Not being a rocket scientist, but rather one who pretends to be one, I'm always impressed when the real thing walks into the room. Here reader Aaron, an apprentice chocolatier who really has a handle on how to make a suerior ganache, weighs in. All those who aspire to use ganache to make candies like truffles, you'll want to pay close attention.

If I may submit a few tips on making a ganache. In my opinion, it is actually easier to think of a ganache as an emulsion, rather than as a crystal. While crystallization does play a part in creating the perfect ganache, a proper emulsion plays a far larger part.

The bloom you see on the top of a ganache is like the drops of oil you see floating on an improperly made vinaigrette. Add some mustard, whip it up, and voila, no drops. Ganache contains mainly water and fat so at best, the mix is unstable. Add cocoa solids, lecithin and milk solids and the strangers at the party start talking.

The best weapon employed in creating the perfect ganache? A stick blender. Use the mixer to emulsify at 91.5 degrees Fahrenheit (33C), not below to avoid fat coalescence, and make sure that when mixing, no air is incorporated (blade cavitation is bad news, so keep it immersed). Mix until the ganache is super shiny with no fat smears and it just starts to appreciably thicken.

I have never used clarified butter and I don't know why recipes call for it. Butter in it's natural state is the perfect emulsifier (Mcgee wrote about this in some long article about Hollandaise). With clarified butter, one benefits by lowering moisture activity, extending shelf life and and gaining the ability to add the butter with the hot cream. One loses powerful emulsifying agents, fresh taste and a bit of je ne sais quois (I think it's called melty-ness). The trick is to let the ganache cool to 93 degrees (34C) before adding ROOM TEMP butter and them emulsify. It's not good if the butter goes in, melts and separates, and then ruins the emulsion.

The ganache should never rise about 93 degrees (34C) so as to not lose the temper in the chocolate. Between 89 degrees and (32C) and 73 (23C), it should not be touched. And then below 73 (23C) it can be molded. Always enrobe above 91.5 (33C). To summarize:

1. Boil cream and sweeteners
2. Infuse flavorings
3. Pour over tempered, room temp chocolate
4. Let sit for 5-10
5. Stir, starting in the center to get an emulsion and then moving outward
6. Add butter when cooled to 93 degrees (34C)
7. Zap with immersion blender until shiny
8. Pipe at this point if desired
9. Don't touch while cooling (no fridge)
cut at this point

Fabulous stuff. Thanks Aaron! I'll file this under the permanent ganache tutorial for future reference.

Any time you set out to make cake — especially a foam-based sponge cake like joconde — it's very important that you have all your ingredients pre-measured and at-the-ready. You also want to have all your ingredients at room temperature.

Begin by brushing melted butter on your parchment-lined sheet pans. If necessary, trim your parchment a bit so lies completely flat on the pan.

Now for the egg foam. Whip your six egg whites to soft peaks, then add the sugar.

Keep whipping until they're at stiff peaks like so:

Remove the finished meringue from the mixer bowl to another bowl.

Rinse and dry the mixer bowl, and sift your powdered sugar into it.

Add your eggs and ground almonds...

...and with the paddle attachment, beat the mixture on medium-high until it's light and foamy, about three minutes.

Now add your flour and stir on low for just a few moments until it's gone.

Now it's time to incorporate the meringue. Fold it in, adding the foam in three additions. Use the largest rubber scraper you've got.

Fold until there are just a couple of small lumps left, then fold in the melted, clarified butter. The mixture will look about like so:

Pour the batter into your prepared pans, dividing it evenly. If you're the type that likes to use a scale for this sort of thing — and I am — you'll pour about 18 ounces of batter into each pan. Spread the batter as evenly as you can, paying special attention to the corners.

Bake 6-9 minutes, until the joconde layers look about like this:

Let cool for maybe a minute, then using a sharp knife, gently loosen the cake from the sides of the pan. If you can, lift the corners of the parchment up a bit to make sure the joconde sheet is loose all the way around.

