isomer

Thanks for saying. I tried Hermé's lemon cream from Dorie Greenspan's book, and it tasted completely amazing, but didn't really hold together unless it was ice cold. I only made it once, so I don't rule out an error on my part. tri2cook and gfron1 -- you guys are totally killing it. Your stuff looks so amazing! Here's today's indulgence: Butterscotch walnut bars:

Purely in the interests of Science (and not at all because they might be delicious), I decided to try the Easy Sticky Buns recipe from Barefoot Contessa - Back to Basics. Here's how they look: They're "easy" because they're made from frozen puff pastry. Prep time is about 25 minutes, and cooking is another 25-30 minutes. That's pretty darned good. And they're pretty darned tasty. Crispy on the exposed edges, and soft and doughy inside. They're not made with a brioche dough, but hey... for 50 minutes and they're on the table, they are pretty hard to beat.

You guys are all rocking the house. Your stuff is always so beautiful!! My little contribution: Today I made a lemon tart. This is Dorie Greenspan's Sweet Tart Crust (perfection incarnate, imo) and the lemon curd from Cook's Illustrated's much lauded Lemon Bars recipe. I think it's a winning combination.

CanadianBakin': Dorie's weights would be great, thanks. I'm using 175g flour, 30g cocoa powder, 50g sugar, 120g brown sugar, which is what I found on the net someplace. And (foolishly?) I never questioned it. For other recipes in Dorie's book, I normally use 136g = 1 Cup flour which would yield 170g for this recipe, so indeed I am using a bit more than if I went by my own weights. I'll give a thinner log a try, and thicker slices next time. Thanks so much everyone!

Lisa, you're right! Those do look piped. If that's the case, then obviously it's not the same dough recipe we've got in the book. I do basically the same as you guys for shaping, though i make a rough log on the workbench before I wrap in plastic film, rather than just pour the sand into the film. I'll give that a try next time. Here's how mine come out. Maybe you guys who get them to work like the photo have some ideas what I'm doing differently? Here is a log that I've shaped, frozen and then vacuum packed: And here is how they bake up. I sliced them 1.5cm (0.5") thick as I usually do. You can see they are not quite like M. Hermé's. Except for the two at the top-left of the photo (which fell apart while slicing), the others were perfectly round when sliced: Here is what I did with the other half of that batch: I used a #30 disher to portion the dough (only somewhat evenly, it seems) and made sort of hamburger patties lightly in my hands. I then refrigerated overnight, and then vacuum-sealed and froze them. I haven't baked them up yet, but I'm hoping they will come out rounder and more even:

I've made many batches of Dorie Greenspan's World Peace cookies, and mostly I make them into logs and then slice and bake them. I see on Pierre Hermé's website, that he shapes them completely differently. Look here: Sablés Chocolat. I've tried making them in a shallow muffin tin, but they don't develop the right texture and look (they look, well, like muffin bottoms). I've also tried unmolding them from the muffin tins before baking, which helps them to bake properly, but they come out lumpy around the edges, not smooth like his. Anyone have a better idea on how he is shaping these? thanks!

WOW is right! Those looks beautiful. Very nicely done!

I use a fairly inexpensive fino dry sherry from Emu, which is Australian. I just keep it in the cupboard and use as needed. I go through about a bottle every three months or so, and it's fine for that long. Probably longer. I sometimes use an inexpensive sake in place of dry sherry for a bit of a changeup.

This very basic recipe is adapted from Simple To Spectacular by J.G. Vongerichten and Mark Bittman: Start with a 2lb squash and about 4 cups of chicken stock. Peel and seed the squash and cut it into cubes. Simmer until the squash is very tender, then put the cubes into a blender with enough stock that the machine can run, and puree the heck out them. Mix back into the rest of the stock and season to taste with salt and lots of black pepper. ---- My best guess is that your texture issues come from not blending the squash enough. As for the flavour profile.... can you be more specific about what you're looking for? Fwiw, when I make it, I start by roasting the squash cubes with some garlic and olive oil, and I put about a thumb-sized piece of ginger in the soup, cut into a few large pieces while it simmers. I take the ginger out before pureeing. Hope this helps....

Wow, you guys are really rocking the house here. Everything looks fantastic! Here's my minor contribution.... There are Chocolava cookies from the book One Smart Cookie by Julie Van Rosendaal. They're ... pretty good. The confectioner's sugar coating is a neat idea, and makes them look really cool. The taste and texture, though, are not totally my thing. I am hopelessly addicted to baking Dorie Greenspan's World Peace cookies, which are very hard to beat. And every chocolate cookie I make or eat gets compared to those. So far, nothing's in the same ballpark.

