Mjx

I had to leave pretty much all my cooking and baking things behind when I last moved, and now only have two kind-of-cheapo 'non-stick' springform pans for cakes, and a lidless tinned Pullman pan, for bread (I also use the oval Le Creuset for large loaves of bread). My preference is for tinned steel, probably because it's what I used growing up, and what I'm used to using (I have it on good authority that for pies, clear glass is the way to go, however). I got hold of some silicone baking sheets that have a much finer weave then the Matfers (a bit like the ones made by Regency), and cut those into rounds that I put in the bottoms the springforms, when I bake cakes (I butter the sides and dust with flour or cacao; these pans are non-stick in name only). These do an excellent job of keeping the cake from sticking, and I've been reusing them for about half a dozen years; they're still good. The pans are not shedding their coatings, either, since they're protected. For the loaf pan, I fold up a piece of silicon baking paper into a shape that fits right inside the pan, and am usually able to reuse that a couple dozen times before I need to replace it, but I'm planning on switching with a similar solution to the one I use for the springforms (I like having solutions that don't involve the possibility of suddenly running out of the key material).

Is an acronym an option [e.g. ". . . muffins and cupcakes ('MCCs' in this discussion). . ." ]? This sounds like a B to B sort of thing, and unless it's for marketing purposes, the term doesn't have to be especially cute/attractive, just compact and comprehensible. Hand-cake?

'Mini-cake' is already well-established for scaled-down cakes that are baked in everything but a muffin tin ( a google image search yields masses of hits – https://www.google.dk/search?q=%22mini+cake%22&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=m6xlUZKXBNHWsgbtgIGgBA&biw=1362&bih=640&sei=oqxlUZDLJMXatAb4uYDYDw – and virtually none look like cupcakes/muffins).

Keep an eye out for Martin's reply, since I'm certain there is a better way of doing this, but I've grown ginger as a way of salvaging pieces that began to sprout: just stuck them in a container of standard potting mix, and watered them regularly. They grew nicely (at one stage showing those shoots you describe) with no special attention, even through a dark, Scandinavian winter. Doing this the right way would probably give even better results.

Something based on absinthe or pastis would be period-appropriate.

Pocket cakes? Mini- or micro-cake already seems used to mean conventional types of cakes made in miniature tins.

I'm wondering how swapping egg whites for an equal amount of some of the yolks would work out, since the white is the part of the egg that provide structure (Maybe just omitting some of the yolk? Too much white might make the cake tough).

And if you do make chestnut flour, chestnut flour pasta (especially pappardelle and gnocchi) is great with game.

I'd never heard of brining pineapple, either, and have never found fresh raw pineapple irritating; possibly in Eastern countries it's eaten less ripe, so it's more puckery?

If nothing else seems to do the trick, you might need to add something like a little powdered gelatin or konjak.

That's half the fun in them - when you are a kid... or when you give them to your friends' kids.Yeh, but once you're adult, you tend not to get a pass, when the front of your coat (and your face, including your glasses, and back to your ears) are abundantly dusted with white powder

Apropos of powdered sugar, what's the deal with doughnuts that are simply dredged in the stuff?! Just try eating one of those in a high wind while wearing a black coat! This is definitely something that needs to be cut back on, unless they're trying to conceal footprints on the damn things.

Did you try fat, and decide you didn't like the results, or..? I have a thing about crisp, even crunchy, skin, and lightly oiling the bird seems to make a significant difference there.

I just burned through a 100 g (3.5 oz) bag of malt powder. It's great stuff. I picked it up in Copenhagen a few weeks ago (where I am, the shops don't run to such 'exotica'), since I wanted to experiment with using it in bread, and ended up putting the stuff in everything I could think of (hot chocolate! like Ovaltine, but with flavour), then wanted to think of more things to us it in, and suddenly (about 10 days after I began my malt binge) realized I was down to just a bit of dust clinging to the inside of the bag.

I'm curious: What do you all favour as a fat for rubbing on the chicken before you put it in the oven? I've found butter gives the most lovely colour, but I like the flavour of olive oil far better.

That was my first thought, too.