Apply a fresh sheet of parchment to the top of the layer.

Flip the pan over...

Remove the pan and very gently and carefully peel the parchment off the top of the cake.

Flip the parchment sheet over and put it back on the cake, then move the layers to a wire rack and cool about 15 minutes. Done!

This highly useful almond sponge cake is said to be named for the Mona Lisa (more on that later). The main difference between it and other sponge cakes is that it has whole eggs beaten into it, and not just whites.

6 room-temperature egg whites
1 ounce granulated sugar
8 ounces sliced blanched almonds, ground to powder in a food processor
8 ounces powdered sugar, sifted
6 large eggs
2.5 ounces all-purpose (AP) flour
1 1/2 ounces clarified butter, melted

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Line two half-sized sheet pans (jelly roll pans) with parchment and brush with melted butter.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk, whip the egg whites to soft peaks, add the sugar, and continue to whip to stiff peaks. Scrape the meringue into a bowl.

Wash the bowl of the mixer and dry it, and switch to the paddle attachment. Beat the almonds, powdered sugar and eggs on medium until they're light and increased in volume, about 3 minutes. Turn the mixer down to low and add the flour, stirring just until it disappears.

Remove the bowl from the mixer and gently fold in the meringue. Lastly, fold in the clarified butter.

Divide the batter evenly between the two pans, spreading it as evenly as possible over the two pans. Bake for 5-7 minutes, until the layers are lightly browned. Remove from the oven and place the pans on the stove top. Cover each with a sheet of parchment, then flip the pans over on the countertop, thus turning the layers out. Carefully peel off the top layer of parchment, turn it over, and put it back on top of the layers until they're cool.

The layers can be refrigerated for one day or frozen up to a month.

As mentioned in the post below, frangipane can be interpreted in many, many ways. This particular iteration happens to be my favorite for filling fruit tarts (it goes well with apples, pears, plums, cherries and apricots...even berries if you wish). After the initial step, which requires a food processor, the rest is simply a question of stirring. Adding the wet and dry ingredients alternately helps prevent the flour from clumping. The formula is:

3.5 ounces (about a cup) blanched or toasted almonds, hazelnuts or pistachios
3.5 ounces (half cup) sugar
3.5 ounces (7 tablespoons) soft butter
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 eggs (room temperature)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Start by combining the nuts (here I'm using blanched, slivered almonds) and the sugar and flour in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade.

Process until the nuts are ground finely.

Pour about half the nut mixture into a metal bowl and stir it together with the butter (lumps at this stage are OK).

Add one of the eggs and stir it in. It won't be totally smooth because of the nuts. The texture will be like hot breakfast cereal. Cream of Wheat is what I think of.

Once the mixture is fairly homogenous, add the rest of the nut mixture...

...then the other egg and continue to stir (or whisk if you prefer) until all the ingredients are evenly incorporated. Lastly, stir in the half teaspoon of vanilla extract:

...and you're done! Some people, I should interject, just use the food processor the whole way. That's just fine, and I'm sure it works great. This is how I was taught to do it, and old habits die hard. The mixture can be stored overnight if need be.

When setting out to make a tart the French way (and most pastry chefs do) you’ve got two basic choices in dough: pâte brisée or “short dough“ and pâte sucrée, or “sweet dough”. Sweet dough is both richer and sweeter than short dough, which means it’s more tender, but it’s still firm enough to hold its shape when cut into slices and served.

What’s the difference between tart doughs and pie crusts? you might well ask. It’s a good question, because the ingredient proportions can be strikingly similar: lots of butter relative to the flour. One big difference is the amount of sugar that’s added. Pie crusts contain very little (if any) sugar. Tart doughs call for quite a bit, usually in powdered form to speed its incorporation into the dough (crystal sugar can cause graininess). Tart doughs also usually call for eggs (or egg yolks) and cream.

