cteavin

@ andie, that's a great idea about candy-ing dried fruits and nuts. I'll give that a go this weekend along with meringue cookies. I'm thinking that rock candy won't work with this kind of syrup because the acid from the peels would have inverted it. It's worth checking out. @judiu, cocktails is a great idea. I wish I drank more. I really dislike waste, too. There's a trend here in Japan I like. It's called "Eco Cooking" where the goal is to find a use for everything you use. For those who can, that includes compost piles but for most of us it's looking for creative ways to use the parts we throw away, for example the leftover vegetables from soup stock or the peels shaved off (organic) vegetables. An extension of this 'movement' is buying local foods in season. I really like the challenge and have come up with some creative ways to use things.

What I don't do is coat them in sugar. Not my thing. If I'm just dealing with peels, after they come out of the syrup I let them air dry a day or two then wrap them up in plastic wrap and keep them in an airtight zip-lock bag. My favorite way for orange or lemon is to dip in tempered chocolate and keep them in a tin outside the fridge. However, if I brush them in honey and then roll them in nuts back to plastic wrap. Also, I have soaked them in liquor till they're moist again, too. Those I keep in a tupperwear box. I never put these kinds of sweets in the fridge and I've never had spoilage. I don't know about the ginger lady (I adore candied ginger, too!) but I keep mine in the syrup. I find it holds up better than the peels. Throw it away! (sigh) Guess I have a project for the weekend. I was thinking of making a variation of a genoise using the syrup in place of the sugar in the intial mixing. I then wondered if I could turn it into a caramel sauce. One thing I know from the past is that if you heat it to about 290 you'll destroy the impurities and get just a plain ol' syrup. I've got to find a happy medium.

I had a freezer full of grapefruit, lemon and orange peel so I made three separate batches of candied peel over the week. The peels come out perfectly. I'll be dipping the orange and lemon into tempered chocolates later in the week and I'll baste half the grapefruit peel in honey and roll them in roasted walnuts. I love peel. What I don't love is all the leftover syrup. With the orange syrup I know I can heat it up and make some Italian meringue but the lemon peel syrup more astringent than I expected. I boiled the grapefruit in honey. It's not that bitter but I'm not sure what to do with that. Any suggestions for the lemon and grapefruit syrups? Also, do you think I can make meringue cookies from the orange syrup? I haven't researched that possibility, yet.

Hi everyone, My friend came back from Singapore with a wonderful present -- an idle pan. I'd love to make idli often but don't want to go through the process of grinding and fermenting daily. I was wondering if I could save some of the fermented batter in the fridge and feed it like a culture. My idea is to have the unfermented batter in a separate container so that each evening I could pour off what I need, add some culture and let it rest on the kitchen countertop (where it's warm) until morning. Is that doable? Is it done?

I'm having a lunch and need to transport one large turkey and six game hens. (sigh) I need to have everything at the venue by 8:00a.m. and I'm right now debating on when I should put the birds in the oven. Part of me says cook it tomorrow to be finished around midnight. That would give it eight hours to rest. The other part of me is thinking I should start cooking at 2 or 3 a.m. What do you think is the best option? There will be an oven I can reheat the birds. About roasting the turkey, I like to slather it in butter, put long strips of bacon all over it and seal it in foil till the cooking is just about done; then I open it and baste it every few minutes with olive oil until it's golden. The meat stays moist with this method but the color is never perfect. It's often darker at the breast and the inner thighs are pale. I was thinking of basting with olive oil and corn syrup or butter and corn syrup to give it that beautiful brown color. Has anyone ever tried this? Cheers,

Personally, I would add rice and water. My thinking is that the rice would absorb the water in the soup so that you could add even more water to thin it out. I have no idea what the answer to this would be but isn't there some kind of edible substance that would react/bond with the sodium so that it wouldn't register on the pallet? If not, there's a million dollar idea for someone to play with.

