Tri2Cook

Gonna have to confess my ignorance on that one... never heard of pony's cocks. At least, not in any manner that you'd likely be referring to here.

Yeah, I've eaten a few over the years and I very rarely make deviled eggs. Just popped into my head when I saw them mentioned kayb's post for some reason. I had a good friend when I was younger who's favorite thing to do was eat pickled eggs with beer and then later that day when everybody was in the car headed wherever we were going, he'd lock the windows, turn up the heat and make his own variation on a gas chamber.

This can't possibly be an original thought, almost everything has been done at this point, but just out of curiosity, has anybody tried making deviled eggs using pickled eggs?

I sometimes watch food related videos on youtube when I'm researching something in particular but I'm not subscribed to any channels other than Kerry Beal's and Rob's (gfron1).

Haven't seen much of anything here yet. Like where Darienne lives, winter lingered a little longer this year (which was fun since it also started earlier and maintained that deep winter extra-cold segment much longer than usual). Not even any dandelions in the yard yet. I took a stroll down to a field not far from my house and it looks like the wild horseradish is breaking through the ground but I rarely do much with it. The leaves are tasty when young and tender but don't stay in that stage long and I have a habit of not catching them at the right time.

That's ok, I wasn't arguing... just joining the conversation. I've fully accepted that my drinks palate is not all it could and probably should be. And yep, the BG Reynolds does have a shelf life even in the fridge. It's a pretty long one but it's also a bit of a compromise compared to fresh juice and cinnamon syrup. Just not enough of a compromise for me personally to stop me from using it. I like the thought process behind your substitute and I'm betting it works great. But like I said, I'm very rarely looking to add more alcohol to my drinks. Truthfully, if I could make versions of my favorite drinks that still tasted like they're supposed to with much less alcohol than called for, I probably would. I generally have pretty much zero interest in any of the effects of alcohol other than the taste. I have the same problem with beer. Love it but can't drink as much as I'd like because my once well developed alcohol tolerance has been allowed to dwindle to very low. And despite what advertisers and some consumers would have me believe, there is not a low/non alcohol beer that is anywhere close to being worth drinking.

The "Drinks!" forum is slowly giving me a bit of a complex. I feel like I may be the only person reading it that isn't actively looking for ways to get more alcohol into drinks. I find myself frequently wishing I could make them less potent without making them less tasty. Maybe my drinks palate just isn't up to par or maybe it just speaks to the quality of grapefruit I can get where I live. I've not noticed any real quality drop in tiki drinks calling for Don's Mix if I use white grapefruit juice from a carton and cinnamon syrup. Truthfully, I don't notice sufficient drop in quality in most of the drinks using BG Reynold's Don's Mix to take that away as an option. But I'm just an enthusiast, not a connoisseur.

You're missing the same thing all of us not there are missing. Good company, fun and good food... anything I learned would just be bonus material.

Wow... that looks almost as good as that bagel I just ate. Seriously though, looks incredible. Between that and those awesome looking baked goodies, I'd leave there with an extra 30 lbs. on me.

They sell an upgrade stainless steel wheel/scraper holder on the website that has two scrapers so if it fits the model you have, that would be an easy way to get two scrapers if you want them without having to buy a different machine.

I would have been entirely surprised if I'd been the first to notice that. But it's a true story, there actually is a container at the semi-local store that expires (yes, I do know it's actually a "best before" date) later this year.

Particularly disappointed that I missed that.

Of greater concern to me is the package of 250 million year old sea salt sitting on the shelf at the semi-local little specialty store that is going to expire in a few months. Apparently 250 million years and 9 months is all it can sustain.

That is a LOT of really nice looking work. I know jealousy isn't considered one of the better characteristics... but jealous I am.

Those look amazing! I've looked at that mold on the chocolat-chocolat site recently. The price is right on it, I was just having trouble deciding if I'd be able to sell a 100 g bar for enough where I live to be worth it with a 10 bar per kg yield.

No worries here. Just enjoying the reporting and wishing I was there.

Good point. The thing about that is, I'm usually the biggest pain in the arse with my work. What are probably small mostly non-problems that few would notice or care about tend to be mountains in my head once I notice them. But I'll attempt to lock this one away since I'm not getting negatives about it from anywhere besides my own head.

Yeah, I thought about the options I'd normally use. The problem is, it's inside a can cooking and the crystallization is already there when the can is opened. Guess I could try one of the outside-the-can cooking methods so I can fiddle around with adjustments... or I could just not worry about it. Some have said they enjoy the little crunch and none have said that it bothered them.

It's a loose rendition of Greweling's recipe. I used Michael Laiskonis' coffee ganache recipe subbing the chocolate I was using for the shell for the dark chocolate he calls for which essentially takes it back to Greweling's recipe. The DDL does thin when stirring and piping but it seems to thicken up again. As can be seen in the picture, it stays in place after cutting. Shelf life, I can't answer. I haven't reached a point where I need more than a couple weeks at most and everything seems to survive that time period (even using commercial off-the-shelf jelly in PB&Js held up longer than that unrefrigerated). I kept a few of these aside, I'm going to cut into one every few days and take a look but the eyeball test doesn't really guarantee nothing is starting to go bad. This is the stuff I make myself by simmering cans of sweetened condensed milk. I'll try making the DDL a day or two before using and see if that helps. The can I used this time had been cooked about a week or so before I used it. I haven't tried that. The crystals are pretty small but I'll give it a try next time and see what happens.

Nothing exciting here, no decoration or anything fancy. Just coffee ganache and dulce de leche in 40% milk shell. The main reason I'm even posting it is to ask if anybody has figured out a way to eliminate the crunchy little sugar crystals that form in every batch of dulce de leche I make (using the boiled cans of SCM method)? They're so tiny that you don't even know they're there until you get that little crunch when chewing. I've had taste testers* say they enjoy the occasional little crunch they get from them but I'm not sure if that convinces me it's ok for them to be there. *Taste testers are another thing I'm going to have to address. Think I'm going to instate a "one strike, you're out" rule that removes people from the tester list if I don't receive timely feedback.

Pictures of baking are never boring.

That looks good. I need to try a semolina bread one of these days. I love it for pizza dough, not sure why I haven't connected that to bread.

Sounds like a great reason to be there to me. Between asking questions, some dedicated internet searching and lots of experimenting, I can usually figure out how to do most of the things I want to do. It's meeting the people and seeing how they do things that would be the fun part for me. I'm determined to get to one of the workshops someday, conspiracy of the universe to prevent it be damned!

Anybody willing to ask Lisabeth a couple questions for me during the bean to bar talk? Unless somebody already knows the answers and we don't need to bother her with it. I'm just wondering if there are detrimental effects associated with higher levels of milk fat in chocolate (for example, if you used cream powder instead of milk powder) and with bringing in other fats (for example, using peanut butter powder or coconut cream powder in the mix). Would the latter just end up making a variation on a meltaway or is there a level that can be tolerated in the mix without causing texture problems? And if so, would that level be sufficient to even matter in terms of flavor?

Dinner is still cooking but I may forget to take pictures when it's done so... Cajun shrimp boil tonight, minus the boil. Nice weather made the smoker feel like a better idea. Top to bottom, Cajun spiced potatoes in the foil pan (mainly just using the heat, not trying to get heavy smoke in those), corn on the cob (pulled the husks back, removed the silk, rubbed 'em with butter and a little Cajun spice and closed 'em up again), spicy smoked sausages (no andouille available locally, I generally make my own but haven't got around to it yet this year with smoker season just getting started) and Cajun spiced shrimp.