The big process difference between the two is that whereas pie crusts are usually made by hand, tart doughs are made (ideally) in a food processor. I should insert the obvious here: food processors are not an authentic part of the tart-making process. However the spinning blades give tart dough a uniformity of texture that’s very hard to replicate by hand. And that uniformity, once the rolled crust is put into the oven, helps prevent cracking and the loss of precious filling.

There are a lot of recipes out there for pâte sucrée, and a lot of people expend a lot of energy arguing over which one is more authentic than the other. This one just happens to be my favorite. The formula is:

1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons heavy cream
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 ½ cups (7.5 ounces) all-purpose flour
3 ounces powdered (confectioner’s) sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
9 tablespoons (4 ½ ounces) butter, cold

Begin by combining the egg yolk, cream and vanilla in a bowl.

Wreck it.

Now combine the dry ingredients in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the plastic pastry blade, and process for 30 seconds or so until they’re blended.

Add the cold butter and pulse for one or two seconds at a time until the butter is incorporated (it could take a couple of dozen pulses).

Yes, I forgot to take a picture of that phase. Oopsie. Now then, with the motor running, add the egg mixture. Wait for the mixture to collect into a single mass — then stop the machine immediately. It should look about like this:

Pat the dough into a disk, wrap it in plastic and put it into the fridge for a minimum of an hour, maximum of two days.

Freeze it for up to two months. There, that was easy, wasn't it?

This stuff is so good you'll want to eat it with a spoon. It's thick but light, firm but flowing...trust me, you'll love it. Start by putting your yolks in the bowl of your mixer...

And whip for several minutes on medium high until they're light and frothy.

Meanwhile heat your sugar syrup over a medium-high flame to 248 degrees Fahrenheit...

...and pour it into a heatproof glass measure like this:

Now then, stream a little into the mixer with the motor off, and immediate turn it up to high for about 15-20 seconds. Turn the motor off and repeat with more syrup. Why not just pour the syrup in with the motor running? Because it'll spin out over the sides of the bowl, where it will immediately harden into sheet of candy. You don't want that.

Once all the sugar is in, keep whipping for several minutes more until the pâté à bombe has cooled down and is only slightly warm. It'll be very light and sticky, sort of like marshmallow fluff. Perfecto.

Use it immediately or freeze it for up to a month.

So what the heck is pâte à bombe, anyway? Pâte à bombe is aptly named, for it is, not to put too fine a point on it, the bomb. It's a rich concoction of cooked sugar syrup and egg yolks, whipped up into a light, creamy consistency. Oh come on, Joe! Don't make me learn how to make some esoteric French pastry ingredient that I'll only use once in my life!

Ah, but hang on a minute. For pâte à bombe is one of those base components which, once you learn how to make it, you can find all sorts of interesting uses for. It's the basis of French buttercream, for example. Also of a very silky style of non-custard pastry cream, and of course mousses, parfaits...there's almost no limit. Plus it freezes extremely well, which makes it a handy secret weapon for those instances when you want to (literally) whip up something special on short notice. The formula goes like so:

12 ounces sugar

3 ounces water

12 egg yolks (9 ounces)

Combine the sugar and water in a small, preferably heavy, saucepan and bring the mixture to 248 degrees Fahrenheit. Meanwhile, whip the egg yolks in a stand mixer until light and frothy. Pour the hot syrup into a glass measure and with the machine off, pour a thin stream into the egg yolks. Turn the mixer on high for about 10 seconds to incorporate. Continue in this way until all the sugar syrup has been used. Continue to whip on medium-high until the pâté à bombe has almost doubled in volume and the bowl cools down to being somewhat warm to the touch.

Got a couple of requests for a photo tutorial on making cake syrup, but I have to tell you, that would be the most boring procession of snapshots in the history of this blog (which is saying something). In truth, cake syrup is a ridiculously easy thing to prepare. The formula is 2-1 water to sugar by weight, plus flavoring (it's very thin stuff). To make a small quantity, just combine six ounces of water with three ounces of sugar and bring it to a boil. Cool it, then add either a teaspoon of the extract of your choice, or 2-3 tablespoons of your favorite liqueur. Done!

