Flourless chocolate cake has a unique feeling on the tongue. At first it does feel almost floury and cake-like, but rapidly melts into a luscious, molten pool. The density of the cake (and all the fat) prolongs the sensation, meaning a little goes a long way (though not if you’re either one of my daughters…then […]
READ ONThat scene from Marathon Man, I’m sure, wrecked the livelihood of many a respectable dentist. Talk about a classic. Though it’s a pity such a realistic torture sequence could not have come later in Dustin Hoffman’s career, say after he’d done films like Ishtar, Outbreak, Finding Neverland, and Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium. The scene could […]
READ ONThis cake is a prime example of Joe Pastry’s Inverse Law of Ingredient Dynamics, which states that as the number of ingredients in a given recipe goes down, the importance of the quality of those ingredients and the techniques by which they are handled goes up. There’s a great misconception out there that because a […]
READ ONA flourless chocolate cake is a great time to let your inner chocolate snob shine through. Assuming you decide not to use any added sugar or flavorings, the only thing you’ll really taste in this cake is chocolate, so it makes sense to get finicky. This is one of those times the home baker has […]
READ ONThis week I have a yen for some serious chocolate. And what delivers a chocolate body blow better than a flourless chocolate cake? Great flourless cakes are made of just three things: chocolate, eggs, butter. Nothing else is needed if the chocolate is truly spectacular — and why make a cake with anything less? The […]
READ ONIt takes some moxie to move to the South and then a couple of years later start telling people how to make southern biscuits. But then who’s going to come over and blog this for me, Paula Deen? I’m going for it. Recipes for buttermilk biscuits, the archetypal chemically-leavened foodstuff, can be found everywhere. There […]
READ ONWith croissants of course. Pain au chocolat especially. Deliver a few of those and she’ll let me spend the whole weekend laying on the couch watching football. Laminated pastry may or may not have the same effect on your spouse but you won’t know until you try, will you? So here, if you’ve ever wanted […]
READ ONNobody likes fat. Either that or everybody does. It’s hard to figure out which. Really it depends on the circumstance in which you catch people, talking about it or actually eating it. In principle nobody likes fat. You hear it from nutritionally educated types all the time: Oh my family and I avoid fats wherever […]
READ ONEvery laminated dough, be it puff pastry, croissant, flaky pastry or Danish, begins its life as a thick slab of butter encased in a dough “envelope”. This 3-layer dough-butter-dough package is then flattened and folded however many times it takes to get the number of layers the maker is after. A folded flaky pastry for […]
READ ONSo, now that you know something about the process of fermentation you can probably guess what that brown liquid is that collects on top of a bread starter. Yes, that’s right, alcohol. A very impure form of alcohol, otherwise known as hooch. Sure, you can drink it, but one taste will demonstrate all too clearly […]
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