Tri2Cook

Nice! They are tasty. I'm not sure if it's the same recipe I used, I'd have to dig for it to be sure, but they were good. Everybody that received them as part of their Christmas cookie tin liked them.

They're very rare where I live. Like, maybe for a short window once a year if we're lucky. Sometimes not at all. But I've found that, though not ideal, even packaged white grapefruit juice tastes better to me in most drinks I use it in than fresh pink/red does. I know that's one of the 7 deadly cocktail sins, using packaged juice, but I honestly think it tastes better in most tiki drinks than the pink/red stuff. Even a grapefruit dominant drink like the Reverb Crash. Obviously not as good as fresh... but better than the substitute.

Where I live, white is the needle in the haystack. Pink/red is always available.

I very much suspect that is not that case at all. I've seen absolutely nothing you've posted that suggests any deficiency in your skills as a baker.

Same for me, except I have 3 sizes because on rare occasions I want to make really big cookies. I'm pretty OCD about my baking (and cooking) but I can scoop dough and get cookies all the same size just as accurately as I can weigh it and get all the same size... and the scooping goes much faster.

For food gifts going to people I know and care about, I use what they like. If I like 70% in a cookie and the recipient likes milk chocolate, there will be milk chocolate in the cookie. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with gifting people with things made the way you like them. But if gifting a person with something you're gearing specifically towards that person, why would personal preference rank above their preference? I don't see anything wrong with the recipe in your example, Chris. That's your basic chocolate chip cookie recipe with some cocoa replacing some flour and peanut butter chips replacing chocolate chips. Nothing "carrying it too far" about that. If the recipient(s) enjoy it, that means more to me than using cocoa harvested from a rare plant that only grows in elephant footprints that are watered by rain water dripping off of vanilla vines. Sometimes we get too caught up in that sort of thing.

Looks good. I'm looking forward to that pre-order button going live.

If we're talking about that whipped orange caramel ganache, I still have the recipe. Would jotting it down in a post in my own words make it forum safe or is that still outside the lines? Seems like that'd be a lot easier just to have it here for any who want it.

Thanks for the link. I don't think I'm going to add any more to this years list but I've already found a few things on that blog that might go on next years list.

I'm still thinking about what else might work. I've had gingerbread constructions that sat in an unheated porch through the rest of the winter and into spring when things get warm and more humid and were still solid just using royal icing so I'm not sure what would be stronger and more reliable and still remain in the food safe/edible range. Is food safe/edible a concern? I'm assuming so since you mentioned construction adhesive not being an option.

I'm not sure what to suggest Rob. I've always used royal icing with no problem with it holding. The only problem I've ever encountered with my gingerbread buildings was the year I spent weeks making a large Christmas castle layout. The royal icing held just fine but a curious cat decided to roam through the castle grounds while nobody was looking. He managed to knock things over and break things but I don't think there were any failures at the icing joints.

Clean, efficient and spacious... in general, I kinda like it. After years of working in restaurant kitchens, when cooking at home, I sometimes find myself getting irritated by all the stuff that's part of a lived-in home kitchen getting in my way.

What Kerry posted is what I was less skillfully trying to say. Not cooking the caramel up to a temp that would allow it to set up firm enough to cut is what I do as well. I sometimes make a small batch at home and park it in a squeeze bottle. The kid likes to shoot it onto apple slices and it flows out of the bottle without having to heat it first. It won't hold it's shape if you squirt a blob of it on a plate, it slowly spreads until flat.

When I want a liquid caramel, I just use my normal caramel recipe but don't put it back on the heat and cook it up to a specific temp after I add the cream. I just pull the sugar from the heat, stir in the (hot) cream and butter and call it done. It isn't liquid like water but it flows easily from a squeeze bottle at room temp. But I generally use it as a sauce... shelf life isn't a concern.

Like I said, I'm not opposed to it, just very unlikely to ever use it. It may be helpful to some. If so, it's probably worth doing. I've just never encountered a recipe site where the ratings were a particularly accurate representation of recipe quality.

I've never been a fan of recipe rating personally. I've seen way too many recipes where there's a low rating and then you start reading comments and most of the low ratings have things like "I didn't have x so I used y" or "it said to do this but I decided to do that instead" or similar things. Despite indicating they didn't actually follow the recipe, they still gave it a low rating. I added my own review to the boiled water section as an example of what I mean. But I'm not actually against a ratings system, just not likely to use it.

I'm not sure she's suggesting everyone who occasionally decides to do a little chocolate work should have one. Actually, I haven't heard her suggest that anyone should have one. She's pretty much just answered questions and related her experiences. But that aside, I think this is probably geared more towards those doing at least a fairly consistent amount of chocolate work. To have a $1000 machine sitting there waiting for the once or twice a year "chocolates for a holiday" person to use it probably isn't what's being suggested. Though, if that person can afford to have it for that rare use, it would probably still be pretty nice. I do more than occasional work but probably not enough (at this point) to warrant the expense... but that won't stop me from getting one when I can work it into the budget.

The matsutakes were late this year here but they're long gone now. That pretty much marks the end of the local season.

Based strictly on appearances, the quality available at an all-you-can-eat place where you live looks to be much greater than the all-you-can-eat places anywhere near where I live.

I must have somehow missed that when they were posted before... but I intend to try them now. Blue cheese shortbread with fig preserves sounds pretty amazing as well.

Khao Soi with chicken. Garnished with basil, green onion, lime and chili oil. The suggested cilantro would have been nice but the cilantro at the local grocery store was not looking too fresh so I skipped it.

:biggrin:

I haven't had that happen with them but I haven't ordered from them recently. The few times I ordered from them in the past, the shipping cost to Canada was so outrageously out of line with anywhere else I order from that, despite them having many things I'd like to order, I had to quit ordering from them for that reason. If that has changed (it's been over 5 years since I ordered from them), I'd be happy to know about it.

If you like the flavor as is and just want to tame the heat, I agree on just stretching the batch with more of everything other than the habs. You can add assorted other things which are really just doing the same basic thing, stretching the batch size, but they will change the flavor. If they change it to something you don't like, the bin is the only remaining option.

Yep, looks like they're doing something pretty much identical to the technique in dejaq's tutorial with the exception of spreading the color with air instead of a spatula. Pretty cool, I'm going to have to try it.