling, etc. It's the decorating I'd rather have someone else do. I don't mess with rolled fondant enough to be skilled at it, I hate doing decorative piping, I can do it if I have to but I don't enjoy it, and I've never even attempted sugar flowers. If someone wants a cake from me, they get basic buttercream or poured glazes or they get it somewhere else.

At this point, so am I. But I'm pretty sure it has less to do with strength of will and more to do with plain ol' laziness. So if I get past that, I could be in trouble.

Just in case I was continuing to resist, Kim Shook comes in with the kill shot... and once again, resistance is futile.

I have not... and now I'm trying to decide whether I should thank you or (politely, of course) curse you for bringing them to my attention. My "things to try" list is getting much longer than I have any realistic chance of actually completing at the rate I've been knocking them off.

That's what doctors do! I have the 4 pdf files that used to be on their site but Kerry will probably be able to get them to you quicker than I can today.

shain's recipe for mulligatawny caught my attention a couple weeks ago so I finally got around to making it. I decided there was no harm in taking a couple small liberties so, in addition to his suggested cilantro, I served it with some basmati rice and a dollop of chili lime pickle. Not sure if that's blasphemy or not but it was tasty.

Yep, agar gels puree nicely. I haven't made that particular recipe from Greweling so I don't know how dense the gel is in this case but if your machine can handle it, it should do fine. Agar fluid gels can take on a lot of air when being pureed, I have no idea if that creates shelf life issues or not. I personally prefer gellan fluid gels over agar but agar works just fine. All of that is with the disclaimer that I've never used a fluid gel as a chocolate filling so I have no idea if there are other issues involved.

I must shamefully admit that that wouldn't sweeten the deal for me at all.

There's no such thing as a $21 meat loaf entrée in my world. The only way I'd pay $21 for a meat loaf plate is if it came with a steak on the side.

Harumph…

That brings back a fun memory from my childhood. There was a place near where we lived at that time called Jim's Burritos that had a 3 lb. burrito. Me and my brother each attempted one despite having zero chance of succeeding. After stuffing burrito down our throats until we were bordering on sending it all back up, we accepted our defeat and had our leftovers packed to go. Mom made lentil soup for supper that night which, in typical teenage boy fashion, we also inhaled until we could eat no more. The noisy, fragrant evening, night and next day that followed the mingling of those two food items was awe-inspiring. It was bad enough that our parents threw the burrito leftovers away during the night while we were sleeping so we wouldn't eat any more. The legend of Jim's burritos and lentil soup still gets a rolling of the eyes followed by laughter from my siblings and parents to this day.

I would have stayed in the marshmallow realm and went with Circus Peanuts instead of candy corn... candy corn is a food of the gods compared to the abomination that is Circus Peanuts. I'm not a Peep fan but I'd eat one every day for a month to avoid eating one Circus Peanut.

Management always spoiling the fun. I don't think I'll bother with the sauce. I don't need it and I'm hoping I'll feel generous and take most of them to work to share so I don't end up eating the whole pan myself. I don't tend to eat a lot of sweets but brownies are one of my few sweet weaknesses. I once made a pan of brownies and topped them with German chocolate cake icing (another weakness, don't care one way or the other about the cake, just the icing)... that was a mistake. 13x9 pan with an excessively thick layer of the icing and I ate the entire thing myself in about 3 days.

They look incredibly rich and moist on their own, they must be completely over the top when doused in the sauce that most of his brownie recipes I've been able to dig up tend to include. I'm wondering if it's even worth bothering to do the sauce.

I've never made Mulligatawny and I've only eaten it once. I see so many variations on it that it's hard to know which way to go for making it myself. For example, you use lentils, some recipes I've seen call for rice instead and the one time I had it, made by a friend more years ago than I want to think about, had neither... she used chickpeas. Some call for coconut milk/cream, some for regular dairy heavy cream. That's an easy one for me, the coconut is a no-brainer with the flavors involved. Variations on spices aren't a problem, that probably just comes down to personal taste. Anyway, your recipe sounds tasty so that's where I'll start.

Funny you should mention that. I have some sandwich rolls and most of a carton of cream that need to be used up and that's exactly what I planned on doing with them. I was contemplating whether the cream would be too much, I've only done it with milk in the past, but now I'm going to plow ahead.

I find Heston's version easier to work with even if you don't bother with the vacuum chamber. The resulting bubbles are as good as the bubbles I get from Greweling's version even without the vacuum. The vacuum can be used with Greweling's version as well to get better bubbles and eliminates the added oil... just have to work quick and hope chocolate doesn't harden in the nozzle when charging the whipper. That's the only difficulty I had with Greweling's version, the low starting temp of the chocolate because he calls for it to be in temper.