Darienne

DH and I don't give each other gifts but he is always more than generous in urging me to get what I need. And since we have set up temporarily in Moab, I have had to buy a lot of kitchen bits and bobs that I either forgot to bring or didn't realize I would need. And Ed did buy me a set of stainless steel bowls with rubber bottoms last month. Good because my manual dexterity is almost gone and the bowls stay still on their own, but bad for cooling things quickly because the rubber bottoms hold heat. Learn, learn, learn. I guess my best present this year is being able to cook in a kitchen in Moab, the red rock center of my heart. Oh, and he did buy me a stand mixer, the honking big Cuisinart, just before we left Canada. (Bigger than I wanted... ) It's been a quiet, but very good, Christmas.

I thought maybe I could just tack this question onto this thread. I did buy some Gianduja and used it in a ganache. Fine. Question is: can you use Gianduja as a couverture to enrobe other bits or to dip things into? It seems so very soft to begin with and I just thought I'd ask before trying it perhaps in vain. Searched eGullet without finding any references to using Gianduja to enrobe anything and also looked at Google and found nothing. That usually would signify that there is nothing to fine and that Gianduja is not suitable for coating other things. Thanks.

Ditto for me. I actually dragged my husband to see them and he was impressed too. They are incredible!!!!!

That Cranberry Gallette is too beautiful for words!!!!

I will eat dark chocolate every day. I will make bread. I've never made it from scratch. I will find my Mother's recipe for Beaver Pudding somewhere on this earth. I will learn how to make proper pastry. I will teach my neighbour up the road how to work with chocolate although I really don't want to. I will read Peter Greweling's excellent chocolate book every page out loud to my DH who loves to be read to. I will grow my own ginger to candy I will not well, I don't know what I will not do or be or think.

Macaroni and cheese. My Mother-in-Law's recipe. Made by my DH. What could be better?

I haven't made Christmas cookies since forever, but last week my next-door neighbor/landlady/friend brought me some Viennese Crescents. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. So now I have made them twice and to add a further decadent touch, decorated them liberally with 63% chocolate swirls, stripey things and such. I feel like the cat who ate the canary. This new life of baking and make confections is sure a lot more fun than my former research career.

Brilliant idea. I wish that I had had it. When we get back here in March, I'll order a second bowl and baffle. I do know about the prongs! Little devils. They were a tad bent, but still working fine. It was that fat little metal nubbin down at the bottom of the baffle which transmits the temperature. It had become loose-ish and was no longer making proper contact. As noted, the new baffle has a Mother of all glued temperature gauges now and you'd have to take a hammer to it to dislodge it. Well, I do exaggerate a bit...

That is too funny. My husband gets through Brussels Sprouts by drowning them in a curried peanut sauce. Could be little soft golf balls underneath for all he knows....

Very unsophisticated here. Named after our farm. Road's End Farm Coffee (affectionately called a Frothy Coffee) hot decaf coffee, cocoa mix (the supermarket kind with sugar in it), and a jigger mixed of vodka and a liqueuer, or a jigger of just liqueur. Might include Panama Jack, Grand Marnier, Chambord...whatever you like. Dump into the blender and froth to the max. Into a huge blue glass mug. Yumm. (We make the same coffee with cold decaf coffee in the summer, with the addition of some ice cubes.

Follow-up on the apricots. They went into the trash and the lovely syrup was a disaster as lollipops (noted in another topic). I am now candying lemon peels. I did the prelim water changing cooking four times and then started the candying process. They are still very bitter. I should have read this entire topic through before starting, because there is a lot of information in it about thick, bitter, etc peels. (And I now know that a Meyer's lemon is not a 'lemon' per se. Not to mention what a Buddha's hand is. Fascinating. I wonder where I would get them in Canada...probably Toronto?) Has anyone had success in candying regular lemon peels and what extra steps were necessary, please. Thanks.

Thanks Lisa, you could be correct...but then it hit 300 dgrees F with no problem. I suspect it has something to do with the nature of the apricot itself. But then I don't know and that's why I am asking. As for recooking it...I think not. It's in the round file. It was a major task ungluing it from the marble slab.

Thanks for the ideas. The apricots hit the trash long ago. Sulphured apricots are definitely not the way to go. And the lollipop stuff went that way today. No way to do anything further with it. Each lump had to be pried and heated off and the sticks removed. It certainly wouldn't crush. But thanks for trying.

The lollipops were a confectionary disaster. The ones made on buttered marble stuck like contact cement at its best and the ones poured into hard candy molds, popped out and then stuck as above to whatever they were put on. And they were not really hard, although cooked to 300 degrees F. OK. After I made candied ginger, I took the remaining flavored syrup, added a bit of corn syrup and made wonderful little hard candies. Perfect. So. My apricots, being sulphured (learning experience # 253), were tossed out, but the syrup was DELICIOUS. Into a pot, with a dollop of corn syrup. And presto. A mess which is thrown out...after a battle to get it off the marble slab. Questions: - is there something in the apricot itself which precluded a hard candy being the result? - pectin ? (about which I know nothing yet) - sulphur? (why are the apricots sulphured? I know they do look different) - might the same thing happen with leftover citrus syrup? - might it have worked if I had not put any corn syrup into it? - why was the ginger syrup fine? - other? - ? No, I did not save the stuff to put on ice cream. I don't really like ice cream anyway. (Something to try at home in the future.) Would someone extremely knowledgeable like to come and live in my house for the next year or so?

