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"Baking With Julia" by Julia Child (2004)


SethG

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I have all weekend (and 8 appreciative guys coming over on Sunday) and could do something this week.

Next week, I plan on making the tuiles, to go with a meyer lemon sorbet I'm making for a dinner party.

"I just hate health food"--Julia Child

Jennifer Garner

buttercream pastries

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And I didn't report that I made the X cookies a couple of weeks ago. Not being able to find candied orange peel, I made some myself. I felt that overall, the cookies were good, but that the orange peel dominated. But I don't know whether that's because of my candying technique, or whether there was just too much orange peel in the recipe. I wanted a slightly more dominant fig flavor.

"I just hate health food"--Julia Child

Jennifer Garner

buttercream pastries

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In honor of Julia, shouldn't we bake something this weekend?

Savarin, perhaps? Mousse au Chocolat (though I don't think there's a recipe for it in BWJ)

"I just hate health food"--Julia Child

Jennifer Garner

buttercream pastries

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In honor of Julia, shouldn't we bake something this weekend?

Savarin, perhaps? Mousse au Chocolat (though I don't think there's a recipe for it in BWJ)

Agreed. Savarin might be good-- berries are in season. I'll look at the book tonight.

"I don't mean to brag, I don't mean to boast;

but we like hot butter on our breakfast toast!"

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I'll make savarin today, I think. But I'm going to skip the pear eau de vie-- I may use a little brandy or cognac instead. I'd appreciate anyone else's thoughts on the wisdom of such a substitution.

Anyone else?

"I don't mean to brag, I don't mean to boast;

but we like hot butter on our breakfast toast!"

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Sorry, jgarner, but I think I'm actually not making the Savarin after all. We're having guests, one of whom is an AA member, so I'm obliged not to serve a dessert that's soaked in rum and liquor.

I have all these berries I bought for the Savarin, so I think I might make the Baked Yogurt Tart (p. 368). This actually looks very easy, and it was contributed by Leslie Mackie, who also contributed the really tasty apple tart we made near the beginning of this thread.

"I don't mean to brag, I don't mean to boast;

but we like hot butter on our breakfast toast!"

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I'd say the yogurt tart came out well (sorry, no pic). The recipe makes a very deep tart with a rich yogurt custard under the berries. I would make it again, but I think I would make it in a standard nine inch tart pan instead of a springform, and cut the amount of yogurt custard in half. This would make the dessert a little lighter and place more emphasis on the fruit. And I thought there was a little too much vanilla, so I'd cut back on that a little too.

"I don't mean to brag, I don't mean to boast;

but we like hot butter on our breakfast toast!"

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SethG,

I haven't been participating in this thread, but I've always wondered about Leslie Mackie's yogurt tart and whether the fat content of the yogurt affects its structure. Did you actually use non-fat (insert shiver of horror here) yogurt? If so, was it thickened with gelatin, agar, starch, or a combination of the above? I just can't help thinking that you have to use good-tasting ingredients to get a good-tasting result... but maybe this tart is the exception that proves the rule.

Thanks!

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SethG,

I haven't been participating in this thread, but I've always wondered about Leslie Mackie's yogurt tart and whether the fat content of the yogurt affects its structure. Did you actually use non-fat (insert shiver of horror here) yogurt? If so, was it thickened with gelatin, agar, starch, or a combination of the above? I just can't help thinking that you have to use good-tasting ingredients to get a good-tasting result... but maybe this tart is the exception that proves the rule.

Thanks!

I was most tempted to substitute whole milk yogurt for the non-fat. I share your disdain for non-fat yogurt as a general matter. In this instance, the yogurt is thickened mostly with flour. It is also enriched with eggs, butter, vanilla, and sugar, I think. I went with the non-fat yogurt because I feared the whole fat yogurt would result in a brick-like texture.

In the end, I thought the dessert was quite rich-- maybe more than I wanted it to be. But you're right, there was a little bit of that non-fat yogurt taste, which left me wondering if a substitution might have been an improvement.

"I don't mean to brag, I don't mean to boast;

but we like hot butter on our breakfast toast!"

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In this instance, the yogurt is thickened mostly with flour.  It is also enriched with eggs, butter, vanilla, and sugar, I think.

What I meant to ask was, what kind of non-fat yogurt did you use and was the thickening agent in it that made skim milk behave like yogurt? In my experience, non-fat yogurts made with gelatin are too creepily unctuous but the starch-thickened ones are... well, starchy. (I'm trying to figure out which would perform better in the tart recipe.) Sorry for any confusion.

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What I meant to ask was, what kind of non-fat yogurt did you use and was the thickening agent in it that made skim milk behave like yogurt? In my experience, non-fat yogurts made with gelatin are too creepily unctuous but the starch-thickened ones are... well, starchy. (I'm trying to figure out which would perform better in the tart recipe.) Sorry for any confusion.

Oh. Sorry. I used Stonyfield Farm. Here's the ingredient list:

OUR FAMILY RECIPE: CULTURED PASTEURIZED ORGANIC NONFAT MILK, INULIN, PECTIN. CONTAINS: CONTAINS SIX LIVE ACTIVE CULTURES INCLUDING: L. ACIDOPHILUS, BIFIDUS, L. CASEI, AND L. REUTERI. 

I think the use of pectin puts this in your gelatin/"creepily unctuous" family. For nonfat yogurt, I think it's pretty good.

"I don't mean to brag, I don't mean to boast;

but we like hot butter on our breakfast toast!"

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