Darienne

Hi David, Thanks for the answer. Although I have read and heard about Mycryo, I never really addressed my lack of knowledge at the time. The time is now. I do have some LorAnn cocoa butter on hand. Is it good enough to use? Chef Eddy uses Callebaut cocoa butter. Do you use this method often? All the time? Why or why not? Thanks.

Chef Eddy van Damme has a very nice blog which I have just started to follow...that's what I need...more blogs to follow . Chef Eddy's last post was about tempering chocolate using grated cocoa butter I think I'll try it. Had anyone tried this technique? Does anyone use this technique regularly? Any opinions, advice, etc? All replies gratefully received.

I could pm you my dog biscuit recipe. It is the least 'grain' and other basically non-dog related recipes I have used. It's a recipe born of putting together the best of a few recipes I found years ago. The only 'problem' with it, in terms of sale, is that it is made only of REAL food, has no preservatives, and won't last forever like the commercial dog food biscuits. (Kind of 'problem' that I like.) ps. Being made of REAL food, the biscuits will go bad after a length of time. I can't say how long...I make 4x batch, we keep them in the fridge and I've not had them go bad yet in years of making them.

The painful truth is that it's been years since I even made bread in a machine and at that I had to relearn that simple process. I used to make bread constantly in my bread machine, in my 'cooking under duress' days, and had designed my own bread recipe which we loved...to our detriment. The even more distressing truth is that I have never made bread any other way and it is now one of my next projects...in a long line of culinary projects stretching out, no doubt, far beyond my lifetime. Thanks again, David. Boozy Oven-baked French Toast will have to wait until the next loaf...this one is almost all gone already.

Hi therippa, I'm going to assume that you are asking the question of me. Upon re-reading the topic, I see that I never explained clearly just why I wanted that particular pan. Confectionery partner, Barbara, and I make this copy cat version of Enstrom's toffee...the best toffee I have ever eaten...which is coated with chocolate after cooling. If you cover the top and bottom of the toffee with chocolate and then break the toffee into pieces (shards), some of the chocolate can come off in uneven patches. If you cut the toffee in the pan, it's not that easy to get the pieces even and cut through although with experience I could get it right no doubt. Caramel rulers, which I don't own, might be useful for the cutting process. It just struck me that this brownie pan, with its set-in divider, might be the answer to our situation, two pans. We could just set the divider into the cooling toffee, and the resulting pieces would be small and even, and we could simply dip them right into the chocolate, sprinkle one side with chopped nuts and le voila! Michaels no longer carries the pans. Winners/HomeSense in Peterborough had no idea what I was talking about. They have another brand of the pans at Hendrix but they cost too much for my taste. So...

My Challah is baked, in the bread machine, David Goldfarb's recipe (thanks again, David), un-braided (next one will be braided). Beautiful loaf, lovely texture, delicious taste. My original purpose in making the Challah was to use it in the recipe for oven-baked French Toast (titled: Boozy Baked French Toast, Smitten Kitchen) which called for Challah and which I made a few days ago with a French baguette. The braided shape would have no purpose in this dish and so I just plopped...as it were...the ingredients in the machine, pressed the button, and walked away. This will be a great dish for the Annual Dog Weekend bunch! Thanks to all for all the input. All duly noted and squirreled away.

4 legged variety, or in a bun type? How would a 4 legged dog get into the maple syrup? Our two dogs had just arrived and so were maple syrup-free, but their three dogs, two of them Goldens with long fur, had somehow gotten maple syrup on themselves, particularly their tails and hind feathers. Imagine a hot dog in a bun with maple syrup??? Strange pairings. Not so strange really; think of a buttered, toasted bun with a nice pork/beef hot dog and a sluice of maple syrup over all. I love breakfas sausage dipped in the maple syrup from the french toast; a hot dog isn't all THAT different, no? Aarrgghh. Ya got me.

What about one of the fancy chopping set-ups? Williams Sonoma professional multi chopper

Would two huge Maple trees be worth tapping? We have two just behind the farmhouse. It's too late this year to think about it for us, but maybe next year? I have no idea of how much sap one tree will provide.

Thanks Emmalish. I had quite forgotten that these pans will be supervised in their use. The kitchen queen. I also reign over my Paderno pans (I know, I know, they hardly register on the pan Richter scale, but I bought them pre-eGullet.) They aren't even kept with the regular cooking pans. My old rusted metal baking pans, some of which date back 50 years, were not precious to me at all. I cooked...under some duress. Pretty much all wives and mothers cooked fifty years ago...like it or not. Oh well. Whatever. That was then...this is now. My new baking pans will not be used even temporarily to store nails. Or to heat up leftovers. "Let's just cut that sucker up using a sharp knife on the bottom of the pan." Hmmm...my old cake pans are still fine. I guess cake pans were never used as all purpose containers. My, my, how eGullet has changed my life.

