SethG

It is from the Chocolate book. You can see a picture of my less ingenious, more conventional savarin here. I'm curious, Elie, as to what you thought of the pairing of the savarin with the chocolate whipped cream. I wasn't sure I went for it myself.

Believe it or not I get those pantry moths in Brooklyn. If you live near a big park or botanical garden in NYC you get pests otherwise unseen in the big city. I find that the really go for flours, chiles, rice, and dried beans. They don't care about sugar or corn starch. My solution is to re-bag all items that they like in heavy duty freezer ziplocks, and to seal them carefully. If I see a moth in the house, then I know I have to go through everything in the pantry, where I'll usually find a contaminated item that I throw in the trash. I've never needed traps. I usually see the problem go away if I look carefully enough and stop the contamination early. If you see the larvae crawling around you've waited too long and you're in trouble!

I made an apple pie and a pumpkin pie, and also a pecan/chocolate tart from RLB's Pie and Pastry Bible. RLB's pecan/chocolate combo reminded me of Pierre Herme's Grenobloise tart, so I decided to use his chocolate/almond crust instead of RLB's. I thought it came out really nice, although I think if I do it again I'll cut back a little on the dark corn syrup. It was just a little too much, although it wasn't quite as sickly-sweet as your usual pecan pie.

I'm late to this party but RLB's pumpkin pie is a favorite of mine too. I made it the other night for the second year running and it was a big hit. The technique of whipping the cooked pie filling in the cuisinart makes for a wonderfully light mouthfeel. I also like the ginger snap crumbs pressed into the crust, so much so that I increased them by half this year. Oh, and I don't bother with her fussy crust instructions. I use Wendy DeBord's all-butter crust.

Butternut squash has skin that's thin enough to peel easily with a vegetable peeler. No need to risk your fingers while you juggle a slippery squash and a knife.

Thanks, Wendy. Any tips as to how I can make it not happen next time? Maybe I should cut back a little bit on the baking powder/soda? Or whip the batter less to make the cake a little less airy? Neither of these seem like things you'd want to do. Anyone else have this problem with Rose's recipe?

I made the sour cream coffee cake for the second time yesterday, and I have a question. Both times I've tried the cake, the cake batter has sort of swelled through the layer of streusel on top, swamping it. After baking, the layer of streusel has ended up mostly under the surface both times. The cake has still tasted great, but I haven't achieved the attractive crunchy layer on top. Anyone know why? What am i doing wrong? I'm following Rose's directions to the letter.

I made Rose's sour cream coffee cake the other night and I wish to add my recommendation to those posted above. It's really nice. I put in the optional layer of apples, which added a moistness/sweetness that I think really made the cake. That and the walnuts in the crumbly parts.

Please forgive me for this stupid question: you put plastic wrap in a 300 degree oven? Is that really okay?

There was a previous thread on the Molly O'Neill article, back in '04. Perhaps the mods will find it and merge. I read the Harper's piece and found it somewhat amusing, but ultimately facile and rather ridiculous. I also pitied Moulton, whose show is actually admired for its substance. She didn't deserve the literal porn analogy employed in the article.

I bought the Cake Bible because of this thread. I've had my differences with RLB over the years-- I already owned her Pie/Pastry and Bread books, and my opinion of both books is mixed. Today I made the All-Occasion Downy Yellow Butter Cake, with Rose's Neoclassic Chocolate Buttercream. And it was sensational. Way to go, Rose. I am intrigued by the method for the cake. Rose has you mix dry ingredients, and then beat with butter and milk for a minute and a half "to aerate." I'm surprised that this works, since the classic butter cake has you beat suger into butter first in order to drive tiny holes through the butter so as "to aerate." Rose, by contast, has you essentially liquify everything before you "aerate." She describes her method as faster & easier, and she's right. But I don't really get why it works. I guess the mixture is still dry enough-- even though the sugar seems to be dissolved-- for holes to be driven through the batter to form air pockets for leavening. But it seems counter-intuitive. nice cake, though. And the buttercream, good God.

I just want to add another voice in favor of hand rolling. I don't own a pasta machine. I am by no means large or muscled, and I have no problem rolling it out myself into sheets I can see through. After trying it once, I scrapped my plan to buy a pasta machine, as I see no need for it. I also knead my pasta dough by hand, but I can see why a person might save time by using the food processor. As with bread, however, I find I only get the feel I want-- and an accurate judgment of the firmness of the dough-- if I knead it by hand.

I made a pretty quick apple pie last night/this morning and I used your all-butter crust, Wendy, for two reasons. First, I wanted to see if I liked the flavor more than I like RLB's cream cheese crust; and second, I wanted to see how flaky it would be. I scaled Wendy's recipe down to 1/8 size, but because I was making the pastry at about midnight last night, I didn't do a lot of chilling in between steps, or put any of the components in the freezer before I got started. I simply followed Wendy's directions, but I tried to be quite quick about it, and tried to leave rather sizable bits of butter in the dough. The scaling down left some of the measurements mysterious. I used a teaspoon of vinegar, about 2/3 of an egg, and I just added 2 or three tablespoons of cold water--until it felt correct to me. I also used AP flour-- I forgot to use pastry flour. Anyway, the results were outstanding, and quite flaky! I will never use RLB's fussy freezing and mushing in a plastic bag method again. I also loved the flavor, and I have to disagree with Wendy about whether you can tell the difference in pie crust between butter and other fats. I think you can. Certainly the flavor of the filling dominates much of the time, but one gets numerous opportunities when eating a slice of pie to munch on crust alone. And at these times, there's butter, and then there's "not exactly."

