Darienne

The most incredible news on a new topic from Lior (Ilana)Ilana in Madison. She will be in Madison Wisconsin in July/August. What if she could get a short flight to Ann Arbor and attend the Heartland Gathering? That would be wonderful!

If you have never tried them, you just have to. I am NOT a chocoholic (contrary to the beliefs of some) nor a candy freak...but...that toffee is SO good. Too good. I'm giving it all away tomorrow. I'll find the URL: Enstrom's Toffee Recipe The only change I make is to use tempered dark chocolate instead of chips and to dust with cocoa. Oh, and this time to score and break into pieces. I've been to the Enstrom's factory but they weren't making when we were there. Oh, and it's very expensive to buy...very...and not that cheap to make with an entire pound of butter per batch.

Thanks Heidi and djyee100 for all the information. We live near a small...east central Ontario to be exact...unexciting city. The very phrase: east central Ontario breathes stability and lack of excitement! Never a kumquat to be had. Now that's a level of excitement. Still starting the next time we are in the city, I am going to note which brands are available in which stores...buy one of each...try them all. Maybe I can find some of the better brands. I am trying to replace dairy with coconut milk where I can. On the other hand, next time in Toronto, I'll no doubt find exactly what I need.

Thanks. I'll report back on how it works. Last batch made was dusted in cocoa powder, but I wasn't careful enough on one side to dust it lightly enough and the chocolate didn't adhere well. It will be easier to remove any excess cocoa this time.

When you say it freezes well, Heidi, do you mean the leftover that you don't use that day...or something made with coconut milk...? What do you mean by many a soup has been saved...forgive my lack of understanding...saved from what? Not good enough to eat? Some cooking problem? Thanks.

Back to making the Enstrom Kopy Kat Toffee. Made the toffee. Poured it out onto a silpat lined rimmed cookie pan. Scored and wiped the excess oil out of the cracks. Broke the pieces very nicely. Uh oh. The silpat was slick with butter and so were the backs of the individual pieces. Probably should have flipped it first and wiped it and then broken the pieces. Eventually the pieces will be laid out and brushed on one side with tempered chocolate. Then when the chocolate is hard, I'll dip them, chocolated side down, into the chocolate bowl. But what to do next with the greasy pieces? Wipe each individual piece? Wipe and dip into cocoa or cornstarch or a mixture and then shake excess off in a sieve? Other? Thanks. (BTW, you know how it tastes. )

Kim said: "topped with salmon roe (or those bubble things the molecular chef types make)." Which one is exactly right? And what are 'those bubble things'? Thanks.

Lovely breakfasts all. Can someone please explain exactly what I am looking at? Thanks.

You are, indeed, the Chocolate Doctor!!!

How long do you suppose that liquid coconut would keep in the fridge? Can opened, leftovers put into an air tight container?

There is nothing quite so humbling and enlightening as to be incapacitated for a new months to realize how casual the able-bodies are in their attitudes towards being able to move freely and do just about anything you put your mind to without thinking about it. Or maybe it was just me. This morning, after having declared my intent to re-organize the downstairs freeze on Jan 27, I actually donned my gloves (thanks to the eGulleter who suggested gloves for handling those plastic milk crates) and began the process of actually 'DOING" it. And it was easily done in a few minutes. I was stunned by the amounts of some stuff. It's still not finished, but it's well underway. And the good news is that I appear not to be incapacitated any more. It doesn't get better than that. (And stop buying nuts until you use the stuff in the freezer. And butter also. Idiote.)

It wasn't hot at all. Just lukewarm. And as mentioned in my last post, it is still shiny, which it shouldn't by all rights be, and the dark brown is dull. Learn, learn, learn...

Thank you DerekW. Shall use it tomorrow in my smoothie. Made cornstarch-based Lebanese Milk Ice Cream yesterday. It called for half heavy cream and half full milk. Used one can full fat coconut milk (well, I guessed that it was full fat) and one can of what I assume is half fat coconut cream. Plus other ingredients, some of which I had on hand...others the usual types of substitutions. Delicious pronounced by DH. I am trying to cut down/ get away from cow's dairy products again (along with wheat for starters). ps. Which supermarket chain exactly is the Great Canadian Superstore? Loblaws?

Thanks for putting it into a useful perspective.

The Lebanese Milk Ice Cream is made...well, sort of, but it is delicious. Instead of milk and heavy cream, I used full-fat and half-fat coconut milk. I had rose water, but no orange blossom water, so I used orange zest. And instead of sprinkling the pistachios on top, I mixed them in. Of course, I always add PaulRaphael's additions: corn syrup and a dash of salt. Very good. Brought to mind using this coconut milk base for the ricotta ice cream recipe that I found...oops...photocopied the one page out of a now unknown Italian cookbook. The inclusions are basically those of nougat and it is SOOO good and so colorful. Oh, nougat and then some. I made it at Thanksgiving and Christmas and it was well received in the extreme.

Well, actually I really was being 'silly', as in the emoticon for 'braz' Oddly enough, the white non-tempered parts of the marbling are still shiny...it the dark brown which looks a bit tatty. Very curious.

I am hanging my head in embarrassed shame...

I did check them once, several days ago, and they looked fine. That was the only time they were disturbed. The dark chocolate was tempered in the Revolation I...but it embarrasses me, now that I have asked for advice...to remember that we only melted the white and did not temper it. Ooops. That might be the answer. Still you are suggesting that properly tempered and stored, they should still look glossy quite a long while. Oh well, I'll chop them up and Ed can eat them as time goes by with his peanut butter or something.

Now I know that this topic has been dealt with before, but after going through 19...count'em...19 pages of topics with 'chocolate' in the title, I could find no reference to simply how long a chocolate might last before it begins to look like the ones I was about to bestow on our butcher today. And now am not going to. Barbara, confectionery partner, and I made simple marbled dark and white chocolates on February 4th. The leftover lot has been sitting in a dark, cool, airtight container since that day. It is now the 13th. They are not moldy or with bloom...they just look really old and tired and the gloss is gone! I need some storage info, please.

Can anyone tell me about Club Soda? I have a can in front of me, 355 ml(12 oz. USA), says Ingredients: carbonated water. And the Nutrition Fact say 0% of this and that, HOWEVER, 1% sodium. It's not President's Choice, but Compliments, another Canadian in-house brand, about the equal in terms of cost and quality. Can I make my own somehow? Buy some gadget and do it? Is it cost-effective? get rid of the sodium? ???? How bad for you is the commercial product? Thanks

I have a box of pure creamed coconut. It was left at the farm last summer by a Grenadian-born cook who cooked for us for a weekend (yumm!). I put it into the freezer and just took it out yesterday to put in the fridge. It has no expiration date on it and no nutritional chart. It is 'manufactured' in the UK by KTC (Edibles). It's in one 200gm block. Do you think it's still good? Has anyone heard of this brand?

I use citric acid when making hard tack lollipops to give them a sour/tart flavor.

Oh yes. The center of my right palm actually hurt by evening the day of the massive chopping spree.

It was just a trial run and I realize that I could have chopped the almonds smaller. It won't be perfect, but they were straight out of the freezer and that's not too bad. Also the pieces look larger in the photo than they actually are. Mommy wants a new camera with a macro lens.

It would take me a while to duplicate your 'pans I use all the time' list, but I found it very interesting. I make confections, ganaches, etc, and couldn't do without my 1/2, 1 and 2 litre sauce pans.