Panaderia Canadiense

Ah, but Pyrex is a whole other ballgame! I've dropped Pyrex casseroles and they just bounce off the tiles - I love it, but the stuff is very expensive down here, so I'm slowly building up my sets again.

I love 'em. All of my stainless steel saucepans and my small s/s frypan have tempered glass lids, as does my small s/s steamer pot. I've even thrown these pots into the oven with the lids on with no issues. Come to think of it, my big ceramic casserole dishes have tempered glass lids as well. I really like being able to see what's going on in my pots and pans, and particularly with the steamer it's invaluable to see the colour of the veg without letting all the steam out - that way I get perfectly cooked but not mooshy veggies every single time. Why do people object to glass lids?

I did indeed make those flowers. I love fondant - it's like playing with plasticine and then being able to eat your creations!

That should actually be quite easy if you invert the colours (it's hellishly difficult to get a nice black in fondant), then roll thin ribbons of dark fondant to form the target and simply cut the numbers out of flat-rolled fondant. Equally, Camo should be easy enough to do using the method you're suggesting (provided your fondant is warm enough when you do the rolling), and you can absolutely cut gun silhouettes out using an outline - in fact, that's how I make block letters and all sorts of other fun things. I'd make the bullets in advance and allow them to harden up (ie let 'em dry), then place them right at the time of decoration - less angst that way.

Darienne, that's a beautiful bombe, and don't let anybody tell you different! I'm envious, actually - mine never turn out that well. Here's the birtheday cake I was decorating earlier. Handmade sweet almond fondant decorations over cream cheese icing on a heavy carrot spice cake. I'll find out how Cristina liked it tomorrow; I've got my fingers crossed.

KA - as one of the microbe conscious: I generally only wash things that I didn't grow myself. I only peel things where the peel is inedible or unpalatable (bananas, some mangoes, oranges, etc). If it came out of my garden, though, I know exactly where it's been and what's happened to it between picking and eating. I am a great believer in soil-borne microbes being good for you in small doses, and I regularly just wipe the fresh harvested carrots on the grass and chow down on them. Equally, if I've scrubbed a market-bought carrot, I'm not going to peel it unless there are funky spots, and then I'll only spot-peel. And I also buy cut fruit from sidewalk vendors with a frequency that would alarm some people - I'm quite fond of strips of green mango with chili powder for dipping.

Death By Chocolate Zucchini Cake. I'm also decorating a birthday cake; photos later!

I'm not sure about peroxide vs. insecticides, actually. I've always figured that simply scrubbing gently and thoroughly with a soft brush under cold water was the best solution for that. Then again, as I mentioned above I'm less preoccupied by pesticides than I am by microbes.

I really really enjoy hand-tempering chocolate. I had a tempering machine but hardly ever used it and subsequently sold it, since I learned chocolaterie from a handmaker of chocolates and thus I gauge temper by the appearance and feel of the chocolate on my countertops and scraper. There's something very zen about hand-tempering as well, and I tend to use it as a bit of a meditiation on chocolate. I also love using a handmixer to beat egg whites and heavy cream - you're completely right about the satisfaction of pulling the beaters up to watch the peaks, and you just don't get that using the Kitchenaid... Another thing that I love to do that could probably be done faster and easier in the KA is to knead breads. There's something about the feel of them under my hands and the extreme messiness of the process (at the beginning at least, before the gluten has developed) that I enjoy greatly. There's also something wonderfully cathartic about the pounding and throwing of the dough after the doubling rise.

For button mushrooms, I peel them. For "fancy" mushrooms (cepes, luteus, oysters, portobello, morel etc) I don't wash them at all.

I buy 75% concentration food-grade hydrogen peroxide from my local chemistry supply shop, then dilute it with distilled water to the desired low concentrations. A gallon jug of the strong stuff lasts me more than a year. The peroxide at the pharmacy isn't necessarily food-grade, since it's meant for external use to clean wounds and whatnot; here, I always worry about the quality of the water that's used in the dilution. However, in a pinch and certainly when travelling, it's what I use because all pharmacies even in the tiniest of little towns carry it. I've got a few special tools that are just for handling the strong peroxide (at 75%, you can polymerize your skin with it) - a nice graduated pipette is a must, as is a volumetric cylinder for measuring the water accurately. I've got two sprayers, actually - one of 5 vol (5%) for washing fruits and veggies, and one of 10 vol (10%) for cleaning the sink. Over in the kitchen sink thread, I mentioned this, but didn't go into details. H2O2 at 10 vol will kill all the little nasties that are hiding in the drain and in the cracks where the drain meets the sink basin. It's also proven effective at 5 vol against all of the bacteria and parasites that hide out on fruit and veggies.

In high humidity situations, use an airtight container and store in the coolest possible area of the house or bakery - when I lived in the upper Amazon, that was up on bricks in the back breezeway of the house, which never saw sunlight.

