Shel_B

Are you suggesting that I can use my blender to mix the zest and butter with the sugar?

Yes, I have an electric hand mixer, and when I tried the technique all I made was a mess. Maybe I don't know enough about how to do this properly with a hand mixer, or maybe the cheap and weak mixer I have is just plain inadequate - don't know. I plan to upgrade the hand mixer at some point, but have not yet decided which one I want, so it'll be a while. Meanwhile, there are a few recipes that I'd like to try using the described technique. What do you mean by "doing it by hand?" Do you mean completely manually, with a spoon or whisk? I tried that, and did pretty well with the zest and sugar, but incorporating the butter was very difficult and the results seemed to leave much to be desired.

I don't have a stand mixer, and have no plans or desire to get one. I could use Toots' mixer, but that's a PITA on a couple of levels. My current hand mixer is pretty weak, and for the time being I've no plans to upgrade. I'd like to make a few recipes that call for mixing sugar with zest and then beating in room temp butter. Can my Cuisinart be used for this process? Has anyone done this? What, if anything, might be the downside? Should I use the steel blade or the plastic blade for this? Thanks!

Yesterday I saw an episode of Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, and the chef at one of the places made a lemon curd using water, as well as the usual ingredients of sugar, eggs, lemon juice, and butter. This seemed very strange to me, and a preliminary internet search turned up nothing about this technique. Why would water be added to a lemon curd recipe? Any ideas?

I understood that vanilla powder was the same thing as ground vanilla. A search for vanilla powder brought up several ground vanilla bean options, and they were described as vanilla powder. I'll try searching for ground vanilla and see if something different comes up. I did find a couple of brands that will fit my needs, though, even when searching for vanilla powder.

Empire is the brand I'm most familiar with here in the San Francisco area. I understand the Whole Foods has recently started carrying Kosher Valley, part of the Hain Celestial group.

I'm having a utensil crock custom made for me. I did the same thing recently for a cutting board. Fortunately, there are a few craftsmen (and women) in my circle of friends.

That's the brand I purchased at Williams-Sonoma several years ago and which was useless. Little flavor so one had to use double or three times the amount to get the same flavor one gets with PURE vanilla powder. How can they advertise and label the product as "pure" vanilla powder when it so obviously isn't? A definition of the word pure is: not mixed or adulterated with any other substance or material, yet this product is mixed with a substantial amount of maltodextrin.

Over the past year or so I've looked for and purchased a number of items for my kitchen, as well as plenty of things to use in other situations. The biggest issue that comes up, at least for me, is quality, or, more specifically, the lack of quality. Recently I've been looking for vanilla powder. I was appalled at the number of brands that claim "pure" vanilla powder is in their bottles, but further examination shows they are no such thing. One company's main ingredient is maltodextrine, another company uses silicone dioxide sprayed with vanilla - and these are but two of numerous companies that claim purity but don't deliver. While looking for cutting boards I was stunned by the number of boards, even from well-known and reputable manufacturers, that literally came apart at the seams. What kind of crap quality is that, especially from a board costing $100.00 or so? A few months ago I was looking for bamboo utensils, and came across some marketed by a well-known Food Network personality. Many, perhaps as much as half, of the reviews claimed that the utensils split apart and broke. Looking carefully at the images of the utensils, it was clear that they were made by gluing and laminating, rather than from a solid piece of bamboo. That design practically guarantees problems. How friggin' difficult is it to make a bamboo spoon that stands up to everyday kitchen use. I have some that are more than 30-years old, and have not had a spot of trouble with 'em. Toots bought a faucet water filter from a well-known company. It's been installed less than three weeks, and it's already splitting apart and leaking. The construction of this new filter is light weight and crap compared to the same brand of filter she replaced after almost ten years of use. I was going to buy a pair of Levi's jeans, but the material was thin, the stitching of poor quality, and the material was already starting to come apart, before ever even trying them on, much less wearing them and washing them. Crap! I bought a new bed at Macy's. It took them THREE delivery tries to get the right bed in the right size into my apartment. They kept bringing the wrong bed! Gimme a break! I bought some bread sticks at Trader Joes, and every one of them was broken, sometimes in several places. When I returned them, the cashier said that it happens a lot - it seems that the packing of the bread sticks doesn't take into account their fragility. What the hell is happening out there? Do any of you encounter problems with quality, and how do you feel about it?