Oh mama...

Steady. Steady. You can get through this, Joe. Then you can run back to the kitchen, dive headfirst into this golden bowl of goodness, and never come up for air. OK. Start by combining the eggs and sugar in a small, heavy — non aluminum — sauce pan.

Whisk until they're combined.

And the juice, salt, and soft butter...

...and whisk until combined. Put the pan over medium-low heat, and while whisking constantly, heat the mixture to 196 F...

...or until it does this on the back of a spoon:

Strain:

Whisk in the zest:

Stores 3 weeks in the fridge. And now if you'll excuse me...

This is a pretty easy thing. What you want to guard against — just as with all custards — is overcooking it, which will cause the egg proteins to clump up and fall to the bottom. You want to bring the mixture to a target of 196 degrees F, a degree or two more is no biggie, just don't get it to boiling temperature. But truth be told even that isn't a disaster...there are more than a few pastry pros out there who let their curd boil (the "curds" can be strained out and hey — at least you know your eggs are cooked completely!). I don't recommend it. Use a thermometer. The formula is:

4 egg yolks
5 ounces sugar
3.25 ounces (by weight) lemon juice
2 ounces softened butter
pinch salt
2 teaspoons lemon zest

Whisk the yolks and sugar together until combined in a heavy saucepan (NOT aluminum...ever seen green eggs? You will.). Add the remaining ingredients — save for the zest — to the pan. Over medium-low heat, and while whisking constantly, bring the mixture to 196 degrees, until it coats the back of a spoon. Promptly strain the mixture through a fine sieve. Stir in the zest and allow to cool.

Even the best pastry makers occasionally fail at making génoise batter. The reason, I think, is that it's such a schizophrenic process. You start by beating the dickens out of the stuff, then are forced to suddenly change gears and baby it — for fear of breaking the precious bubbles you've worked so hard to make. It's not a complicated process at all, but one that requires you to have all your ingredients and implements ready ahead of time, and then to move from one step to the next promptly (especially after the foam has been created).

The first step is to have your oven preheated to 350 and your baking pan — be it flat and shallow or round and deep — prepared and waiting. Once that's done, you'll want to finding a saucepan that will comfortably fit your mixer bowl, like so:

Take the bowl off the saucepan, put about an inch of water in it, and set it to simmer. Now then...sift your flour and salt into a medium bowl.

Off the stove top, add your sugar and eggs to the mixer bowl...

...and give them a good whisking.

Put the bowl over the simmering water and continue to whisk until the sugar is dissolved that the mixture is warm to the touch (no more than 120 degrees F).

Take the bowl off the simmering water and attach it to the mixer, onto which the paddle has been affixed. Beat on medium-high for roughly 8 minutes, until the mixture is extremely foamy. A thick ribbon should fall off the beater (I failed to capture it in this photo) and the small heaps of foam the falling ribbon creates should last for several seconds (I did manage to capture those).

Take about a cup of the foam and stir it into your melted (ideally clarified) butter. This will help the butter to more readily incorporate into the main volume of the batter.

Stir until it looks about like so (no need to be gentle):

And gently pour the mixture back into the mixer bowl...

...sprinkle in the flour and salt...

...and using your largest rubber scraper or spatula, fold until the mixture is uniform (instructions on how to fold properly are under the Techniques" menu to the right). 30 seconds or so later, your batter should look like this:

And there you have it: a génoise batter that you can use for a jelly roll, bûche de Noël, petits fours or a single nine-inch cake (instructions packaged separately).

I very much like the idea of using clarified butter in a génoise. It gives what is ordinarily a rather plain, somewhat dry sponge a toasty, homey quality that I really like. Of course if you don't have — or don't like making — clarified butter, regular melted butter will still produce a excellent result.