I wash all melons with cold water and hydrogen peroxide 5 vol, then dry them carefully with a clean tea towel. Peaches are scrubbed with a soft brush under running water - I don't have the pesticide problem that y'all do up in the states, because farmer's can't afford them here, but I do have to remove all of the volcanic ash that accumulates on them. If I don't, they're just gritty and awful. Other fruits are either misted with peroxide and rinsed under the tap (cold water) or simply rinsed.

Maybe proof longer for a higher rise in the convector - I've found that it heats up too fast for the traditional slow-rising brown breads.

What's wrong with Canadians? We can eat like that and still retain our girlish figures, because it's so *bleeping* cold during the wintertime. Kind of like bears.

I've never experienced this in my life! Then again, I'm usually the one handing out the homegrown tomatoes, but still. Once a gift is given and thanks is expressed, I really couldn't care less what the recipient does with it. My favourite thing to see is somebody just pop a gift tomato in their mouth and go "yummm" but if their final destination is salsa or sauce, good for them! I'd only really be upset if the tomatoes I grew were wasted or allowed to go moldy on the counter awaiting that perfect raw use, when they could have easily been added to a cooked dish. On my own side, I tend to use the homegrowns for sandwiches more often than the market-boughts, but that's just because the market tomatoes are all of one, uniform type - watery and basically disappointing when eaten fresh. They're great for sauce bases, though, and then a few nice homegrowns can shine over the base of more "generic" tomato. Of course, that's just until the Pomodoris ripen....

Lizz, the other thing you can try is steaming using a spray-mist bottle - this means you have to open the doors of the oven, and spray the sides of it with the mister. This should get you the temperature variation that makes the loaves interesting, and it will also work better than a pan of water in the convection (thanks go to my good friend and fellow baker Sra. Cavisa, for that tip! She's got an industrial bakery with big convection ovens, and does up her whole wheat buns this way.) I'll try to snag some of her recipes, although I'm not sure whether they'll translate well to lower altitudes. At 10,000 feet up, I'm blessed with almost constant low atmospheric pressure, even on very sunny days.

They're faboo with peanut butter.

I'll 4th Brandy Snaps. I've never seen them baked rolled up, though - all of my recipes for them (Scottish traditionals) call for them to be baked flat and rolled around the handle of a wooden spoon or into formed into tart cups while still quite warm and pliable.

I'm with Mick - check to see if there is one fan or two in the oven in question. If you've got both convection and gas exhaust fans, you can safely turn off the convection and get results more similar to the ones you're used to with your electric oven, and you'll also be able to use steam the way you were (although in a more limited manner, since the exhaust fan will still pull some of it off.) Honestly, though, I don't think you'll ever see the same results you had with the electric in the conveciton oven. I've found that convections tend to be too perfect an environment for most artisan-style breads - the slightly random element of electric, wood, and conventional gas ovens seem to be important for a really beautiful final product. If you were using industrial bread recipes, though, I bet you'd find that the convection oven would give you amazing results. Then again, industrial recipes are designed for that sort of baking.

Holly, the Canadian Pacific one is indeed from the CP Railroad's deluxe club cars, and the red ones were only used on the long haul trans-Canada rail voyages (shorter hops had white swizzlers). I have several of those myself, from my mother's collection.

Actually, thinking about how dulce de leche and bananas freeze, you'd probably have a real winner if you topped them off with vanilla or burnt milk ice cream just before freezing. Then you'd get banana-dulce-ice cream tarts, and could eat them without unfreezing them. Muy yummy!

It should work just fine with freezing - but be sure then in the construction to sprinkle the bananas with a bit of lime juice (or equivalent citrus), otherwise they'll turn black in the freezer. Dulce de Leche takes freezing very well.

I have only once seen a communal table like that, though that indeed sounds like fun. The strange thing is, I'm really just fine eating or doing anything on my own, I am a pretty solitary person by nature, but something about going to a restaurant alone, the thought alone depresses me. At the restaurants I favour for solo dining, communal tables are the norm. They're generally little family-run affairs with three nice big tables (seating for about 20-25) out on the sidewalk, and a charcoal grill out front. It's immensely fun, especially when (like me) you're the only foreigner at the table. You find out all sorts of interesting things eating this way - people here are very open and friendly, and will often go out of their way to include solo diners. I particularly like to do this if I'm alone on vacation in a new town. I've also had the restaurants that seat me at my own little table (which invariably has two chairs, and which are invariably very busy places) ask me politely whether I'll share with another solo diner. That's also always interesting - I've made great friends this way.

I had a chunk of my birthday cake from last night - nothing quite like it! I missed out on it last night, as I had food poisoning from an unfortuate concha at the seafood place where I lunched. Boo-urns. However, on the bright side, the Chocoamor cake is best on its second day!