SethG

Geoff, will your shop be open over Labor Day weekend? I'll be in Plattekill for the holiday and I want to make sure my family stops in at least once to check Barnstormer out!

You didn't feel great about it? I wouldn't have felt great about it, either. I would have felt FABULOUS about it! What kind of lawyer were you? No wonder you quit!

I think WhiteTruffleGirl has figured out your problem, forever young. Don't snip until the loaves are about to go into the oven. My only education on epis came from that King Arthur tutorial. I really can't add anything to it.

Dude, irregular hole structure is what you want! Congratulations! Looks good.

Baking With Julia (eGullet credit link) is a great all-purpose baking book, with recipes contributed by many prominent bakers. The recipes were rigorously tested, and the book was put together so well by Dorie Greenspan that any baker, beginner or expert, can get right to it. Greenspan and Julia Child conceived the series and the book as a way to introduce novice bakers to a wide variety of recipes and techniques-- and it did just that for me.

That's Big Bootay! Big Bootay! ← This place sounds like a salon of sin. ← No matter where you go... there you are. That movie was one of my adolescent favorites. I haven't been to the Manhattan Red Hen, but the one in Park Slope is tiny. There are a couple tables squeezed in, but if there's more than a couple people waiting to order it isn't a comfortable place in which to sit.

Carroll Hill indeed, you hopeless Manhattanite.

Thus continues the trend, recently also exhibited in the New Yorker's piece about Applewood and the $25 & Under column about the Steinhof, of referring to brownstone Brooklyn as if it's some distant foreign country. Brooklyn is very well served by the subway, folks! If you live below 14th Street, we're easier to get to than many parts of Midtown. Besides, haven't you heard? Brooklyn is hip!

Mario Batali's Mint Love Letters

Sounds like a veiled reminder to me. I haven't eaten there, but it's a very small restaurant, and maybe they've experienced a ton of late diners, wreaking havoc with their reservation system. I don't know if it's so rude. It sounds more polite than demanding a credit card number and telling you you'll be charged if you don't show.

You might find you get bigger holes if you mix it less.

I had the exact same problem with butter leakage the one time I tried the BWJ croissants, and I resolved that if I ever try them again, I will just proof at room temperature and not in the warmed oven. I was able to get the dimensions specified, although it was a laborious process that I interrupted over and over again as I put the dough back in the fridge when I felt it was getting to warm or needed it to relax.

Get the # 1, the famous New York whatever. I often ask them to add a drizzle of the hot red pepper juice that sits in a huge glass crock on the counter (at a small additional charge).

I should say, upon reflection, that I have made one "gelato style" ice cream, Mario Batali's honey vanilla gelato, which contained some heavy cream but was mostly milk-based. And the results from my Cuisinart were super. I read that article and I can't say I've found any of the ice cream that I've made to be "icy," although I'm still new at this. So long as you get the mixture good and cold, even close to freezing it, before you put it into the machine, I find the results are really good. I had one batch where it really wasn't cold enough, and I could see it wasn't going well so I aborted the operation and refrigerated the mixture for another 12 hours, and then it went fine.

I'll just chime in to say I've been happy with the Cuisinart. I've only made very high-fat, creamy eggy ice creams with it. This weekend I made a basic vanilla I've been playing around with (I got a big batch of vanilla beans), except after scalding the milk I infused it with a big batch of mint. Best mint ice cream I've ever had. Heaven. The Rival does sound enticing, too. I might get one of those four quart jobs and take it out on the sidewalk with the kids. Sounds like good Saturday afternoon fun, no?

It's from the chocolate book. Several of us have discussed it over on the Herme thread in Pastry & Baking. Here's a picture of Elie Nassar's ice cream that I've hijacked for you:

I don't have the book with me, but Pierre Herme's version is delicious. He's very much against the use of cocoa powder or eggs in chocolate ice cream. I can give you measurements later if you want them, but his version basically involves really good bittersweet chocolate, milk, milk powder, and sugar. Very different from the usual ice cream. But it tastes more like real chocolate than most other chocolate ice creams I've tried.

oraklet, I can try to give you a little guidance, since Jack doesn't appear to be in the building. A temperature in the 18-20 C (64-68 F) range seems low to me. I don't personally use temperatures as high as Jack does, but a lot of authorities recommend a temperature at least in the low seventies F. You're also using a lot of whole wheat flour, which will give a certain bitterness to the taste of your completed loaves. It's hard for me to say whether this is the phenomenon you're experiencing as "sourness," or whether it's something else. If I knew more about how you are feeding your starter and making your loaves, I might have a little more insight. The amount of starter you're using for your loaves is not too high. As for the differences in the structure of your loaves, I'd guess that it isn't the slashing. More likely the differences are the result of how much your dough is being deflated as you form your individual loaves.

You mean this, right? I don't own this product, but my reaction is "why?" Why would you pay twice the price of a Rival (or more) for an All-Clad slow cooker that appears to work exactly the same way as all the other slow cookers? The slow cooker is a simple device. I'd buy a Rival-- the brand is time-tested and reliable. I own one and I'm happy with it.

Isn't salmonella in chickens almost unheard of in Japan? I recall reading that chicken carpaccio/sushi is served in Japan. Here in NYC, I confess I usually disregard the risks associated with raw eggs unless I'm making something for children or the elderly. I've thought about only going organic, but those eggs tend to sit on the shelf a lot longer than the standard-issue eggs. (You can tell by the code on the side of the carton that indicates what day of the year the carton was packed.) I'm not sure at any rate what makes a henhouse more or less likely to produce eggs infected with salmonella in the first place, or whether "organic" labeling is likely to indicate a lesser risk. Isn't the incidence of salmonella in eggs much lower today than it was when they first realized it was possible? Weren't "steps" taken?

jgarner, your canneles look a lot like the ones I tasted recently at the newly reopened Bouley Bakery in Manhattan. The crust looks pretty soft, not really crispy or crunchy like the ones I made from Paula's recipe (and, it appears, the ones in her picture). Is this a function of how long they've been sitting around? Is there more crunch if you eat them sooner? Or is it the cooking time? Or some other reason?

Thomas Keller's opening a bakery in New York? The new Bouley Bakery is definitely worth a visit.

There's also Financier Patisserie, at 62 Stone Street, downtown. Are you interested in Breads? (Sullivan Street Bakery, 73 Sullivan St.) Chocolates? (Kee's Chocolates, 70 Thompson St.)

I think helen's got it. Soup, you need another rise. And an overnight refrigeration of your shaped loaf wouldn't hurt either. And I like the BWJ challah, but again as helen mentioned, baking time makes a big difference. I've found it much less appealing and dry when I've baked it just a little too long.

I'm no expert on this subject, but I think the firmness of caramels must depend on more variables than just the temperature at which you pull them off the burner. I'm guessing the surface area of the pan in use and the heat level/time it takes to reach the target temperature are also factors. I pulled mine off at the specified temperature and I don't think mine were nearly as soft as yours, Patrick.