Pete Fred

Shauna Sever's Chocolate Chip Cookie Brittle (via Food52)... It was a little too brittle-y/crunchy for me. I prefer something more biscuity (in the English sense). But if brittles are your thing, then it does exactly what it says on the tin.

I'm not sure if it may just have been inexperience with this type of pie, @Jim D.. I made it the night before and left it out in a (very) cold kitchen, and when I came to cut a slice for lunch the next day I had the problem trying to remove it. But later that evening I reheated the pie (in the tin) in the microwave and it released just fine. This is not something I've encountered before making European-style tarts in rings. Baking pies in dishes/pans/tins is not something I do very often, so I'm curious if this cold/warm thing is, y'know, a thing. Or should a well made pie come out of the dish just fine, hot or cold? Hopefully wiser pie-heads can chip in and help us both out.

I absolutely DID NOT gnaw away the stuck crust from the packaging. That is !FAKE NEWS!

I can't recall ever making an English/American-style apple pie previous to this one... After browsing a few recipes, the pastry was made with butter and lard, and the filling was a mix of eaters and cooking apples (pre-cooked into a purée). I also made an 'apple stock' from the peel and cores that supposedly adds flavour and helps thickening thanks to the pectin. (Hmmmm, not sure about that; it certainly didn't taste of much.) I misjudged the amount of apples needed so was unable to pile 'em high enough to account for sinkage, and the pastry welded itself to the tin in places, hence no clean slice. It tasted good, though. I'll have some with custard in the traditional English way later but, as this is France, a dollop of Calvados crème fraîche seemed appropriate...

Just to finish up my little experiment, I made the cake in the tart ring... On the left, shallower tart ring; on the right, deep tin using a cake strip (from the other day, that I'd stashed in the freezer). A slight improvement, but not much in it really. So no great revelation. Cake strips work, and deep tins can contribute to doming (at least if underfilled).

Dorie Greenspan's Devil's Thumbprint cookie... These were a pleasant two or three bites, soft inside with a bit of crunch on the outside. As I didn't have any jam, the blob was a ganache made with the syrup from a jar of sour cherries. The cherry-chocolate combo was a winner.

Stollen is more dense, chewy and bread-like, whereas panettone is light and airy with a very tender crumb like the best brioche. Do be sure to warm it through before eating, though. I do slices in the microwave for one minute at 30% power. Or you can do a whole one in the oven...

Yeah, the tin is 7.5cm/3" deep and may be part of the problem. It's essentially the same as the one Stella Parks recommended on Serious Eats several years ago. I quote: "This eight-by-three-inch anodized aluminum pan from Fat Daddio's is far and away my favorite. It's the brand we kept at the cake shop where I used to work, what I've always ordered when stocking a new restaurant kitchen, and the only thing I use at home." I bookmarked the link at the time, but that article now redirects to this one which is not of the same opinion and prefers a shallower tin. (The original Parks article is here.) Unfortunately, I don't have a shallower tin to make a comparison. All I've got is a 20cm/8" tart ring that's 3.5cm/1⅓" deep. Out of curiosity I might give that a go when I've got the ingredients.

Funny you should bring this up after my cake fail from earlier in the week, which demonstrated this problem spectacularly. I've used a store-bought cake strip in the past; not often, and I stopped bothering when it quickly became discoloured and a bit manky. I figured now might be a good opportunity to test a DIY cake strip with a recipe I knew had issues (at least here in France). Here's the cake strip... I baked two identical cakes, even measuring the leavening to a hundredth of a gram(!). The results, <drum roll, please>... Cake strip on the right, if you hadn't guessed already. I thought the edges would rise a little higher due the insulation from the strip, but that didn't seem to be the case. The main benefit was to reduce the height and slope of the peak, not completely but a noticable improvement. The main problem here, I think, is the recipe. But I guess this little experiment does show that these strips can help somewhat.

It hadn't even ocurred to me to indulge this year until the panettone pushers on here popped up. In the absence of much else to go on, I saw that Wirecutter did a review and plumped for their overall winner, Olivieri 1882... Excellent perfume of orange and vanilla. The fruits were soft and moist, particularly the candied orange which was remarkably good. Once warmed through, the texture was delicate and melting, and the taste of butter, orange and vanilla very well balanced. I reckon I could easily polish it off on my own in a couple of sittings (or maybe just the one 😏).

I was planning on making a flourless chocolate cake from a Milk Street recipe, but when I saw the accompanying video on YouTube it took me down a little rabbit hole. I'd never heard of Torta Barozzi, a celebrated cake from near Modena, made to a 'secret recipe' at Pasticceria Gollini. Oooooo... 🙄. Anyway, there seems to be a pretty standard knock-off recipe kicking around, so... It was nice, quite light and moist, but not much different from many other flourless chocolate cakes. This one's missing the ground peanuts of the original so I'll try that at some point, but I don't expect it to make a world of difference. I was also keen to make it after seeing a video of Massimo Bottura pairing the cake with 25-year aged balsamic vinegar. So I broke out my stash of Extra Vecchio, waited for my world to be rocked, and... hmmmmm, not feeling the "fantastica", sadly. Maybe it's that chocolate/peanut/coffee/balsamic combo that takes it to the moon.

Brown sugar peach cake from Yossy Arefi's Snacking Bakes... As you can see, it was not a success, aesthetically. According to the book, it should look like this... I'm not sure why my slices sank. I used tinned peaches, but can't conceive that would account for it, and a half-inch thick is a half-inch thick everywhere in the world, last time I checked. The only other ingredients that might not translate from American to French were crème fraîche (as called for, not a substitute) and the flour. Who knows? Anyway, I think I've had similar issues with her recipes before. The cake was ok but not sufficiently interesting to make me wanna try and fix it. C'est la vie.

Pear, polenta and almond cake (Julia Turshen recipe)... It was so-so. I found it a little dry, and the baby food 'hack' was disappointing (I think making my own purée would've been more flavourful). Maybe my pear was a little under-ripe but the slices didn't soften much, which didn't help. You can see it better without the icing sugar... If I made it again (which doesn't seem likely) I'd try softening the slices with some butter before arranging on top.

Baked rice pudding... I normally flavour these with vanilla but this time I grated at whole nutmeg on top instead, much as I do when making a custard tart. It was good, and I'll be doing it this way from now on. Incidentally, although perhaps not unconnected, I was chatting with a friend a couple of days ago about how these days you never hear of kids sniffing glue or aerosols for a cheap high, at which point his teenage son (who seemed to have a wide knowledge of such matters) chimed in that an alternative is nutmeg. Nutmeg! This was news to me so I did a search and, yup, it's a thing. I've just thought to check what that whole nutmeg I grated represents and, according to the shadier parts of reddit, I may be currently experiencing a very light buzz equivalent to a beer or two. It brings a whole new meaning to 'baked' rice pudding. *Before any of you crazy kids rush off to the spice rack to get fried, do check out the dangers of myristicin toxicity.

Be aware that this applies to the US but is probably not the case if you're in Europe. I say probably because I've read so much conflicting advice online. When I have a fail with American recipes I reflexively blame it on this rather than operator error. 😏