Panaderia Canadiense

I've added warm flavours before to IMBC with no ill effects - so long as they're between 20 and 30 C they don't seem to compromise the structure of the icing any. For flavours that must be added very hot, I generally incorporate them into the syrup. Hence my question about when to add DDL, because it works at a great range of temperatures.

I'm very fond of a tablespoon or so of vadouvan mixed into thin sour yoghurt as a basting sauce for chicken cooked over charcoal.....

Faboo - that's exactly what I needed to know. Thanks, Jeanne! About how much warm DDL were you adding to the buttercream? ETA - I should probably say that I make buttercream about 8 cups / 10 egg whites at a time....

Quick question, oh great and knowledgable bakers out there. I'd like to flavour an Italian Meringue Buttercream icing with Manjar / Dulce de Leche / Arequipe. I'm certain it's possible, but I'd like to know if anybody out there has done it, and at which point in the process you added the Manjar, and how much Manjar you think I can get away with (I'd like the flavour to be quite strong) without compromising the icing texture. This is for three tiered christening cakes; the cake inside is apple spice with walnuts and raisins, and under normal circumstances I'd just cover them with Manjar and that would be it, but the customer has requested gum-paste decorations and I know from prior disasters that Manjar is too moist for that work. (And yes, I'll post pictures of the cakes when they're done and decorated.)

A dish (ah, who am I kidding, a soup bowl) full of maple syrup and a loaf of fresh bread.

Why not do both? Split them into 1 lb batches and compare, to see which method you like best in terms of final flavour.

Personally, since I suffer from exactly zero guilt about food, I don't see the logic of the whole "less food/carbs/fat/insert culinary bugbear of the week here" thing. And I tend to get mightily annoyed when people ask me whether I'm concerned about "bugbear of the week" in what I'm eating. Hell no. One of my favourite foods is fritada, which is essentially very fatty pork belly cooked in its own grease with panela and spices until it's nice and crispy. And I'm completely unrepentant of it - I'm aware of what I'm eating, and I'm doing it for the pleasure and energy it gives me. If I had to spend a week eating nothing but rice cakes and salad greens, I'd probably shoot myself. My personal philosophy is "everything I want, but in moderation" - it hasn't done me harm yet, and in fact I'm at the low end of the BMI for a 6' woman, even eating the way I do. IMHO, The only time to be concerned about diet is if one has a legitimate health issue, like diabetes or true celiac disease - and even then I believe that diet can be managed with an eye to the pleasures of eating. Glucose-neutral sweeteners have come a long way, as have the techniques of gluten-free baking. Oh, and caveat lector - at very high altitudes, such as where I live, the body actually requires a higher fat and higher salt diet than it does at sea level.

I'd actually consider this thing in the running for signs of the culinary apocalypse. ETA - this and the machine that makes 6 cupcakes at a time. Honestly, folks, jams and jellies are not so complicated to do on the stovetop! Put me down firmly in the "pot and spoon" camp.

And if you're serious about picking up baking skills, talk to the actual panadero/a at a local artisanal bakery. There are some things that can't be easily learned from books that a master breadmaker can show you in a day.

There is no substitute for fresh tamarind, unfortunately (based on my own searches in Canada until I finally did the sane thing and moved to the tropics). If you're serious about Thai, Indian, or South American cooking, it's worth ordering a pound or so, but I'd honestly start searching the ethnic markets. If you're in western Montana, try going to Helena and looking in the asian grocery (they had one 15 or so years ago when I visited, and it's likely still there) - they're almost certain to have at least the paste if not packaged shelled meat with seeds in it. Of course, if you do find a pack with seeds, save them out and plant them. A tamarind tree can be kept as a houseplant in a largeish pot, and will start blooming and fruiting in about its third or fourth year.

Welcome aboard! Like Kenneth, I've found that bitterness in tea comes from too-hot water rather than too-long brewing, and I'd suggest that a thermometer is a better investment than a timer when it comes to brewing. This said, I generally go by colour of the tea when a drib is poured out to judge brewedness, but I'm also not a traditionalist when it comes to teas and folks here will tell you that I drink some strange stuff. I'd also want to know what kind of tea you're making, loose or bagged, fresh or dried, and how you're brewing.

Invest in a good silicone baking sheet instead. Loads more versatile, takes up less drawer space, and reusable!

Three words: raspberry explosion brioche.

Wow, you guys are more evil than medical staff. Lots of practical jokes take place on slow nights in the hospital. This thread has been a fun read. Not a professional kitchen story, but I did something similar when I was an intern (medical). One of the chief residents kept raiding the fridge in the call room and eating my lunches (generally very tasty ones, if I do say so myself), but as the lowly intern, I couldn't really complain. So I baked up a batch of chocolate chip cookies and put a fairly large dose of powdered habanero in a portion of the dough, and put the cookies in my lunch bag. I tasted one, the heat does not register immediately because of the sweetness, easily allowing someone rapidly snarfing cookies to finish at least a couple before the heat starts. He never stole my lunch again. Someone's been stealing my lunch. Where do I get the habanero powder?? Dry/dehydrate some habaneros, then powder them in your mortar and pestle. Or, if you've got access to liquid Nitrogen, flash-freeze and then powder (it's a bit easier and a heckofalot faster).

