jjahorn

Just to jump in about 'speck' In Germany it is specifically the fatty tissue between the skin and meat. It is often brined or smoked, and sometimes sold in small cubes, sometimes in one large chunk like the picture above. When bought in pieces, it is usually not pure fat, but also contains layers of meat - like bacon. The description of the melted fat sounds a lot more like 'schmalz' which is (rendered?) fat. I usually see it in the grocery store from pork or goose. Often it has dried onion mixed into it, and can be used for cooking, or smeared on bread as a butter replacement. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmalz My wife's Aunt makes a very good salad. I'll ask this week and post her recommendation.

I've tried a few things recently that were close, but not quite good... Bubblegum Ice cream - The bubble gum is dissolved in the warm milk for the flavour. problem #1 - When set, the chewiness of the gum is also present in the ice - like having too much xanthan gum in a recipe... problem #2 - I wanted to colour it, and the red I used just disappeared without a noticeable change. The recipe I had called for 5 drops (for 1L mix) - and I probably added 1 tablespoon in the end. No change. Are some food colourings better than others for fats? Mango sorbet - I didn't have enough mango, so I improvised and added grapefruit. Completely overpowered the mango, but I can tell from the little hint that next time a pure mango sorbet will be really good. It is refreshing though. Question: I want to do a high alcohol ice cream. The recipe I have calls for casein and 21DE atomized glucose. I don't have either... The casein I can only find from body-builder shops sold by the kilo. Does anyone know of a substitute, or a way to buy small amounts? I understand that atomized glucose is a mix of glucose and starch - so could I mix 20% glucose and 80% starch to have the same?

As another chemistry novice I can tell you that gelatine and many of the stabilizers need heat to activate. I don't believe it really makes a difference if you put your sugar in as you start or have heated it to 40C - I figure that description might have something to do with the equipment they use. As to bringing it to 82-85C - this is to activate as much of the stabilizer as possible, or for egg based custards to pasteurize it.

I would not have recognized the cover (found a pic here: http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/The_Sesame_Street_Cookbook) But it seems to be the book. Rubber Duckie Floats, Sherlock Hemlock's "P" Soup... The cookies are not chocolate chip though... Well, 30 years later, things get fuzzy

Ahhh... My first cookbook was an excellent Sesame Street Cookbook that I have not been able to find for my girls. It had simple to medium recipes presented by the puppets as their favourites. I don't really remember much of what was in it, but I liked to look at it, and do remember the chocolate chip cookies from the Cookie Monster. For some reason I also remember a pea soup - must have been Oscar...

A First Cookbook for Children (Dover Pictorial Archives) I thought it would have recipes to do with my kids - but they were normal 'adult' type recipes. The production quality was like what a church group would put together as a fund-raiser. The 'Chilrdens' element where some bad pictures that a child could colour in - they pictures seem to have all been drawn int he 19th century. (from the style)

I grew up in Ontario and my Grandpa used to take me smelt fishing and we would fry them. I've never heard anyone else reference them and assumed it was just his name for whatever the fish was. Thanks for triggering the memory!

(Possibly) assuming aside - one of my bags lost it's label recently, and I was fairly sure it was just vanilla sugar, so I put a little on the tip of my finger and popped it in my mouth. I was a little surprised how much reaction a few grains of citric acid can provoke!

I'm (relatively) young and have a similar problem that I can't filter out background noise very well. If people are not clearly louder than the surrounding, or if I am not focused on their voice I will miss what hey say at first. They have to have my attention - so my ear is 'tuned' to their voice, or it has to be quite quiet for me to absorb what they are saying. I ask people to repeat themselves a lot. Seems to be nothing wrong with my hearing though - just my processing...

I don't know Cremodan, but I made up my own mix of xanthan, guam and locut gum. First time I did it I believe I used 12:10:10 and it worked nicely with the recipe I was using at about 0.5%. second time I believe it was 15:10:10 and had a gooy mess even though it was only 0.4%... Stabilizers can be very tricky! All was not lost though - the strawberry that was gooy couldn't be served as ice cream, but made a great milk-shake!

For me - Corn! The stuff they sell here is fairly juicy, but flavourless. I really thought it was cattlecorn first time I had it. I tried growing my own in the garden from seeds from back home - but they didn't have the flavour, my soil is not good for it.

On thing I learned from a very high level event my wife organized - Keep things that crumble to a minimum and nothing with mustard/red sauce on it - this would include cream filled pastries. People don't want to clean off an accident from their fancy suit. Bretzels - stuffed with butter I second sausage rolls small tarts - if they are one bit size You might want to look into Welsh pasties - A little like a calzone.