Yesterday I bought some new baking pans by Doughmakers at our local and only restaurant supply store, Hendrix. The pans are manufactured in the USA...WOW!...of recycled aluminum and have a pebbled interior surface. The pans are featured at Doughmakers website. (I also bought the familiar smooth interior finish 1/4 sheets, etc, at the store...in the smaller sizes, e.g., 9" square, 9"x13", they carry only this pebbled finish.) I would call the pan surface almost crackled perhaps. Not a non-stick finish; more of a satin shine I guess. Of course they will not rust. And the manufacturer claims that the baked goods brown evenly and have an easy release. But I keep looking at the crackled, pebbled finish and wondering...will it become a royal pain to clean? I can still take them back. I did see some smaller aluminum baking pans at Canadian Tire for the first time...smooth interior finish. Perhaps tried and true is better...???

Talk about synchronicity. Today the blog 'Always Order Dessert' has a video tutorial on making the six strand braided Challah loaf.

Will try that next. Thanks.

Hooray for P.J. He is going to grow up to be one fantastic chef...or whatever he wants to be.

Alas no pans at Michael's and so my 40% off coupon went unspent. Hendrix, a Canadian restaurant supply store carries them but at a higher basic price and with no discount. Rats.

Where did you get a copy please? Thanks.

I say...go for it, girl!!! A friend says the brownie pan is available at Michael's, so I am heading there this afternoon.

I know very little about either city (they both leave a lot to be desired), but if you are actually WORKING in Windsor, I would also stay in Windsor. One thing I would NOT want to do is to cross the border twice every day. Sometimes the line-ups are horrendous. DH wants me to add that it can take an hour or more to cross. Edit #2: Ed remembered that you can buy a 'Pass' which allows you to cross the border in a special fast line...but would they sell one to a non-Canadian/American? I don't know.

Our local bulk food stores has small plastic containers with lids for $.10 a piece. I use these with labels I stick on them. They stack well. Each holds one cup...just done...and I never keep that much of those powder/potion things at one time anyway.

Ditto .

I'd be curious to know if you, Emily R, are European or something else non-American. Americans usually, now only usually , like their confections and baked goods sweeter than Europeans or Canadians. I don't know about Aussies. (We are expecting an onslaught of Aussies at the farm in April/May and will inquire.) I'm Canadian, and invariably cut the sugar content in American recipes. No sense of superiority there...just childhood experiences, especially as DH and I are War Babies...is, NO sugar. We drink our coffee VERY STRONG from the getgo and find commercial coffee providers with the exception of Starbucks and other local coffee places, make their coffee very weak. As one barista in a Colorado Starbucks outlet told me: "Most American coffee tastes like weak weasel p*ss". I couldn't say, never having tasted the aforementioned beverage. So, I used very strong brewed coffee and also added a bunch of ancient instant coffee too. Then a huge pinch of espresso grounds. Plus I didn't have enough condensed milk as noted above. Maybe that made the difference. I would suggest to Emily to make it again, put more coffee into it and replace some of the condensed milk with either heavy or half & half cream. It's hard to taste the mix when it's warm because of course the cold will reduce the sweetness factor. Good luck.

So the American can and the Canadian can both hold 1 1/4 cups of condensed milk. Thank you for your help. Now I can rest easy.

4 legged variety, or in a bun type? How would a 4 legged dog get into the maple syrup? Our two dogs had just arrived and so were maple syrup-free, but their three dogs, two of them Goldens with long fur, had somehow gotten maple syrup on themselves, particularly their tails and hind feathers. Imagine a hot dog in a bun with maple syrup??? Strange pairings.

I did have misgivings about making the Vietnamese Coffee Ice Cream, as interesting as the ingredients were, because I could not stand a cup of coffee with sugar in it. WOW! The ice cream is terrific. Yummy. Even DH loves it. So good. Now for the small problems. In Canada at least, condensed milk comes in 300 ml = 1 1/4 cup cans. And the recipe called for 1 1/2 cups. a) I had only one can and b) what on earth would I do with most of an opened second can? Condensed milk is not something I have ever worked into my life. So I used 1/4 cup extra half & half, and my dollop of corn syrup which now was not problematic at all. Chalk up another success for DL's Perfect Scoop (with minor variations).

We live in called east central Ontario (90 miles north and east of Toronto), Maple Syrup Land. Every hamlet in the area has a maple syrup festival. Last week we went to our neighbors round the corner (so to speak) and watched the operation -year old lath from our farm renovations, miles of plastic tubing, dogs covered in syrup...it was amazing. I had no idea what a huge operation our neighbors had. They gave us a bottle of fresh hot syrup to take home which I promptly screwed up making maple candy. (There is a tiny window in beating the candy between pourable and a huge solid lump on the receiving mold.) Then the ground-up maple sugar went into rolled biscuits with walnuts. Delicious.