When you look at things from your own point of view and experience, it's sometimes difficult to imagine why someone else can't do, or has difficulty doing, what you do. I can easily buy, or grow, fresh lettuce, and most of the fresh lettuce we eat we grow ourselves. But, compared to fresh, store bought lettuce, the bagged lettuce we get (mostly whole, organic romaine hearts) lasts longer in our vegetable crispers than fresh. Both Toots and I have small kitchens, and minimum storage. We really have no place to store a salad spinner, and the salad spinners I had when I had a bigger kitchen, still required drying the lettuce leaves by hand. so the damned things saved very little time. Then there's the ability to get the spinner to spin fast enough to do a good job, and for some of us, that's a difficulty. Arthritis can get in the way, plus some people just don't have the requisite strength to get those spinners spinning. It may not seem possible to younger, stronger folks, but I know a lot of seniors that have such difficulty. And then there's time. It takes time to get the spinner from its storage space, time to separate the lettuce leaves and wash them, time to clean and dry the spinner, and time to store it again. A lot of older people just don't want the hassle, plus for some, putting things up on shelves in cabinets is just plain physically difficult. Being short, having mobility problems, or, as in my case, a bad back, makes getting things onto a shelf difficult and sometimes painful. Sure, we could use a step stool, but older people sometimes have problems with balance, and it's not unusual for a senior to take a fall, not something we look forward to, and so we avoid situations that can cause us harm, or at the minimum, discomfort. What sometimes bugs me about this forum, and other forums and internet sites, are the number of people who have difficulty seeing or understanding the problems or preferences of others. One day you'll be older, or have some problems, and then you'll know, and understand, that others may have problems with lettuce and salad spinners, or opening a can, or using a step stool. Maybe you'll understand that it's easier, more comfortable, and safer to open a bag of lettuce, or zap a frozen dinner in the microwave, etc., than it is to go through what, to some of us, is a hassle and uncomfortable to do certain things. To a lot of people, food and eating and food preparation is not the adventure it once was. For some, the adventure is getting through the day.

What was it about the recipe or the result that you didn't care for? What were you seeking that the CI recipe didn't have?

I would not buy Nielsen-Massey vanilla powder. Although the label claims that the product is pure vanilla powder, and the ad you linked to claims the product is pure vanilla powder, that is an outright fabrication. Read the ingredients: the first ingredient is Maltodextrin.

Thanks for the pointer. I'd not reached the CI recipe in my search when I first posted. It does have some interesting and novel techniques. Definitely looks like one I'll try.

I've been on a pudding jag lately, and have perfected my chocolate pudding, the vanilla pudding is just about where I want it, and I'm getting close with lemon pudding. Next up: Butterscotch pudding. Checking various web sites gives a few recipes, but what I need more than recipes, is an understanding of what makes a great butterscotch pudding. Looking at recipes only gives me some of the picture. Any suggestions?

I don't have any hard and fast rules. As an example, I always have boxed stock on hand, but I also make my own. Toots likes the rotisserie chickens at some stores, and she frequently buys them, but I don't - ever. But then, I don't make roast chicken, either, preferring other types. We grow some of our own vegetables, and we buy others - depends on the season and what we've planted. I hate peeling garlic, so recently I bought a refrigerated bag of peeled cloves. Never again! They didn't save me much of anything, and the fresh or storage bulbs are so much better. I'll suffer the peeling process. We do like bagged lettuce, but we buy mostly, although not exclusively, the romaine hearts.

Perhaps the question might be, "What are you buying?" Evian, Dasani, Aquafina, San Pellegrino, Fiji, even Trader Joe's, are all around $4.00 per gallon or more. Sure, deals can be found, but the stuff is still quite spendy. The only water I see around here at the price you mention are gallons of distilled water for household use, such as filling steam irons.

I like the videos, and they are helpful to me as a novice baker and desert maker. I always copy recipes into a separate document, a habit I got into years ago. Apart from your reason, it also makes it easier to take recipes with me to other locations using a flash drive rather than trying to remember web sites and other such info. Thanks for your helpful comments.

Recently I discovered Stephanie Jaworski's site, Joy of Baking. Since I'm just starting to play with baking and desserts, and don't know very much about such things at this point, I was wondering what more experienced bakers and dessert makers think of the site and Jaworski's recipes and techniques. Are her recipes generally dependable?

What is Bournville chocolate? Is it a brand? A type of chocolate? What's the cocoa percentage?

That's one of but three companies I found that seem to produce or sell a quality product.

Truth or fiction? You be the judge .... regardless, this video brings up some very valid points. http://www.youtube.com/embed/XfPAjUvvnIc

As I've looked further into this, I discovered that not all vanilla powders are equal or even similar. I noticed that some were darker than others, and upon further exploration learned that some powders are made with added sugar and other ingredients. One contains a vanilla powder or liquid sprayed on silicone dioxide (to enhance flow characteristics) - Sheesh! And many of these have containers labeled as containing "pure" vanilla beans. It seems, at least at this point, the darker powders are more expensive and contain only vanilla beans. Anyone know anything more about this aspect of the product?

Yes, it's the ground vanilla beans. I don't expect to use it for everything I cook, but I can see the advantages for some things. It's just another option to consider. Black pepper and vanilla - yes, that is a nice combination. Thanks for your explanation and info. It has been very helpful.

No, I have no interest in synthetic vanilla.

As I continue my exploration of baking and making desserts, I came across mention of vanilla powder. There are some features of the product that seem useful for me, and I'd like to look further into this product. what should I look for in vanilla powder? Any brands that are recommended? Pluses and minuses compared to good vanilla extract? What might an equivalent amount be for a teaspoon of extract? Thanks!