5+ pounders are for stuffing in my household. We inevitably get 2-3 of them a year, that have hidden away from our baby-zucch raids. Cut in half lenghtwise as if you were going to grill it, then scoop out the seedy part (save the seeds if they're mature) and stuff with your fave whatever. I'm very fond of golden rice tossed with green peas and shrimp, then topped with gratinade of some sort. That goes on the grill for about 20 minutes with the lid closed, or in the oven at 400 F/200 C for about 15-20, just until everything's good and hot and the gratinade is starting to golden up.

I have a hand-squeezer (cast iron) and a lever-press (stainless steel), both of which are excellent and rapid tools. The lever press extracts a bit more juice, but it's too large for most limes, hence the hand-squeezer. The lever, hence, is used for large citruses including my friend's ginormous lemons, sweet and sour oranges, the occasional grapefruit, and mandalimes. I'd advise against light metal lime presses - they require a great deal more hand strength and often don't press as completely as heavy models. I have a light stainless steel lime press, and it's the crappiest gadget in the drawer - it doesn't have enough weight to completely express a lime, and after 3-4 my hands start to hurt due to the thinner handles (and this from somebody who kneads 16-20 lbs of heavy bread by hand every day - hand strength isn't an issue for me.)

Don't any of you pickle your excess zucchs and yellow squashes? They make absolutely hands-down amazing sliced dills (of if you've got itsy bitsy ones, whole dills), but I think they really shine in bread-n-butter brines.

One bar is enough, even for cleavers and large knives. Two is for hanging up small swords and axes, things the size of machete and pombo blades.

I'd say you should always plan for (and have if you possibly can) a year's expenses in the can before opening. That allows for emergencies, far better than only 6 months. However, it does sound like your costing is about right.

I have a pair of 24" German-made knife magnets, which I absolutely love and which are far more versatile and space-saving than blocks would ever be (I got my first magnet when I got my big cleavers and Nakiri, which wouldn't fit in any block and which I didn't want to put in a drawer, for obvious reasons....) Mine have plastic housings and screw into the wall/cabinet, and handily have three optional hooks that slot in on the underneath, where I hang my steels. On two strips, I have 18 rather large knives. I will shortly be purchasing a third to house my paring knife collection - I have finite counter space, but lovely big expanses of wall. Obviously, my source for these things is completely useless to anybody outside of Ecuador; I got my magnets for about $15 each at Termalimex of Quito. I'd suspect that any well-stocked or even reasonably respectable restaurant supply store would have them in a variety of sizes and finishes. Edited to fix a non sequitur.

Tyler, in my experience it's not so much a weight/size issue as it is a shape issue. Rounder patties (obviously, not spherical, but patties that are fatter towards the center) will be easier to grill in the manner you're describing. I've found that if I've got a burger mix that's sufficiently bound without being sausage-y, I can put them on the grill/griddle as balls and then simply press them a bit to flatten them out somewhat. If I'm good about not flipping them more than once, I'll get a perfectly charred exterior and a med-rare, juicy center, which is how I prefer my burgers.

Box wine: it's what's on the table! And in Ecuador, if it's in a box, it's not quite wine, but it's Clos! Edit: I just looked a bit closer at that photo. Not only is that box wine, but it's screwtop box wine. Huzzah.

For me, since I generally can't afford the $100 a plate/a head places more than once a year, it comes down more to simple economics. I can (and do) eat very well at places that charge $2.00 (yes, you're reading that right, just under 1 pound sterling) for three, generally beautifully presented, courses that will fill me up and fuel me well until the next meal rolls around. ETA - I should mention as well that here at least, the most expensive restaurants will serve me far, far less than the comedores I prefer, and as a result I'll leave feeling more than a little cheated for having paid so very much to leave the table hungry. Modernist/Molecular/Whatever you want to call it has hit big here, and we do have some truly amazing chefs, but the end result is those annoyingly small plates of beautiful things that are gone before you really have a chance to evaluate whether you like them or not. This irks me. Being the pragmatic type that I am, I don't see the sense in paying more for less, no matter how "advanced" or "artfully presented" that less might be. Edited to clarify things.

I've got five, everything from a small apothecary's ceramic pair, through a couple of granites, a wood (just for garlic), and a turned steel (just for pastes and other things that would stain or flavour my other sets), right up to a riverstone honker that's used for grating and pounding yuca (manioc) in pursuit of a dish called Muchines.

Yup! My condolences to your ankles and to your kitchen. That's a smell that takes a good long while to go away, even with scrubbing.....