jmacnaughtan

I don't recommend baking Italian meringues: in my experience, they go hard and gummy. Swiss meringues are better for this. But if you've properly beaten the meringues, you shouldn't have a problem with them holding their shape - I was taught to meringuer the whites, mixing at half speed while incorporating around 2/3 of the whites, then once you get stiff peaks cranking it right up and adding the rest. For a really good texture, a good thing to do is replace half the caster sugar with icing sugar. Use just the caster sugar when whipping, then once it's properly stiff fold in the seived icing sugar and pipe. They don't hold their shape quite as well, but the light, crumbly texture makes up for it.

Sorry, it must have been you I was thinking of. My apologies.

I'd agree with that. I generally don't use water for vegetables, unless I'm blanching them or making soup. I prefer to cook a lot of them à l'étouffée (in a little fat, covered with a lid - carrots, especially) or just sautéed. That way you don't lose any of the stuff leaching out, and the flavoured oil helps dress the vegetables. ETA: I seem to remember huiray talking about Chinese cooks doing this - cooking vegetables in fat rather than in steamers. Seemed like a good idea

Sorry for the confusion - I meant to say that if the recipe says 1/2 a cup of lemon juice, take 1 1/2 to cups of orange juice and reduce it down to 1/2 a cup. That way you get the acidity and concentration without having to use any extra lemon or lime juice.

Take your favourite lemon curd recipe, and replace the lemon juice with freshly squeezed orange juice that you've reduced by around 2/3 or 3/4. Depending on what you want to do with it, adding 1% of the final weight in bloomed gelatin will improve the set, and/or 3% in cocoa butter will improve the texture. I generally use gelatin and cocoa butter together when I want to use less butter. ETA: don't reduce the juice with the rind, or it can become bitter. Add that to the sugar and egg mix.

I get the impression that the whole "frozen dinners reheated by 70% of restaurants" thing is wildly exaggerated. Firstly, what is considered a restaurant can be anything from a bistrot to a McDonald's to a corporate or school canteen. Secondly, the documentary looked at restaurants that brought in "ready meals or frozen ingredients". You can include frozen ingredients into high-quality dishes. In fact, all of the major pastry places in France and around the world rely on frozen purées, etc. I can only really compare France with the UK, but from what I've seen, there tends to be a similar level of quality at both the cheapest and most expensive restaurants in both countries. The major difference seems to be in the mid-range, where you're much more likely to eat well here than across the Channel.

I don't have a lot of experience with pretzels, but I know with baguettes that go hard, you can just throw them in a hot oven for five minutes to "refresh" them. It might work with pretzels - soft bun, crunchy crystals and, as a bonus, they'd be warm.

I like it. For the squiggly décor, is that chocolate piped into cold water, then sprayed? And is that a moulded chocolate base, or just a plastic casing?

You could do; I think it would depend on the size and insulation of your oven. You'd probably have to keep an eye on the sugar for the first 20 minutes or so too, to avoid burning.

It seems fun, but especially as it's starting to get warmer, it seems like a lot of effort to run the oven for five hours... I'd probably just go with the derided caramel powder if I needed something like that, or brown sugar for a more complex flavour. Although saying that, it might be interesting to roast brown sugar too.

I saw that. Way ahead of the curve, as usual.

She does make it easier for herself by using a lot of curved-top cakes, eliminating the need to sweep off the top layer. I wonder how she does the blue-white marbling one, though? That's pretty...

I don't think there's any problem with filling them - gelatine takes ages to set, even if it's at room temperature or below. You can definitely get it cool enough to keep your chocolate in temper. It might be interesting to use gelatine centres for dipping, too.

Thanks! Fortunately, they all turned out like that; often choux can be temperamental in my oven. Now I have to stop eating them before tonight.

Gougères!

Is "poulet rouge" the same as Label Rouge chickens, or is it a separate variety?

It's not Easter without chocolate, so I made a chocolate cake. Chocolate Orange Cake Orange cake (soaked with orange, vodka and Pousse Rapière) Orange curd Chocolate mousse Glazes

I'm not sure I have a test dish - I judge by whether the food looks, smells and tastes like I want to eat it. And preferably no silly plating or garnishes... However, for desserts in a new place I'll go for the rum baba. It's very hard to screw up, but it's also very hard to make it memorable. ETA: If I'm being honest though, I'll often judge a restaurant more on the service than the food. I've had a lot more good food ruined by lousy service than vice versa.

Interesting: I always heard it was "robin's egg blue". I'd fry the eggs in butter first, to see what they taste like, and then go on from there. I'd guess that they won't taste much different to hen's eggs, so either use them as normal or take advantage of the size and make something dainty

That BB-8 is wonderful. I'm not sure I could bring myself to eat it. We had some friends over, so I decided to make another tart. This one's hazelnut. Hazelnut Tart Sablé breton Praliné mousseline Mini choux buns Toasted hazelnuts

That sounds more like a caramel syrup than a golden syrup - it's not made in the same way and won't have the same flavour. I'm pretty sure that golden syrup is a by-product of the refinement process, and the colour and flavour come from the impurities in the sugar rather than any caramelisation. The normal Tate & Lyle's is not normally expensive, hard to find or low quality, so I don't really see the point of making it at home...

Unless you have a sugar refinery, how do you make your own golden syrup?

A good way is to add cocoa butter, butter and gelatin. Use 100g of butter, 30g of cocoa butter and 5g of gelatin for a recipe using 500ml of milk - add the cocoa butter and gelatin just after you take it off the heat, then blend in the cold butter when it gets down to around 50°C. Chill it, then whisk or whip to smooth it. The butter makes it rich, the cocoa butter gives it a texture that's a bit more like a ganache and the gelatin lets you whip it, if you want, or just keeps it firmer You can make a better mousseline by doing 1:1 pastry cream and French buttercream

I've never tried it, but I did see a "traditional" Czech cookbook that called for larding a roast beef joint with hot dogs. I found that both really funny and potentially delicious

I felt a little nostalgic, so made a Banoffee Pie Sablé Breton Salted dulce de leche Whipped banana and JD pastry cream