This recipe makes enough for one 18" x 13" sheet (a jelly roll, bûche de Noël, batch of petits fours) or one 9" cake. Here's the formula:

5 ounces (1 cup) all-purpose flour
4 tablespoons butter (preferably clarified)
½ teaspoon salt
6 eggs
7 ounces (1 cup) sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extact

Preheat your oven to 350.

Set a saucepan big enough to hold your mixer bowl on the stove with an inch of water in it. Bring it to a simmer. Meanwhile, sift the flour and salt together into a medium bowl. Melt the butter in a small saucepan and set aside.

Pour the sugar into the mixer bowl, add the eggs and whisk to combine. Set the mixer bowl over the pan of water and heat the mixture until it’s warm to the touch (no more than 120 degrees). What you’re trying to do is simply melt the sugar...don't cook the eggs! It’ll only take a minute or so.

Remove the bowl from the heat and, using the paddle attachment, beat the mixture on medium high until it’s very light and foamy, about triple its original volume (this will take up to ten minutes with a stand mixer). Add the vanilla and beat an additional 10-15 seconds.

Pour a cup or so of the egg foam into the cooled melted butter and stir it until it’s completely incorporated, then gently pour the mixture back into the mixer bowl (this eases the incorporation of the butter into the batter). Next, sprinkle the flour mixture into the mixer bowl and carefully fold (instructions under the "Techniques" menu to the right) until the flour mixture and the butter mixture are completely incorporated. Gently pour the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake until the cake is a pale gold color and springs back lightly when touched.

There is a plethora of photos in this post — 18 to be precise, and that's a lot for a post on something as mundane as a cake layer. However as I've written before, it's the simple things that demand the most attention. Get your layers wrong and your cake will join the ever-growing heap of mediocre bakery churned out by the world each day. Get them right and the result will be a kind of edible poetry...for the taste of buttery, made-from-scratch layer cake touches a spot deep down inside those of us who grew up with them, bringing back feelings of childish comfort and joy we're only rarely able to get back in touch with. Good cake, therefore, is a momentary ticket right back to some of the happiest moments of our youth. Is that not something worth striving for? Let's do it!

Start with your liquid ingredients. Put your (warm) egg yolks in a bowl, adding most of your (warm) milk and vanilla (need not be warm).

Wreck'em.

Put the sugar in the bowl of your mixer.

Then add your sifted flour. Me, I put a strainer on top of my mixer bowl, which I place on a scale. This makes it easy to weigh out the flour, then sift it directly into the bowl.

Once the flour is weighed out, spoon your leavening right on top (it's always a good idea to sift your leavening with your flour, to make sure it gets evenly distributed). Stir it in a bit with your fingers, then push the mixture right on through the sieve (taking it off the scale first, of course).

Sprinkle in the salt afterward because the larger crystals will otherwise get hung up in your sieve/sifter.

Put on the beater attachment and turn the mixer on low, give the whole thing a good stir.

Add your very soft butter in large pieces (a spatula is better than a hand...this butter only held its shape for an instant [this photo] before it oozed all over the place).

Add the reserved portion of your (nice warm) milk...

...and beat on medium speed until it's well combined and you've got the basis of your emulsion started, like so:

Add a third of your egg mixture...

...beat it in...

...and scrape the bowl thoroughly (especially the very bottom by the dimple).

Keep going like that: add, beat, scrape...add, beat, scrape...until all your ingredients are in. Yes, this will take you a little while, but great cake can't be rushed. Be patient. In the end you want a nice, smooth and glossy batter that looks about like this:

Using your scale, divide it evenly into prepared pans (instructions on how to prepare your pans are also over there on the right). Even it out a bit with a spatula, but don't worry about getting it perfectly smooth.

Bake according to directions until the center doesn't "slosh" anymore and the top is golden. Let the layer cool in the pan on a wire rack for ten minutes or so...

...then turn the layer out onto the rack to cool for at least an hour.

And your layers, they are done.