A very interesting article in NY Times, Dec 18, 08 about butter and baking cites the three new cookbooks: Shirley O. Corriher, Bakewise: The Hows and Whys of Successful Baking (Scribner), Jennifer McLagan, Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, With Recipes (Ten Speed Press) and also Anita Chu, Field Guide to Cookies (Quirk Books) . My question is: where can you buy specialty butters in the USA or Canada? Are they horrendously expensive? The shipping problems? Also what about whipping creams? Greweling (or is it Shotts or ?) speaks of using whipping cream with a higher percentage of fat than the normal North American cream. And while I'm on the subject. To me, American butter...and I've tried a number of them now...tastes quite different from Canadian butter. Anyone else found this? Or knows why? Thanks.

Another very interesting article in NY Times, Dec 18, 08 about butter and baking cites the Corriher book and also adds Jennifer McLagan, Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, With Recipes (Ten Speed Press) and also Anita Chu, Field Guide to Cookies (Quirk Books) .

don't toss!! I would think they are probably going to be very soft....probably killer marshmallow creme or soft fluffs for hot chocolate. I vote wait and see what you get and let us know. The best recipes in the world started out as OOOPS! ← I don't know either, but I'll guess marshmallow creme also. Do let us know what happens.

Probably very few of you out there use a Chocovision Revolation Tempering machine to temper chocolate, but just in case you do... The metal probe on the baffle of my machine became loose after about 15 uses. I might have knocked it, although I don't think so. I treated the machine as if it were made of fine crystal. As soon as the probe became loose, the machine ceased to operate properly. It was useless as designed and I went back to tempering by hand. I phoned the Chocovision people to order a new baffle...about $58...and was surprised to have the very helpful man say that my machine was still under warranty...although I had bought it from Ebay at about HALF the regular price and it came with no warranty. No, not surprised...SHOCKED! He was sending me a new baffle FREE!! The baffle arrived yesterday...still to be tested in about 5 minutes...and the design is much changed. Instead of a little fat metal rod sticking directly out of the plastic, the probe is now a much longer plastic coated metal probe, coming out of the baffle on an angle, with only the last little bit of the probe bare metal. This elongated probe is now visibly and heavily glued in place, with glue showing at the base of the probe and a different configuration on the back side of the probe...no longer simply a plastic bump. It would appear as if the original design left a lot to be desired and that the company has changed the design fairly radically...no doubt on the backs of MANY similar mishaps as mine. So, if you have one of these machines, with the little fat originaly metal probe, do get in touch with Chocovision. 10:45 MST. Yay! It worked and the sun has also come out.

Thanks, Ruth. I now understand the process better. If only...if only...I had had one of those Mothers at whose knees I could have stood. If I make a thousand mistakes and ask about each one, I will finally get it. It's been one heck of a learning process! Cooking caramels at 4500 feet, like everything else confectionary-wise, is something to be noted. The caramels were fine as they were originally, if I were simply going to cut them and wrap them; they were too hard to go on a turtle. I had cooked them within 3 degrees of the prescribed 121 degrees. Next time, I cut back even more. ...then there is the confusing discussion about how by the time you have evaporated almost all of the water anyway...how much does the 'boiling temperature of water at high altitudes' factor make a difference in the final product?

Gotcha. Thanks.

Quoting Tri2Cook: 'I know a firm caramel simply warmed to melt over water with a small amount of cream will set again when cooled and be softer. ' The quote above is just one of at least two directing the addition of a small bit of cream when softening caramel. The last time I overcooked the caramel (I am a flatlander living now at 4500' and unused to it) I added water. OK. This time I added cream and the separating butter is what happened. BTW, the caramel is now just perfect for turtles. When you say you heat the caramel on low heat, do you mean straight on the heat source or in a double boiler? I think I'll stick with the water when softening from now on. Thanks.

Isn't it fun, to see the looks of disbelief on their faces? But then I have disliked commercial marshmallows since Grade Two and have no idea why I first tried making real marshmallows. It was a mind-blowing experience. And dipped in dark chocolate? Ambrosia. Fit for the gods.

My apricots are getting darker but they are still acceptable. I drained the original dark syrup...so yummy...I am going to make lollipops from it...and used new syrup. So the thing to remember is not to use suphured apricots, the most common kind of dried apricot.

Yesterday's unused defrosted whipping cream has been joined by a much larger portion of whipping cream. These are the defrosted blocks of cream from the freezer. I took out one block from the frozen package to make up the needed mass of cream for the intended batch of caramel and then stupidly left the package on the counter...overnight. Oh yay! now I have LOTS of defrosted whipping cream. And now I shall make LOTS of caramel. (Too many things on the go at once and very little brain in gear.) My question, please: what is the very best way to heat and melt the formed caramel to use it for the turtles? microwave? over hot water? oven? other? Thanks. Edited in the pm: The caramel turned out fine, except just a tad too hard for turtles. So, following directions from this topic, I softened it up in the microwave and blended in a bit more cream. Then a portion of the butter separated from the caramel. Hardened like ghee. Otherwise all is fine for the turtle making. Can someone please tell me why?

Shouldn't be a problem. ← Merci bien.