Chris Hennes

It is possible, though the idea of a buttermilk that is not at least somewhat acidic seems odd: what, exactly, makes it taste like buttermilk, then? Keep in mind that you do not have to use baking soda with buttermilk: baking powder will work fine, but it won't react with the acid in the buttermilk (which would give additional rise, but would neutralize some of the acidity: since acidity can be a good thing, flavor-wise, you don't always want to neutralize it).

I've probably had a dozen so far since the launch, and I haven't paid for a single one. Amazon.com is including coupons in their shipments, plus newspapers and other random mailings. So the price is right, at least at the moment! I like them both, but in contrast to others, I want even more pickle, and I wouldn't want mayo, on the lunch sandwich, I don't think. I wish the breakfast sandwich was a little moister, but overall I like 'em. Never had the CFA, they are hard to find around these parts.

Man, I'm getting robbed here! The local B&N doesn't have it yet. The guy was very confused when he looked it up on his computer, since it says "Not yet published. Publication date: 6/10/2008." Oh well, patience...

So here's the the same information in (hopefully) more understandable language: baking powder contains both acids (either one or two, depending on if it is single or double acting) and bases (the opposite of an acid: baking soda, a.k.a. bicarbonate soda, is a base). When you mix this with liquid, the acids and bases dissolve in the liquid and then react with each other, creating carbon dioxide, which makes your baked good rise. The powder is carefully designed so that the acids and bases are in exact proportions, and exactly cancel each other out. If you have double acting baking powder, there are two acids, the second of which doesn't start to react until it warms up. It is still designed so that the total reaction completely cancels out all the acids and bases (i.e. it uses up all the baking soda). So then, if your recipe calls for an additional acidic ingredient, like buttermilk, then you might want to use that acid to do some more leavening. Note that doing this will reduce the acidity of the finished product, which is not always desirable. Anyway, to do that, you would add additional base into your recipe to react with the acid: in most cases, you would use baking soda, which is a base, to do this. So it is very common for a recipe to call for both, but only if there is an additional acidic ingredient. In your case, you have buttermilk, so it is pretty normal. If your buttermilk is not acidic enough, however, the reaction won't work, and you won't get that extra rise you were looking for. I have never run into this, but is is possible. Try adding a little baking soda to a bit of buttermilk and make sure that it starts to bubble. Regarding the potential mix-up of your jars: it is very easy to test for. Just take a little bit of what you think is your baking powder and put it in a little water: it should start to bubble when the acids and bases dissolve and start to combine. If it does not, either it is really baking soda, which is just a base and nothing to react with it, or it is many years past its expiration date .

Your question interested me, so although I am no expert on the topic I did a little digging around. First, according to www.greatlakesgelatin.com And secondly, according to K. Thimann and A. Page, Chemical change in gelatin resulting from the method of storage. Biochem J 24(4); 1930: So while neither of these directly explains the bitterness, they do both seem to indicate that a) gelatin is perishable in some sense, and b) that storage in a warm or moist environment will accelerate the degradation.

What is this? I desperately need a crust that won't let me down and that looks terrific! ← We actually have an entire topic over in the Pastry & Baking forum devoted to the topic. The general idea is to replace some of the water in the crust recipe with vodka, since alcohol does not form gluten, but still moisturizes the dough, making it easier to work with. I second Josho's recommendation: it really does make wonderful crusts (though of course there are varying opinions on the matter in the above-linked topic).

Thin, Crispy Chocolate Chip Cookies (March 2001, p. 23) (Recipe here if you have online access.) This recipe produces a shatteringly-thin chocolate chip cookie without any of the toughness I usually associate with crispy cookies (I generally prefer the thick and chewy variety). I managed to follow the recipe this time, although I used Toll House Morsels instead of whatever their preferred chip is. I did end up making them too large since I only have a 1.5 tbsp scoop and the recipe calls for a 1 tbsp. They spread much more than the regular Toll House recipe, so I ended up with square cookies that I had to cut apart, but the taste was very good.