I couldn't get the glaze, so I scrapped the tart. But I had all these lemons in the house, which was my whole motivation to make the tart in the first place, so I sort of made the lemon crepes from the Desserts book. I skipped the nuts, and made Julia Child's basic sweet crepes instead of Pierre's. But I filled the crepes with Pierre's lemon cream and used his honey/citrus sauce. I know I slip into superlatives pretty quickly when we're talking about Pierre, but please believe I mean it when I say that his lemon cream is one of the best things I've ever tasted. I've made Martha Stewart's lemon curd before, and it was pretty great and everything, but damn, Pierre just has it all figured out, every time, doesn't he? That whipping in of the butter at a moderate temperature-- if that's the secret-- I'm just, like, floored. So light, creamy.... and it sets up beautifully as it gets closer to room temp. I still have a big bag of the stuff in the fridge.

Dude, that's it. You rock. Thanks.

Hey, anybody have the Desserts book handy? I want to make the lemon tart, and I meant to look at the recipe for the glaze this morning but I forgot. There's some kind of packaged glaze required for the recipe. I'm hoping to find it or an equivalent at NY Cake & Baking, if someone will remind me as to what it is. Also, Pierre throws a bunch of stuff in the glaze, includding vanilla bean (which I already have). What other weird stuff does he put in? Mint, or lime, or something? Thanks, anyone.

I haven't cracked open CDBPH in a while, but it seems tangentially on-topic for me to say that I've become addicted to sable cookies lately. Last night I made the lemon sable cookies from Paris Sweets. I love lemon so I used the maximum recommended amount of zest. The use of confectioner's sugar in the batter makes the cookies come out extra-soft, with still a hint of that sandy crunch. Really good. Took only ten minutes or so to throw the batter together, too.

I would pitch it or return it. I've purchased Costco lamb on numerous occasions and never encountered such an odor. Meat that smells bad may have gone bad. Your body had that reaction for a reason. No point in taking chances.

Forgive me if I seem disagreeable, but I can't for the life of me imagine baking two cookies. Maybe if I worked at home or lived 100 miles from my closest neighbor. One of the most rewarding aspects of baking for me is the joy of giving stuff away and having people tell you how great it all is, how generous you are, what a great baker you are, etc. Although, I do have to say, all the dietary phobias come flying out when you bring baked goods to work. It's amazing how many people won't touch anything tasty. And who can eat just one cookie? Didn't you wish you'd baked, say, four or six of 'em, after your cookie was gone, Cali? It would have required precisely the same effort! I hope you understand, Cali, I'm not putting you down. I just could never show that kind of restraint. P.S. I know those oatmeal cookies are big. But they'd keep for quite a while in a tin or a plastic bag!

Here's a link to the R.W. Apple article about mangosteens from the NY Times a while back. The barrier to importation is the Mediterranean Fruit Fly. Apple's article spends a lot of time on the potential for the fruit to be imported after irradiation, but I suspect that what you bought, west, were frozen imported mangosteens that were thawed before being sold. Much as we New Yorkers see frozen/thawed durians in our local markets. They aren't advertised as being frozen, but that's what they do. It does the fruit no favors.

No, my dough's not dry and I don't have a problem with it tearing... I just don't see that there's a good enough reason for taking unnecessary risks. Di ← In my (amateur) experience, I think the greater risk is in not lifting the dough every roll or two. I find if I neglect to lift, the dough will sometimes stick to the counter and tear/bunch as I roll. I find that so long as I'm careful about the turning, and use my bench scraper to make sure the center of the dough isn't sticking, I never tear the dough when I turn it.

Wendy, what do you think of the cream cheese crust? Have you tried it? I made RLB's Perfect Peach Pie with the cream cheese crust on Saturday-- sorry, I wish I had pics for you, but I don't. The first time I tried this crust I thought it was really really great, the second time only so-so. This time, my third try, I thought it was a good balance of things: flaky, tender... and yet I think all butter would have tasted better, and I may be imagining things but it seems to me that the cream cheese makes the browning of the pie less attractive. The crust ends up looking whiter and the browning is more patchy. What do you think?

To-may-to, to-mah-to... it's yummy! ← It will remain yummy even if we understand how it works. I looked on the web for some scientific explanation, and didn't find any. But I did find a link to this Cherry Cola-Chocolate-Mayonnaise-Sauerkraut Bundt Cake! Who wants to try it out??

Do you think that oil and egg will make the same cake whether or not the oil droplets have been emulsified in egg yolk? Or do you think the mayo cake comes out differently from an oil and egg cake, assuming both cakes use the same amount of oil and egg? Maybe the extra-moist character of the mayo cake really comes from the large amount of oil you're adding thru the mayo, not from the fact that it's mayo.

Bummer for me. It'll have to wait for next time. Thanks.