This recipe is based on Rose Levy Berenbaum's excellent All Occasion Downy Yellow Butter Cake, adapted to slightly to my own tastes and techniques.

Yellow Butter Cake

6 large egg yolks
1 cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla
13 1/2 ounces (3 cups) cake flour, sifted
10 1/2 ounces (1 1/2 cups) sugar
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
12 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

Begin by preheating your oven to 350˚F. Combine the yolks, about 1/4 cup of the milk and the vanilla, beating them lightly to blend. Pour the sugar into the bowl of a stand mixer, then sift the flour and the leavening together into the bowl. Add the salt. Turn the mixer on low and blend the dry ingredients for about one minute. Add the soft butter, continuing to stir until it's mostly blended in, then add the rest of the milk. Slowly raise the mixer speed to medium and beat for 1 1/2 minutes until the batter is smooth and uniform. Scrape down the bowl.

Now begin to add the yolk mixture. Pour in about 1/3 of it, beat the mixture at medium speed for 20 seconds, then thoroughly scrape the bowl, paying particular attention to the bottom by the dimple. Continue on in that fashion until the entire yolk mixture has been incorporated. Divide the mixture between the two pans. Bake for 25 minutes, then check the layers. If the middle seems slightly sunken and mushy to the touch, continue to bake for another 7-10 minutes.

When fully baked, place the layers, in the pan, on a wire rack to cool. After 15 minutes, turn them out onto the rack to cool completely, about another hour.

By popular demand, an easy and clear recipe for this very handy pastry component. As you can see, the home-made stuff has a very nice, thick consistency, especially after it's been well chilled (as this has). A thicker, heavier (fattier) version of sour cream is what it is. Begin by pouring about 2/3 cup of cream into a bowl.

Cut it with about 1/3 cup milk.

Add a splorp of buttermilk OR sour cream OR crème fraîche (which is to say about a tablespoon)...

...and stir it in. Let it sit for 12 hours at room temperature in a relatively warm place...

...and here's what you get. A very thick and homogenous goo that won't "break" like, say, home made yogurt. It is in fact a very interesting consistency...almost stretchy. It tastes, well...you'll see. Fantastic.

Oh, the simple pleasure of a marshmallow. That taste takes you right back to being a kid. No wonder they're so in vogue in food catalogues and in pastry departments these days. Making them is quite simple, though it's a bit of a kitchen ballet. Ideally, you'll have all your ingredients at-the-ready so you can execute the steps in prompt succession. Begin by lining a small pan with parchment paper (the size doesn't really matter) and giving it a light spritz of cooking spray.

Now put your syrup on the boil over high heat.

When the syrup starts to bubble, get the egg whites whipping in your stand mixer. Whip to the stiff peak stage:

...and turn off the mixer. Once the syrup reaches 235-238 (which should take about 5 minutes) ...

...take it off the heat. Pour the two tablespoons of water you have standing by into the powdered gelatin...

...and stir.

Then add the mixture to the hot syrup and, once again, stir.

Turn the mixer back on to medium-high and add the syrup to the whipped egg whites. Don't worry if some spatters onto the sides, since you can easily scrape it down, back into the main mass.

And whip...and whip...and add your vanilla (or other flavor or color)...and whip...

...for five full minutes or more until you have...well, you can probably guess what you need to have:

Scrape the fluff into the pan, not worrying too much about even distribution. This pan is bigger than I need, however because marshmallow sets up so fast, I can form it up into a fairly even slab without it spreading much.

See?

Now then, having succeeded in executing your marshmallow dance, it's time to kick back and enjoy a little bit. Remember what I said about the advantages of making marshmallows at home? Little Joan is here to testify:

At this point I usually refrigerate my marshmallows, uncovered, since that helps them set up faster. When ready, simply flip the slab out onto a cutting board which you've dusted generously with powdered sugar:

And cut'em up! Does size or uniformity matter? Why, not at all.