Agreed, and in fact the Reynolds Handi-Vac is really slick for this type of thing (not to mention way cheaper than a FoodSaver, and you can re-seal the bags multiple times).

For the marshmallows I show in this post I used a small biscuit cutter. You get a lot of waste, but also nice little uniform marshmallows.

In my opinion, many of their early issues miss the "perfection" mark by a pretty wide margin, so I'm happy to have them revisit some of those. I have recently been trying to stay away from recipes published in the 90's if there is a more recent version: in my experience, the more recent one is generally far superior. This seems to be over-stating things, in my opinion. I mean, OK, I'm from the middle of nowhere USA, I fancy myself a "gourmet cook," and I dish up CI for, well, many meals, in fact, but to say categorically that all of those meals are "boooring" strikes me as a little pedantic. When the vast majority of Americans are serving frozen dinners, casseroles featuring cream of mushroom soup, and enchiladas with canned sauce, I think making Sichuan Green Beans, homemade enchiladas, and burgers with fresh ground beef, seems downright exciting. As jsmeeker says, I have no other cookbook or recipe resource that provides me with the consistent success that Cook's Illustrated does. So while it could of course be argued that using a recipe at all is "boooring," as far as I am concerned, the fact remains that at least with CI you are going to end up with something that tastes good.

My complaint about many Cook's Illustrated articles is that "problem" they're attempting to fix rarely seems to be a real problem. A friend of mine once described Cook's Illustrated's approach as the "straw man theory of kitchen science," which I think is dead on. ← I absolutely agree, though I think that it has gotten worse over the last couple years. It's like they are running out of recipes to "fix" so they go looking for problems where there are none. Even worse, they have to fill up an entire article describing what was wrong with every other recipe in existence and how they managed to fix it (just in the nick of time, no doubt!). Take their recipe for Fettucini Alfredo, for example: this is a classic dish (that predates Alfredo, but don't get me started!) that is just not that difficult. So they spent half the article teaching you to warm up your fricking plates!!!!! Seriously... I appreciated the idea about only reducing half the cream, but that would have resulted in a three-sentence article, and they needed filler. Gah! I subscribe anyway, the recipes are usually good... and I'm a sucker.

Brilliant! Maybe we should start up a petition...

Better Bran Muffins (May 2007, p. 25) Recipe here if you have online access. OK, I admit this isn't really a Cook's Illustrated recipe anymore after I got at it, so let's call it "inspired by Cook's Illustrated." I'm trying to empty the cabinets, so I made a few substitutions. First, the recipe calls for raisins, and I used dried cranberries. It also has you soak them in warm water, but I figured that everything is better soaked in rum, so I did that instead. Next, it calls for a half cup of whole wheat flour, which I am out of, so substituted with a blend of bread flour and wheat germ. It calls for three tablespoons of light molasses, but I only have regular (actually, I don't even know what "light" molasses is...doh!), so I used half regular molasses and half Lyle's Golden Syrup. Finally, it calls for 1 2/3 cup yogurt, but I was stupid at the store and only bought a 6oz container. This is where things got hairy: I also had a small tub of sour cream, so I used that. But that still didn't make 1 2/3 cup, so I topped it off with buttermilk, probably about 1/4 cup. So now, the "simple" recipe is not so simple after all, since I have nearly doubled the ingredient count! Anyway, for the most part they turned out quite well (better than the cornbread, anyway!). Who knows what they are like when you actually, you know, follow the recipe, but I think the inclusion of the whole wheat flour is a nice idea, as is the powdering of half the All-Bran. And frankly, they really ought to have you soaking the raisins in rum in the first place...

Genius, man. Genius. That is exactly my hesitation to the onion exercise. There is only so much french onion soup one can eat in the middle of the summer!

I don't think anyone but the contestants could say for certain: even if it never made it to the screen, who knows what was left on the cutting-room floor.

I'm currently in the market for a chest freezer since my hope is that I can find me some local 4-H kids who have a pig I can buy. I'm hoping to find one that can get REALLY COLD though, for better long-term storage of the pork. Anyone have any suggestions for models that go low?

