I had a pleasant surprise watching the Food Network last night. An episode of their reality/competition show Food Network Challenge came on, this time pitting five teams of cake decorators against each other to create a winning multi-tier “celebration cake” in just eight hours. Now I tend to be pretty skeptical of the whole “reality […]
READ ONIf you’ve followed the site for a while you know my feelings on Food TV’s Sugar Rush. Great potential poorly used, with a strange penchant for explosions, flame and pastry that looks like anything but pastry. Well, now there’s a spinoff, Ace of Cakes featuring Sugar Rush‘s favorite pastry demolitions expert, Duff Goldman of Charm […]
READ ONI can’t let a mention of salt taxes pass by without taking a detour into the subject of the gabelle, the infamous French salt tax. The gabelle started in the year 1286 as a “temporary” commodity tax instigated by Phillip IV to finance his war against Naples. But then as anyone who’s ever driven the […]
READ ONIf you’ve ever made bread and left the salt out by mistake, you know what a critical omission salt really is, even in something as relatively bland as bread. You go from simple and mild to positively flavorless. Thus a lot of people are surprised when they first cut into a big crusty loaf of […]
READ ONI have yet to venture into cake in any serious way, probably because I fear such a gigantic, imposing topic. But then every great pig-out starts with the first bite. Since berries are bustin’ out all over, I think something simple, that marries well with any kind of berry, would be appropriate this week: Yellow […]
READ ONAlright, there isn’t one. I didn’t have time to make Napoleons this weekend, I’ll confess it. The big Napoleon eater, a colleague of my wife’s, couldn’t make it for dinner Saturday night. We rescheduled for next week, by which time I should be able to get my act together.
READ ONOne other thing I meant to remark upon: flavor. While the flavor of this two-day pizza was pretty darn good, it didn’t have the depth and distant tang of the naturally-leavened pizza I tried about three weeks back (I know, I didn’t tell you, but a baker has to have at least some privacy). How […]
READ ONYes yes, my source from Napoli didn’t let me down. Friday night’s effort was none too bad, though it paled in comparison to the real deal I ate two weeks ago in Chicago. One problem was that I didn’t let the dough rise quite long enough after I shaped my pies. The edges were flat […]
READ ONOne thing that’s not essential, but darn nice to have if you’re making Neapolitan-style pizza is Italian flour. The kind you most often see recommended is called “00” flour. As to what exactly that is, there seems to be quite a bit of confusion. Search around the web a little and you can find all […]
READ ONConsidering that real Neapolitan pizza is such an important source of pride and income among certain Italians, it’s probably not all that surprising that the Italian government has enacted laws to protect it. Which is to say, just like the French designate what is and what is not authentic French vino with their Appellation d’Origine […]
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