When I was a kid, I despised brussels sprouts. In an effort to "grow up", I asked restorer how to make them. This is based on what he told me, and OMG do I love them now! Preheat a skillet to med-high. Trim outer leaves of brussels sprouts, and cut in half. Toss lightly with oil, salt and pepper. Add some oil to the skillet, and get it nice and hot, then put all the sprouts in, cut side down. Pour in 1/4 cup water, and cover the skillet. After about 5 minutes, the sprouts should be perfectly steamed, and beautifully carmelized on the bottoms. If there is still water in the pan (unlikely), boil it off now. Finish with some butter, and a chiffonade of fresh herbs (I like basil best). I often drizzle them with white-wine vinegar before serving too. -anthony

Thanks for the suggestions! I'll give them both a try.

gfron1: thanks! yeah, it was hard holding back Oh, interesting! I figured it was to get rid of moisture, but I assumed (wrongly it seems) that the egg acts as a leavener. At any rate, I'd never seen this before, and it worked very well. I'm going to compare it to the sable cookies in Dorie Greenspan's book later in the week. Hers call for raw egg yolk. As an aside the thin layer of chocolate I brushed between the cookies doesn't have the oomph I was hoping for. It's like the layer is too thin for the flavour to really shine though. Anyone have an idea how to improve that? I'm thinking of trying to blend in some cocoa powder, but I don't really know how that will work (I'm a total noob with deserts)...

Today I made Sablés au Chocolat. The recipe is from this month's Cook's Illustrated. They used a cooked(!) egg yolk as leavener, and as promised in the article, the cookies have a wonderful sandy texture.

That sounds fantastic! I'm going to have to give this a try. Y'all are being quite inspiring here!

Ok, well the plan wasn't for this to be dinner, but you know what happens when you bake a delicious bread! This is the Basic Hearth Loaf from Rose Levy Beranbaum's "The Bread Bible". I made two alterations. First, I added onion seeds (kalonji) which gives it a wonderful savoury taste, and second, I baked it in a dutch oven. I picked up that idea from the Cook's Illustrated almost no-knead bread recipe.

OMG that looks incredible! Wow!

In a ziplock bag inside a tupperware container.

Here is the result of the aging experiment with paulraphael's cookies: The cookie on the left aged 24 hrs, the one in the middle 48 hrs, and the one on the right 72 hrs. First off, the aging doesn't seem to affect the taste at all. Texture, though, is a different story altogether. It seems like the longer the dough ages, the tougher it gets, and the less it rises. The 72 hr cookie is smaller, tougher, and almost cakey inside. The 24 cookie on the other hand is nice and tender. It also happens to look the best. So in the end, I am going to age them 24 hrs.

Thanks! Confession time: That is some big time beginner's luck. This is the first load of bread I've ever baked

I used the dry milk at gfron1's prompting. There's no bitter aftertaste at all. I noticed that you have to be pretty careful with the butter, though. It went from nothing to pretty brown in an instant. I was a bit worried because it was quite brown, so I cooled for a few minutes and tasted it to be sure. Also at gron1's prompting, I've got a batch of dough resting for 48 hours in the fridge to compare the texture with the 24 hour dough. Will report back...

Here are the Cook's Illustrated Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies from the January 1996 issue. I followed their recipe and split the balls of dough in half, then joined the halfs together with the splits facing up. Here's how they look before they go into the oven: And here's how they came out: They actually look better than the photo shows, but the idea is that the rough texture makes for a "bakeshop" looking cookie. It seems to work for this dough. Here is a view from the side so you can see how thick they are: Overall, these are a pretty good cookie. I much prefer the taste of the paulraphael cookies, but these sure look great. As an aside, these and the previous cookies are the first cookies I've ever baked! talk about beginner's luck - they came out pretty well

I made a batch today, and they are very, very good. Thanks for sharing this great recipe with us! Here's how they came out: I also made a batch of the Cook's Illustrated Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies from the January 1996 issue (see next post), which is the one where you are supposed to portion the cookies with a disher, then split the ball in half and join the halfs together with the split sides facing up. I tried the same technique on these cookies. (top and right, above). The one on the left was done as a straight ball. Personally, I like the shape of the one on the left better, but look at the next post for how it works for the CI cookies. One more look to show the thickness:

Today I made the no-knead bread 2.0 recipe from the January 2008 issue of Cook's Illustrated. Here's how it came out (comments follow): The crust is completely amazing! Baking the bread in a dutch oven really, really works. It's light and very crispy. The crumb is also very nice. Chewy and open. I made one mistake which was to use kosher salt when the recipe called for table salt. I only noticed afterwards, so I didn't use enough. But beyond being somewhat undersalted, the other components are pretty good. Adding beer and vinegar makes it takes pretty good. It's not anywhere near as complex as a good sourdough, but heck, for 10 minutes of work, this is really hard to beat. I'm going to make it again for sure. They have a video podcast showing the procedure, which I believe is free to watch for anybody: Almost No-Knead Bread

I suspect that what you are seeing is statistical streaks and slumps, just like in baseball.