It'll never happen: the extra drama the current rules provide by allowing an underdog to make the finals, or an accomplished chef to be eliminated any time, makes for good television. I have to keep reminding myself that this is a TV show, not a real competition. The aim is to entertain, not to choose the best chef.

I got really excited when I saw it in the index: then I opened the recipe and they meant store-bought sausages!!! Weak. I thought a charcuterie recipe from CI would be awesome. I like their recipe for red-sauced enchiladas from the past, but wasn't so hot on the tomatillo variation they came up with for it. Maybe this new enchiladas verdes recipe will be an improvement. Alas, I'm in "clean out the cabinets" mode right now, so I won't be joining in much of the fun with this issue for another month or so. Made the fried rice again a couple nights ago, though: I love that recipe!

Well, it seems like you may be down to trial-and-error testing. I would start with your theory that the new buttermilk is either more or less acidic than what you were using before, and bake two cakes, one with a little more making soda and one with a little less, and see if the results start to change back to the way you remember. Based on your description of the problem, it doesn't sound like the protein content of your flour is the issue here, though I can't rule it out completely. Has any of your other equipment changed, like your mixer? Does this recipe call for creaming the butter and sugar? If so, one possible culprit could be that your new equipment is not doing as good a job as your old at the creaming step, which is critical for proper cake structure. Are you making sure the butter does not get too warm during that step? I'm starting to grasp at straws here!

My hope was that keeping it at 75% would manage to do the trick for both. A little on the low side for cheese, but people have reported good success with that level for charcuterie. I could conceivably build the chamber as a two-compartment deal, with differing humidities, but I don't think I am going to be that ambitious.

I agree, the mold is definitely fuzzy: if I was you I would toss it, and get started on making your own!

Now I'm getting myself turned around in circles! Are we talking about baking powder or baking soda here? If we are talking about baking powder now, and you are in the U.S., the vast majority of the stuff sold here is "double acting," that is, it reacts once when combined with water, and again when heat is applied. So to test it you add it to water and make sure it bubbles. Of course, that only tests half the reaction, it can't check to make sure it reacts again with heat. Unlike baking soda, baking powder has a finite shelf-life, so you need to periodically replace your box. The change in the buttermilk could conceivably change the level of acidity, reducing the reaction with the baking soda, however. In my experience most brands of buttermilk have reasonably similar levels of acidity, but I don't know what it's like where you are. How would you describe the looks of your recent failures? Did they just never rise, or was the crumb unacceptable, or what? It sounds like you've covered almost all of the normal things that we would check to diagnose a cake failure, so any additional detail you can give would be helpful.

Congratulations, Chad, I'm looking forward to the book! I've got a whole bunch of knife books now and I keep telling myself that one of these days I'm going to actually read one of them and get to practicing... I even bought a giant bag of onions a month ago, but I never got around to it. I'm hoping your new book can give me a kick in the butt and kickstart my lousy knife skills, so I'm glad the reviewers liked it. Now if I can just get up the motivation to get off my couch...

Rancidity and mold are two separate issues, and with something like lomo I'm not sure I'd be that concerned about either. Could you describe the mold a little more? Is a white, chalky mold, or is it "hairy"? White, chalky molds on cured meat products are generally not a problem, and are even desirable in some cases. You can wipe it off with a mixture of equal parts white vinegar and water, and that will slow down the growth next time around. If it smells "off," of course, that would be indicative of rancidity, and then I'd pitch it (though it wouldn't kill you). For examples of "good mold" see here or here.

Alan, thanks for staying on top of this! I have several things I am planning to try this fall to remedy my situation. I will finally have space to put in a curing chamber for cured meats, and I'm hoping that the temperatures and humidities are approximately the same for cheese making as well, so hopefully that will work out. I am also going to get fresh innoculant, and try a different source of milk. I think I am going to try to go "back to basics" first and keep working on a Monterrey Jack until I can get it to work right, and only then move on to the more challenging cheeses. My reach exceeded my grasp on that cheddar, I'm afraid .