We all survived. They came, they ate, we played and played and played and played and played and they ate and went home. Honestly, how can you be a parent and still find time to eat? Any time food came near my person it was quickly diverted to another mouth. (lol) I'm really hungry, now. Just for the record, the kids really did like rolling the bits of corn tortilla dough I gave them. They also treated it like play dough which gave them enough distraction so that I could get their dinner ready. Pizza was a little harder because of the flour. They also made me laugh because for their snack they got homemade graham crackers and they first thing the older boy asked his mum when she came was she never makes "real crackers" for them. (lol)

Thanks for the replies. I took the first advise and started a crust for pizza. I also made some dough to make corn tortillas later. My thinking is they can have fun shaping the doughs and crafting their own pizzas and quesadillas. I've also just prepped some graham cracker dough that they can shape into snacks to take home. You see, my home is not kid friendly -- I have to make toys. (lol) (whew)

I just got a phone call from my very good friend. She asked me to baby-sit her kids this evening because she can't get away from office until late and day care closes at six. I love kids and her two kids and I get along really, really well, so I'm totally fine with it but I realized I have to feed them. What do three and five year olds eat? I'm actually serious. I don't want to give them sugar or caffeine and kids are pretty picky, aren't they? I have four hours before I pick them up but I'll probably be doing this again, so any advice will be appreciated. Cheers -- and wish me luck,

You might have something there. Pounding the butter into submission is the hardest part of making puff pastry for me. I don't get the marbling, at least none that's visible, but it's possible that's the problem. I'll have some time later today. I'll practice making a couple, take some photos and try your suggestions for getting them the same temperature and consistency. Why change the fats? Only to see what happens. For example, when I changed to a mixture with lard it rose slightly higher but bled out which could have more to do with texture of the fat layer. As for experimenting, I once had a mile high rise by adding bakers amonia to the flour before mixing the dough. For me, trying new things is half the fun of cooking. And that photo, g e o r g e o u s.

I'll make one later in the week and post photos. Interesting to me was that when I change the fat the amount of fat that seeps out is much greater. Flour: I use a mix of AP to Cake, roughly 2 to 1 (trying to achieve something close to pastry flour). Now that I think of it, it could be that the protein content of the flours is to low to absorb the fat as it should. And I haven't tried a 70:30 but that would be fun to try this week. For thickness, not very thin. I've not measured with a ruler; I usually roll it out the the same area each time. I'd guess half the thickness of the first phalange of my index finger which is greater than 10mm. Has anyone used a mixture of butter and other fats? It's funny Richard mentioned inverted puff pastry because I've been wanting to try that. My feeling is the extra flour in the butter will absorb that moisture I'm complaining about. What do you think?

Thanks for replying. I only make classic puff pastry. The temperature depends on what I'm using it for, wrapped around, say, spinach and mushrooms, I bake at about 180 C for an hour, if I want small shapes 220 degrees until crispy and well risen. Generally, I stick with a ration of 50/50 dough to butter or dough to fat but I occasionally do 60 to 40. I sometimes make the dough over the day, do the first turn in the morning, as second and third around lunch, a third and fourth around dinner and a final two before bed. The next day I use the dough. Sometimes I can only chill the dough 30 minutes between turns. Since this is Japan, I've always assumed that 1) the fat ratio in the butter is higher, so the oil at the foot of the pastry or 2) there is more water/moisture in the butter. What do you all think?

My well worn copy of The Flavor Bible isn't a cookbook, per se, but I couldn't live without it. I think most of us know how to do but this just opens up the imagination to that even better.

I can roll a good puff pastry. However, I always get a a bit of oil at the bottom during baking and I've wondered if that was normal and if there were any techniques to prevent this or to sop up that extra butter oil after it comes out of the oven. Also, has anyone here ever experimented with different fats in the puff? I sometimes do a 50/50 lard (with a bit more oil bleeding out) but this evening I used 50/50 butter and cocoa butter. The rise wasn't as high but it was extremely crispy, almost crunchy and quite a bit of oil bled away.

Without stout it ceases to be a chocolate stout cake. I'd add the beer and not tell anyone.

I've just read this thread and saw that started in 2007 and was never 'finished' with a final recipe. If the OP' did develop a final recipe, would they mind sharing? m(_ _)m I'm very interested in trying these out. cheers,

Thank you both for your replies. I'm really surprised by the water/sugar ration in your formula Darieen, especially when compared to Tan's. Do you use your invert sugar for baking or candy making?