What mkayahara said. Pastry chefs who are successfully producing creative desserts/pastries/sweets tend to have two things in common: they have a lot of experience and internalized knowledge, and an active imagination. The former makes it possible for the latter to function as the guiding force (i.e. they've moved past the necessity to spend a vast amount of time looking things up or finding them out); the latter is something no book/course/person can teach you, you just have to get out there, look at things, think about them without other crap cluttering up your environment. Don't go out of your way to be outrageous, since that just leads to being derivative, but don't let yourself be embarrassed about making a complete ass of yourself (e.g. the brilliant idea for a dessert inspired by Piranesi's Carceri, which, unable to sustain it's weight, ends up looking like Post-WWII Dresden ... don't ask, it seemed good idea at the time). Basically, learn the physics and chemistry of what you're working with until you know it inside and out, and then just play with it. ETA, Migoya's Elements of Dessert is a great book, I got it recently, and it's just killing me that I can't really play with many of the ideas at this time.

Usually, when I do this I just clarify the butter to get rid of the water and protein solids, then substitute 1 for 1. However, I have to admit that on a few occasions I simply melted the butter and did a 1 for 1 substitution for oil, the results were absolutely fine (butter here is a bit higher in fat than in the US, which may account for that).

Have you taken a look in the array of NYC dining topics (I have few suggestions to make, since most of my favourite places are gone, which has made me too grumpy to bother finding new ones, but I still do enjoy Wallsé)? You might also want to take a look at the blog of fellow-member weinoo, Tasty Travails.

Does anywhere other than the USA still use Fahrenheit? Belize! Anyway, given the size of the US population and the number of American eG members (and, okay, precision), I indicate C/F, just to be clear

I've had rabbit (and venison) cooked sous vide, and my experience is that this method seems to emphasize the murkier notes of gaminess, making it kind of unpleasant. I may have been unlucky; anyone else encounter this? It seems worth mentioning. I generally roast rabbit, using the wine-basted rabbit recipe from The Splendid Table as a starting point (160C for an hour, turning partway through, then 230C for 15 min., turning partway through), and the results have been exceptional.

Have you tried steaming the dates, maybe for a minute in the microwave (maybe just microwave, even)? I was thinking that (if it worked), this approach would have the advantage of not adding a layer that could bring its own annoying problems.

Freezing is great (and I do, when I bake two loaves at a go), but my boyfriend wants to be able to grab the loaf and slice it as he goes! Also, I should mention that he gave me a vacuum sealer as a gift, and I'm exploring the various ways of using it (since cooking sous vide not an option at this time).

Thanks, and sorry about not replying sooner, I was briefly struck down by one of the least fun diseases I've had in ages. I bake bread at least once a week, since my boyfriend loves home baked bread, but he's also the only one eating it, since I handle starches too poorly to indulge on a regular basis; this means the bread stales before it's consumed. Vacuum bagging does keep the bread fresh, but it squishes it flat. That's really lovely of you, but I'm all the way in DK, it would cost a fortune to ship; next time I'm back in the US, I'd like to see if I could meet up with you about this! Those look pretty good. Or did, until I noticed the prices. Definitely worth investigating some other companies for this option, which I never knew of, until you mentioned it.

Desired final cooking temperature: No idea, still waiting for my sister to send my Thermapen along, and the available pointy metal thing that is allegedly a thermometer is possessed by sulking demons. Stuffing: Hell no. Trussing: Nope. I've tried both trussed and untrussed and the results are more even with the bird untrussed. Cooking position: You generally need to turn the bird, although butterflying simplifies that. Cooking time: First, medium temperature on each side (190 C, 15 min), finish on back at high temperature (230 C, 23 min) Heat source: Convection oven (we have a rotisserie option, which my boyfriend adores and does no harm, but in a closed oven, especially a convection oven, it makes no sense; however, I see no reason to rain on my boyfriend's parade, so the rotisserie is broken out now and again, but it makes no difference whatever to the final result) Seasoning: Brine or dry brine, depending on time (regardless of how butch or sissified the bird appears to have been). No other seasoning. ETA, I should've mentioned that the recipe I use is from The Best Recipe. The results have been uniformly good to incredible (depending on how good the bird was, to begin with), with moist, perfectly done meat throughout, and crunchy-crispy skin. Yeah, RIGHT Sometimes, the best available chicken is essentially rubbish, BUT if you have a wicked roast chicken craving, you do what you can with whatever you can get your hands on. Brining can even turn a Perdue crud-ball into a quite tasty chicken.