Volition

As stated above. I too add oils to the packaging for sous vide, I was under the impression it was to aid thermal transfer. Any small air gaps are taken up by the oil. In doing a long slow sous vide with beef I add coconut oil for a Thai style/flavoured dish. In addition I think when searing post cook, it means I have an oil coating on the meat to also help searing. I match the oil to what I'm making. I've never heard that the oil is added to help moisture retention. Very minimal amounts are added. Time to experiment with it. Parameters to test will have to be purely based on which I prefer in a blind test. I'll have to test one bag with and one bag without. Using a strong flavoured oil and test a neutral flavoured oil. On long cook and short cook. So another blind test to add to the list.

Well you are doing the right things. My understanding of humidity in the process is limited. I do know that humidity plays a massive part in baking and ovens. MC shows this well with wet bulb temperatures. There are bound to be some real eggheads (excuse the pun) on the physics occurring in baking and how that relates to your shells and humidity. I have an idea. To establish a method to ascertain firstly if humidity is the culprit. Keep your batter exactly the same. And record the humidity every time you bake. You could get a cheap hydrometer( I think that's what they're called) from an electric shop. Like a Tandy or Dick Smith in Australia. They normally are a thermometer as well. Might be interesting to record the temperature as well. Keep a log of the temp, humidity and the outcome of you shells. You should start to see a correlation hopefully. If your hunch is correct. You might have a few dud shells in the process as you can' taller your recipe to work it out at first. Once you work out what ranges effect what. You can start to try and play with the mix to adapt to the temp/humidity. There should definitely be some resources out there. Easy for me to talk as you'll be doing the work if you could be bothered. Other options are a more resilient batter. E.g. Tapioca suggestion, or a humidity controlled oven. But from what you describe the dry batter is before it enters the oven. So if it is dry and not spreading out for the foot. That means you are getting evaporation somewhere or losing moisture at some point in the process. Could the almond be more absorbent. Very interesting. For your hypothesis of humidity to be the problem it means that it has to be low humidity that causes the problem I suspect. To allow for more evaporation. Or higher temperatures in your environment. Ah well enough rambling, none of this solves your problem. Just gives you more work and more reasons why it happened. Sorry about that. Personally my macaron shells are pretty consistent, unless I stuff up. 300 g almond meal 300 g pure icing (confectioners') sugar 110 g egg whites, at room temperature 300 g caster (superfine) sugar 75 g water Food colouring 2 g powdered egg white 110 g egg whites, extra, at room temperature From adriano zumbo See how that goes.

Some bakeries do a different coloured dot or dots in their shells to identify that it is their macarons. You need to make a second colour shell batter and pipe a small dot into the main macaron she'll. if the goal is to have an identifiable macaron as from your bakery. In Melbourne their is a guy who has a red dot on all of his macarons.

I suspect your batter is drier then previously used. Do you use digital scales to measure out your ingredients. If yes, are they accurate? How did you measure ingredients previously? The answer to these questions will help. If you were using egg whites and measuring by no of eggs. The egg supplier might have changed and maybe not enough white in the mix as previously. Any thoughts?

Evernote Mac and PC clients have options to export. Whole lot, notebook or single entry. Export format is PDF or HTML.

Americas test kitchen in their book cooks illustrated. Said that the oven method for ripening does not work. Yes it browns the peel. But the essential conversion of starch to sugars does not speed up. They to recommend ripening with an already ripe ethylene producing fruit. I've not time to read the whole thread so I could be repeating. Other methods I've not seen notes on, e.g. Sous vide

I'm loving a mixture of both. I love the ability to search on my ipad through cookbooks. I suppose I get more reference type cookbooks on the ipad. Since my discovery of 'eat my books'website the paper based versions are now more useful then ever too. If I love the book I'd rather have paper based for example Stephanie Alexander's tome 'the cooks companion' I have the paper book and I have the app. I prefer the paper but love searching the app when I'm out as a reference. There is room for both.

Is the bottom still on the Silpat? If so, I found this happens because of either or both of two things. Not baked long enough and/or and what I suspect to be the main problem. Not left to cool long enough before taking off the tray. This should help.

Well sounds like your after something by eye. I have no solutions to offer. Just some feedback on some measuring cups I do have. The Pyrex ones are good I love the shape and the way it works in a microwave. The cons are that they are hard to stack away conveniently because of the handles. I find they drip too much as well. Good mixing bowls for a digital scaler. And would be good for your purposes.ni have the 500ml and 1l. The 1l is the perfect size for batters, ice cream bases. The 500ml gravy (don't mind the drip).

If you are after convenience. The digital scale cannot be beaten. Just set the scale to zero after each ingredient. So no measuring cups to wash at all. Once you go digital you don't go back. It's worth it. There are plenty of sites and resources that convert volumetric measurements into mass. Measuring cups are not more convenient at all. In saying that most recipes are volumetric. If you sit down for 2 minutes before cooking and write in pencil the mass measurements. Then that recipe is converted. Use a pencil in the kitchen as ink can run if it gets wet.

I am planning on purchasing this book this week. Or should I say books. What is everyone's initial verdict?

In regards to page I can't remember. It's around the gels I'd say. I'll look tonight when I get home and get back to you.

Thanks. Cavitation to infuse. I take it you cavitate first then carbonate. Is that correct?

I suppose you could try hydro colloids? Carrageenan, gelatin. Not a true custard. Have a search around I think you'll find some ideas if you wanted to go that route. Other then that modernist cuisine has a table for you. Do you have this book(s) Not sure what the copyright rules are for these forums for me posting that.

Question for the above recipe. Why the n2o? When carbonating.