The holidays are coming and I'm playing with tried and true recipes to see what new variations I can come up with (it's also interesting for me to see what happens when you change an ingredient). I made some hard caramel and hard butterscotch and I ground them in the food processor to a fine powder and sifted it to remove any large pieces. The first experiment was to substitute all of the (powdered) sugar for this caramel sugar in my Mexican Wedding Cookies to see if I could affect a less sweet cookie (and also just to see what it did). Any guesses? They spread into flat, crisp cookies. They're actually very good in their own way. Myself, I'd like to understand better what happened. I know the caramel and butterscotch sugars melted. My guess is that when making the original caramel the sugar became inverse sugars and the melting point for those sugars is much lower, so the spread. Does this sound right? Now I'm wondering if I lessen the amount of butter if the flour will absorb the melted sugar for a stable shape. Any ideas? edit: It's been and hour and I've just eaten a couple of these flat cookies. They're really crisp. The wax paper I left them on to cool was a little oily from either the butter or the oil in the pecans.

I'd be interested for the same service to Japan.

Thank you much!

I've been on a pancake binge the past couple of days. I've been making the American style and British Style. I have to say, having never eaten them with lemon juice and castor sugar the British style were a welcome treat. I'm looking for a new dessert to take a party next week and pancakes are my inspiration. What do you think: Layering 12- 18 extra large pancakes, each one dusted with powdered sugar and almond powder and serving with several different flavored syrups and some freshly whipped cream? I imagine something that is as tall as a cake but looks like baumkuchen when cut. I also know the French do something similar with crepes. Does anyone know the name? Cheers,

Roasted Cauliflower has become my favorite vegetable. I just took some out of the oven. The florrets are all a nice crispy brown that goes crunch, crunch, crunch when you pop it in your mouth. So, they were pretty well cooked when they went in the processor. What do you think of adding a few drops of lemon or lime juice on top of the mousse before I cap it? I'll be trying that later after I get some more puffs out of the oven. Ah, dinner: another reason to go to the gym.

Well,I kind of mention that in the second paragraph.

I finally did it and it came out really well but the recipe still need some tweaking and I'm looking for suggestions from our member here. I purred 350 grams of roasted cauliflower into a smooth past with 1/2 cup of water, a pinch of salt and a few twists of the pepper mill. I put 10 grams of gelatin into a 1/4 cup each of 35% cream and water and heated it in the microwave till it boiled then processed that into the cauliflower mixture until it was well incorporated. I whipped 1 cup of cream over ice until it was full volume and slowly added the (slightly warm) cauliflower mixture to the cream whipping it all in trying to minimize deflation; finally, I added 1/4 cup cacao nibs. When it was chilled I made the pate a choux but first melted the butter and sautéed 1 teaspoon of caraway seeds before adding the water to make the puffs. When they were done I filled the puffs with the cauliflower mixture -- voila! Verdict: very good. You get the whiff of caraway when the puff comes to your mouth along with the crisp texture followed by the creamy soft mousse inside which comes as a surprise if you don't know you're getting a savory dish. Roasted cauliflower is it's own reward; the cacao nibs don't add their pinch of bitter flavor until the end but they add their crunch to the mousse an cleanse the palate of the cream and cauliflower. Finally, there's the breath of caraway to finish it. It's a really nice experience. It's not perfect, though. The cauliflower is a little too subtle, I think, and the mousse isn't light enough. I'm considering 1) double the cream to make it lighter 2) increase the salt to bring out the sweetness 3) dusting the tops with cocoa powder or powdered sugar 4) add a few drops of lime or something sour/acidic under the top Those were some ideas on how to improve it. What do you all think? fyi, the shells go really well with an olive oil/chocolate mousse I made.

Thanks for all the replies. Still, no one has really posted about restaurants and bakeries. Does anyone know how likely they would be to use imported or filtered water? I was at the local ramen shop the other day and saw them put water in straight from the tap. I didn't see a filtration system so I'm assuming it's pretty standard. But what about the more expensive shops? Could that be one reason for their quality?