It’s made, it’s just waiting for a bit of decent weather. Esterházy torte has turned out to be a fairly challenging project from a visual production standpoint. Getting that top right while simultaneously photographing it was all but impossible. So I’m going to do a separate shoot just for the top on the same day I do my “hero shot” of the finished torte. The problem is that I take my pictures outdoors and the weather has looked like this all week:
READ ON
Oh there’s quite a lot of difference, reader Cynthia. Waxed paper is basically tissue paper with a wax coating on the outside, nowhere near as tough and useful as parchment. Parchment is thick (or at any rate thick-er) paper that’s been passed through an acid bath to increase its rigidity and give it a hard, smooth, glossy surface that resists just about everything. Most of the time parchment is also coated with silicone to give it extra stick-resistance.
READ ONReader Wale has a very interesting question:
I would like to ask you what composite flours are. Presently the Nigerian Govt has requested that all flour millers include cassava in wheat flour so as to support the agricultural industry and reduce the buying of wheat from out side the country. This new hybrid flour contains 90% wheat flour and 10% high quality cassava flour. Please can you talk more about composite flours and tell me if it’s ok to use them for cake baking, especially American high ratio cakes.
Hi Wale! Yes I’ve read here an there about composite flours, mostly in regard to western Africa where governments have been anxious to reduce the costs associated with imported wheat. Since root crops like cassava are plentiful, so the thinking goes, why not cut the flour with some less expensive filler? It makes a certain amount of sense, at least when seen from a government perspective. Bakers may well feel differently of course.
READ ON
I came home to over 200 comments and emails, so don’t mind if I answer a few in the main window here. This one from reader Hattie I especially like because, well, I love that name. But also because there are so many different ways to answer it.
I’ll be honest and say at the outset that a plain vanilla cheesecake is my personal favorite. However I recognize that there are plenty of cheesecake makers out there who consider plain cheesecake to be a mere starting point, a blank canvass if you will. For those folks I have a few basic suggestions.
READ ONHey all, I seem to be plagued by one problem after another this fall/winter. Due to some apparent host problems I haven’t been able to access the site for the last four days. I haven’t even been able to see it from the front end most of that time, so I don’t know if it’s […]
READ ONNo I didn’t get my torte made, dernit. What a travesty, but I did flap my fingers quite a bit on chemical leavening, if that was any fun. I’ll set things to rights after Thanksgiving. Have a great one, all you Americans. Those of you in other locales, I apologize for the blogging lapse that’s […]
READ ON
Reader Sally had a great question: what’s the difference between “punching down” dough and “gently de-gassing” it as so many artisan bread recipes instruct? Functionally speaking, Sally, there’s not that much difference, both are about releasing built up CO2 and stretching the dough to further distribute the yeast (being buds, yeast don’t move on their own so we have to manually move them if we want to spread them around a bread dough).
READ ONIn fact it is, reader Erica, it is exactly the same principle, the main difference being the type of bacterial culture involved. If you were around for my exhausting — I’m sorry I mean exhaustive — series on fermented dairy foods from several years ago, you may recall that it’s the species of lactic acid bacteria in the milk that ultimately determines both the flavor and the texture of fermented milk and/or cream. Milk exposed to the kind of lactic acid bacteria common to Khazakhstan will be transformed into a thick and tangy yogurt. Milk exposed to the kind of lactic acid bacteria common to places like Kentucky
READ ONReader Gustav asks if the tartaric acid (cream of tartar) crystals that form on wine corks happen all the time or only if the wine has “turned.” The answer is that tartaric acid crystals can form anytime in just about any wine (white or red) and do not indicate that a wine has “turned” in any way. In fact tartrate crystals on the inside end of a cork probably indicate that you’re in possession of a rather good bottle. Mass producers of wine, knowing that wine drinkers are frequently put off by tartrate crystals
READ ONReader Cynthia writes:
So OK, I get that alkalines like baking soda are rare things in the kitchen. But what about the other side of the reaction: acids? They seem more common. Can you give us a list of things that react with soda? And are there any other alkaline ingredients out there?
Cynthia, I’d be positively delighted to answer. As you’ve intuited, acids are a much more common in the kitchen than bases. The strongest of these are vinegar, cream of tartar and lemon juice. Other citrus juices like orange and lime are acidic, so is tomato juice and any fermented dairy product (buttermilk, sour cream, yogurt, etc.). Other, milder acids include
READ ON