In Germany a LITER of beer costs between 1$US (for not so good stuff) to about 1.60$US. I really can't complain!

The type of thermocouple is also important. Most PID's will only control to .1 degrees if you use a platinum probe PT100 type. You have to set the thermocouple type in the PID setup. The PID is from a German company (Pohl) the controller is called A-senco TR11. The technical specs say display resolution 1C, measuring resolution 0.1C. I have parameters for Hysteria, P,I,D, relay time, Temp calibration, and Autotuning. No values for Fahrenheit or resolution ;-( I'm going to send an email to the company, but expect that it is not possible to fine-tune. As for the probe - it is a PT100, but I think it is steel. After some research it looks like this type of sensor has an accuracy of 0,3K at 0C Well, My set-up will get me started in the would of sous vide, and I will replace the controller when I find it is limiting me. Wish me luck everyone!

Well, thanks to a friend, my home made sous vide rig is finally finished - In Germany I was unable to find a home use one, only professional units that were too expensive. First try - like most people I expect - was eggs this morning. A disaster! I did not calibrate it, but even so I wasn't expecting this result... I set it to 63C for 50 min (Cooking for geeks suggests this for soft boiled), and was expecting whites to be set, and the yellow still runny. Opened them up and it was the opposite! The yellows had set (semi-hard, it held its shape and was not at all liquidy) and the whites where a wet pool around it. I thought the whites set at a lower temp than the yellow - so how can this have happened? If both had set it would have been better. On top of that, I now know that the PID that I bought is accurate to 0.1C, but can only be set to 1C.

Bojana - please do keep on reporting about your mix - and if you decide to change it. As someone who is starting out on this line with ice creams, reading about your tests are helpful to let me plan how to do my own mix.

I agree that the reviews are usually not impartial - They don't get home made enough to evaluate, and never get more experimental flavours... I have a question for anyone that might know : atomized glucose 21 DE and atomized glucose 52 DE If I understand correctly these would basically be dextrose with starch filler - 21% and 52% dextrose and the rest starch? Has anyone tried mixing their own instead of buying it (for those that have used it)?

I have a Unold 48816 which is the name in Germany with is a 1.5L container. It seems to be like the KI-15 Ice Cream Maker (1.5 Qts) on Amazon from the looks. It has a removable bowl and is quite comfortable. A little loud, and definitely heavy - but I'm ok with that... When the ice comes out of the machine it is always soft. To give it professional feel it needs to sit in the freezer for a while. How hard or soft it is then is a matter of the recipe and the (anti-)freezing point - and the temp of the freezer. As for overrun - I have read that the air is only incorporated when the mix is between 4 and -4 C, after that it supposedly doesn't 'capture' any more.

Disaster today. I pulled out my base from the fridge and dumped it into the strawberry puree to mix and churn and I think to myself - Why do I smell garlic? I took the wrong container and put a liter of blue cheese dip for my chicken wings onto the strawberry puree instead of the ice cream base! Anyways a question - now that I am looking through Corvitto's book and I wanted to know what people use for the various 'neutral ingredients' Some parts of the book explain what to use (Casein - which I don't know where to get in Germany - or even the name.... Egg yolk). I was wondering thoguh what other home ice cream makers out there use for these neutral ingredients. Are there any common ingredients that I can buy as emulsifier or stabilizer (gelatin or Agar-agar???)?

I'm not sure about cherry pie flavour, but I like the extracts from Watkins (http://www.jrwatkins.com/products/a1694768-2033-46d2-86c4-8808e3f29672/) Maybe you can use something like that as a base and add some spice for the pie flavour. I like their root beer, but was not so impressed with raspberry

I haven't been working with Corvitto's recipies (yet, but I've got them now and started to look through it), but you have to change your recipe a lot if you don't want the milk powder - it is there because it binds much of the water.

My wife is in to Earl Grey recently, but a lot of them (loose leaf) are all bouquet and no flavour, so I have mixed 50g Irish Breakfast with 10g of Earl Grey (in a tin and shake) for a stronger tea with the bergamont smell added.

Vote for Apples - in a savoury treatment Red onions mesclun heirloom potatoes

Looking through I haven't found a thread on frozen yogurt. I tried making some in my ice cream machine this week (first day over 25C!!!) Right out of the machine was still a little too soft, but we ate it anyways, but the leftovers went into the freezer. Next afternoon - ROCK solid.... Does anyone have a good formula for yogurt that it will be scoopable out of the freezer? This is generally a problem with a lot of ice creams I try as well (but I'm getting better, had a good gelatin based watermelon-lime ice cream in April that wsa still scoopable)...

Half what and half what else if there is no fat?????