Panaderia Canadiense

My husband actually bought it because he was going to make bacon out of it. I stepped in and told him absolutely not, I want to have proper pork belly made the way I always see it on eGullet I've never eaten or cooked it before--I mean I've had pork before, of course, but not pork belly. When I see pictures my mind thinks that it must melt in your mouth…not in a greasy way, but an unctuous way with the top being crispy. Thanks for all of the wonderful ideas!!!! I am going to have a hard time choosing. Well, there's absolutely nothing saying you can't buy *more* pork belly and just eat your way through the suggestions at a leisurely, pork-saturated pace….

I'd be going fritada, all the way. Laylita has an interesting take on it; I'd prefer more to cook it very slowly in a deep-sided saucepan until the fat starts to render out, then add cumin, star anise, ginger, nutmeg, orange, panela, and sliced shallots and allow the meat to crisp up in its own fat. The difference between the two methods is the difference between Ecuador's coast and sierra.

You'll get better emulsification adding solid chocolate to warm cream.

Well, since I cut the white sugar entirely from the traditional Tollhouse recipe and just use the recommended amount of loosely-packed demerrera (which I like best of the available browns in North America - just enough molasses to really give good character to the cookie) I can tell you that you can customize to your heart's content without messing up the cookie too much. My Tollhouse style cookies come out moist and chewy with crisp edges, which is just how I like 'em. So, to answer your question, if you cut the brown and leave the white the same you'll end up with a crisper cookie with less molasses character in its flavour profile; if you sub the amount of brown you reduce with white, you'll end up with a crisper and much sweeter-tasting cookie. If, OTOH, you sub white with brown, you'll be heading towards the chewier, more complex flavoured end of the spectrum.

Or do you have a Latin American grocery nearby? Aguardiente Anisado is another anise-flavoured liqueur and it's not usually all that spendy. And it makes lovely cocktails….

Nueces (almendras, pecanes, avellanas, toctes, etc.) Envueltos (enveloped) or Enrobados (clothed) or Recubiertos (covered) is one of the ways to go. (Spanish). And if they're dragee style, grageas is another term. Noix (almendres, pecanes, noisettes, etc.) Enrobées is another. (French)

Hi Pep, I've got the same thing in my latest batches of Limoncello and Limecello; since I use "pure" sugar I assumed that it was either some impurity from the citrus itself (read, pectin or other long-chain goodies) or from the gum arabic I used in the gomme syrup preparation (because I like the smoothness it imparts). I just skim it off using a teensy little spoon, and it doesn't re-accumulate, so no harm and no foul.

Another vote for Don Julio, particularly the reposado which is smoother than the silver and has more character. However, my fave is also not on your list: El Jimador Añejo. If you can find it, it's well worth the price-tag.

Hold up, is coarser edible glitter not available up there in North America? I asked my local decorating shop about solving this problem, and Rocío recommended stirring in a coarser grade (as opposed to lustre-dust fine) of edible glitter just at the swirling point, which should work. The stuff that's available here is heat-safe, so there's no degradation of glittery-ness in baking.

For me it's probably Juris Ahumado as the best of what's available commercially, but the really excellent stuff is made by a German friend of mine who has his own pigs and smoker….

Can you get sesame dragées or something similar? Those can easily be coated with leaf, and hold up well in the batter. They also avoid the whole nut-allergy issue.

Is there a proper way to wash a potato, and, if so, what is it? I'd say: scrub until the dirt's gone. End of story.

The center is fully bakes, albeit a bit more moist than the rest of the cake. I can't use a tube pan because I cut the cake into 3 layers to make a 7 layer cake. Dumb question, what is a heating core? The reason that your cake bakes faster on the sides than in the centre is that the sides are in contact with more hot metal. A heating core, or cake nail, or flower nail, inserted into the centre of the cake, conducts heat upwards there at the same rate that it's conducted to the sides. This means that the entire cake bakes at the same rate - and voila! No more sunken centers.

Dunk them in a mountain stream? Wax them? It all depends on where you are and who you buy your produce from….. Mine are most likely to have been dunked in a stream or polished in a burlap sack, so I just scrub 'em with a bit of water and a brush to get the rest of the dirt off. For my own self, I eat sweet-potato skins when the tubers are young and the skins tender. If they're old or tough tubers, I peel and chuck the skins.

I use scrubby-sponge pads with cream detergent (in a tub, formulated for cold water systems), and replace weekly. In the meantime, they sit in a little soap-dish-drainer-type thingie that's suction-cupped to the wall. I sterilize them with 10 w/v hydrogen peroxide nightly.

What recipe were you using? Fondant, made according to the simpler recipes, is as easy to work with as plasticine. But if you've got a weird recipe, it will frustrate you every single time. EDIT - and secondarily, did you cover your dummies with buttercream or a similar soft icing before you attempted to fondant-cover them? Because if you didn't I can definitely see where you might get frustrated….

You must tell us how that works, Porthos! I've been thinking of getting one for my own KA.

I get mine at a chemistry supply house. But since I'm in Ecuador, ymmv.

cool, still not quite sure I understand though - the article says that parthenocarpic plants don't require the flowers to be pollenated to produce fruit... not sure why that means the fruit doesn't have seeds in it? How does a lime do the job of growing into another lime tree if it doesn't have seeds? Fully parthenocarpic fruit require no pollination (this goes back to the bananas, the edible cultivars of which are pollen-sterile triploids). This means that there are no seeds, because seeds are the result of pollination. However, limes are not strictly parthenocarpic (they can produce fruit with no pollination, but they can also do it with a pollen partner) so they're also not strictly seedless. Here in Ecuador, they're generally seedier than lemons. The other thing about limes, though, is that they require a pollen partner that's sufficiently genetically divergent from them in order to set seeds (meaning they can't self-pollinate) - and here at least, export quality limes are grown in plantations where every tree is a clone of a single mother. That's not enough genetic difference for them to produce fruit sexually, so they produce fruit asexually instead. In these cases, to answer your question, the trees aren't producing fruit to create another lime tree; instead they're fulfilling the imperative of not wasting flowers.

I was planning to make the chocolate shells as usual. The chocolate will last a long time if stored properly, just looking for a filling that wont rot in that time. If that's the case, why not just mould up solids? Then there's no issue at all with spoilage.

I wouldn't use plasticine - it's not going to have the surface sheen you're looking for, and it doesn't take surface finishes well. Maybe silicone or another type of catalyst-hardened semisoft resin? Of if you're looking for something cheaper than can be glossed up to a high sheen, maybe salt clay and layer upon layer of lacquer?

It was my friend Camy's twelfth birthday yesterday, and this is what she asked me for. It's coconut-vanilla-orange chiffon cake, filled with vanilla-orange IMBC and covered with coconut fondant. Most fun I've had making a cake this year (even if the year is young, something like this bodes well for the rest of it!)

Quick corn shortbreads and fruit quick macerated in honey and brandy or rum, fruit parfaits with cream (whipped or chantilly), chocolate mousses and other desserts of their ilk. All of these can be done within 60 minutes if you know what you're doing; some of them in considerably less time.

I don't think I have any pink ice cream right now - what better pretext for a trip to the store?

Yes, that's exactly it! Thanks, Darienne!