Tri2Cook

They sell one on amazon that's no more expensive than the regular stuff at the local store with free shipping so it should be easy to get. It wasn't something I planned to have done before Christmas anyway but I'll check at the store again first just to make sure I don't order it for no reason. Do these wind up being similar to icy squares in texture?

I suspected that would be the case but I've never used any type of coconut oil for anything so I wasn't sure how strong the regular stuff is. I'll check the store again to be sure because stuff changes there all the time and I haven't looked recently but this will probably have to wait until my next amazon order.

Are we using regular off-the-shelf whatever's at the grocery store coconut oil for meltaways or tracking down the deodorized stuff? I've wanted to try them for a long time but wasn't sure if the stuff at the store was going to make them taste like coconut mint or coconut peanut butter meltaways.

Thanks! I saw your lemon mint bar in that earlier picture but for some reason it didn't connect when I posted my question. I'd prefer to do the recipe with the fresh mint leaves but the stuff at the store really does look bad right now. I wanted some for the ganache and some for the tiki drinks I was planning to make during the holidays... both are going to have to live without it this time.

Was planning to do Greweling's lemon mint ganache until I saw the condition of the mint available at the local store right now. I have pure peppermint oil so I'm considering pressing on using that instead of the fresh mint. I've seen substitution recommendations saying 1 drop of the oil for 1 tbsp chopped fresh mint but Greweling's quantity is given as "45 leaves". I'm perfectly fine with just adding a drop at a time and tasting but I've never made this ganache before so I'm not sure what I'm aiming for in mint intensity. Anybody done this one that can give me a general idea of how powerful the mint is in the end result?

Makes sense. Airbrushing molds hasn't been going that great for me right now. We're having an early run of very cold weather that makes keeping my work area warm enough to not have to fight with the airbrush difficult unless I'm willing to bump the thermostat up so high that the rest of the house is hot and the oil and electric bills skyrocket. So I'm pretty much relegated to finger painting and splattering right now... that or keeping the air in the house blue while I fight with the airbrush. According to the tracking, that second gun I ordered is at the post office now so maybe being able to switch between them will help.

Interesting... that's the opposite of how I view it. I tend to do everything in molds with laziness being a hefty part of the reasoning. I consider things I have to dip to be the royal pain in the arse.

Not sure how I managed to not see this last year and almost again this year but it looks like it was a lot of fun on both occasions.

That makes sense. Thanks! And it really wasn't a criticism, that's a beautiful cake.

That cake's a beauty. Your posts about the concrete cake pushed me to do a little google searching and the sail seems to be a common theme with the cake. Would anybody be willing to educate the not-so-artsy guy and explain the concept of a sail protruding from a chunk of concrete? That's not a criticism at all, it works and it looks really nice, I'm just wondering if there's an art-related concept behind it or if the person who created the design just decided it'd be nice to have something decorative on it.

I don't chime in on these welcomes as often as I should but when somebody comes in with a user name that makes that obscure a reference, I pretty much have to. So howdy... and J.P. Gottrockets is still looking for you.

It's getting way too microwave scientific for me to be able to add anything else that would be helpful. It wasn't all that much more expensive than a decent regular microwave among what was available where I live and the little control freak that lives in my head liked the idea of having actual control over the power level so I went with it.

I have an inverter microwave and to be honest, for what I do with it, the only real benefit for me is when using it for chocolate work. None of the blasts of full power broken up by periods of no power to approximate running at less power, it just runs at less power. Once you know the chocolate you're working with, you can just set X power for Y time and walk away without worrying about overheating or serious hot spots. I'd think that flexibility with the power could be beneficial for cooking but I honestly don't ever cook in the microwave so I can't help with that.

I'm about 95% convinced I'm gonna just go ahead and do it your way this time. Skip the whole "live and learn" step.

There was a time when my Christmas baking list was similar in length. In recent years, I tend more towards making the list, taking a good look at it, saying "fork that"... and then I start crossing things off to get it back down to something I really want to do. I like the variety but I've learned that, for me, with the really long list, the joy begins to run out before the list does.

I didn't make the sausage rolls last weekend. The kid requested tacos and that sounded good to me so I went with it. I'm doing them this weekend, gonna be a long day of college football with all of the conference championship games. Not being a sausage roll expert, is there any reason leaving out the egg and bread in the recipe Anna N linked would be a bad idea? I know what the egg and bread does texturally but I like the texture of my homemade sausage (which is mixed and ready to go) so that's not an issue. Binding won't be an issue either, I've never had it be a problem no matter how large I make patties with the mixture (sometimes a big cheeseburger using the sausage instead of beef is nice). So is there any other sausage roll related reason I shouldn't leave those items out? I'd prefer not to add anything that's just going to mute the flavor of the sausage. And no, kayb, I'm not making crow rolls.

Unlike JohnT, I am very much a cookie guy and I'm a big fan of peanut butter... so thanks!

I wouldn't go so far as "Hey, no worries..." but I also don't like the idea of saying nobody can have something because some might use it incorrectly or irresponsibly. I've made use of cherry pits, peach pits and tonka beans without the slightest worry. I read the precautions, did my research and made my personal decision on the matter. I would never tell someone else they should make use of those things... but I would never tell them they shouldn't either. I would just tell them to gather the information and make their own informed choice. As a somewhat unrelated side-note, cherry pit ice cream is a thing of beauty.

A 4 year old is the personal responsibility of the parent. Protecting them from potentially dangerous things is part of their job. If the parent reads the warning and still leaves the bag where the kid can get it, while that would be sad if there was a bad result, that still falls under personal responsibility. The personal responsibility of the parent. I'm not sure how to address the "can't read English" thing. You can't put everything in every language on everything so I feel warnings and instructions in the predominant language of the area something is being sold is about all you can reasonably be expected to do. The product is available because there is a responsible way to make use of it... but they can't force people to use it responsibly.

Very nice! I'm getting geared up for it. I've been busy with household stuff and haven't been doing large amounts of chocolate work recently but I loaded the EZtemper with cocoa butter and fired it up this morning. I'm going to dig out those sleigh/reindeer molds and play around with those a bit to start with. Most other than that will be fairly generic, I haven't really started investing in holiday-specific molds yet.

I disagree entirely. All companies can do is provide instructions and warnings, they can't force people to read or heed them. "Nobody pays attention to them" does not shift the burden of personal responsibility away from the person. I realize personal responsibility is being litigated out of today's society with a vengeance but I'll never be convinced it's the right way to go.

Well that saved me some disappointment. It's not really a good time of year for me to spend the money on those but I went to the site anyway just to have a look and be sad that I can't do it right now. It lets you go through the entire checkout process selecting Canada as a shipping destination then, when you get to the final page, it tells you "warning: their are no shipping options available for that location". Seems like it would be much simpler just to leave Canada out of the drop down box that only contains Canada and the United States if Canada isn't really an option.

To be fair, the article does say there was a warning on the bag to not eat more than 2 - 3 per day. At some point, personal responsibility has to come into it. And I don't think things like "who reads labels?" negate that personal responsibility. There are many things that carry risk that I wouldn't want to be told I can't have or do just because someone else failed to follow instructions and had something bad happen as a result.

I think that on a regular basis. But I've already spent the money on the compressor, airbrush and an assortment of colored cocoa butter so I waited too long to have my epiphany... might as well keep at it now.

No ma'am, Roll Tide! Hmmm... War Chicken sausage rolls? I'm actually leaning towards mixing up a batch of my breakfast sausage and using that. I make it fairly spicy and somewhat sage forward, would just need to add egg and breadcrumbs for this use.