I swiped the graham cracker recipe from Gale Gand, why not this one too? As a one-time employee of one of her pastry shops, I'm sure she won't mind. That or she'll march down to Louisville and give me what-for with a number 230 tip. I guess I'll take my chances. Thanks Gale!

4 tablespoons water
4 tablespoons light corn syrup
12 tablespoons sugar
2 egg whites
1 tablespoon gelatin
2 tablespoons cold water
1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Combine the water, the corn syrup, and the sugar in a saucepan fitted with a candy thermometer. Bring to a boil and boil to "soft-ball" stage, or about 235 degrees F.

Meanwhile, whip the egg whites until soft peaks form. Sprinkle the gelatin over the 2 tablespoons cold water and let dissolve. When the syrup reaches 235 degrees F, remove it from the heat, add the gelatin, and mix. Pour the syrup into the whipped egg whites. Add the vanilla and continue whipping until stiff and mostly cooled. Transfer to a pastry bag with a large plain tip. Pipe directly onto powdered sugar-covered cookie sheets and let set until ready to use, at least 1 hour or overnight.

Another gray day in Louisville. Oh well, the pictures aren't sunny but the procedures still work. Begin by combining your dry ingredients in the bowl of your mixer, the paddle affixed:

Mix for a few second to combine your ingredients, then add your butter pieces.

You want pieces of butter remaining about like so:

Now add your wet ingredients (I combine them all together in a bowl since it's easier to pour them that way):

And mix for about a minute until the dough comes together.

Here I deviate from the recipe and neither wait for the dough to chill, nor sandwich it between sheets of wax paper for rolling. I simply roll it out on parchment and dust the top with a little whole wheat flour to prevent sticking. Once it's rolled out to about the size of a cookie sheet, I'm done.

Then all there is to do is trim the dough up into a rough rectangle and cut.

Lastly you want to "dock" the crackers with a fork, since you don't want any bubbles forming in there...

This is the point where I do chill the crackers, since it's much easier transferring them off the parchment when they're firm. Why transfer them at all? Why not bake them in one large sheet? Primarily because you want a little browning around the edges, both for flavor and for texture. Spread them out on one or two sheet pans like so:

Bake in a 350 oven for ten minutes, rotate them, and give them 5-10 minutes more. Done!

You mean you're going to make your own graham crackers? Yes, my friends, I am. You thought I was kidding about my s'mores-making skills? I wasn't. Real-deal s'mores aren't made with those poncy, crumbly things you buy in a store. Rather they're held together by good, honest crackers, made at home and with some chew. And anyway, graham crackers aren't hard to make. The trouble most people have is finding the flour. Graham flour, you see, is it's own special thing, invented by — who else — Reverend Sylvester Graham, about whom we'll learn much more later. His flour was what you might call a sort of whole grain pastry flour, low in gluten high in bran and germ. It's nice stuff, but impossible to find unless you get it off the web. The following recipe — which is courtesy of Gale Gand — substitutes whole wheat and rye flours, which are a lot easier to come by.

Graham Crackers

2.5 ounces (1/2 cup) all-purpose flour
6.25 ounces (1 1/4 cups) whole-wheat flour
2.5 ounces (1/2 cup) light rye flour
3.5 ounces (1/2 cup) sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup (1 stick) cold butter, cut into pea-size bits
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoon molasses
1/4 cup cold water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350. In a food processor or the bowl of an electric mixer, mix together the flours, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Add the cold butter and mix or process until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Add the honey, molasses, water, and vanilla. Mix until the dough comes together in a ball.

Between 2 sheets of waxed paper or plastic wrap, roll the dough 1/2-inch thick. Chill for 1 hour, until firm. Set a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F. Lightly flour the dough and roll 1/8-inch thick. With a sharp knife or cookie cutter, cut into 2-inch squares. Arrange the crackers on nonstick or parchment lined cookie sheets. With a fork, prick several holes in each cracker. Bake for 10 minutes, rotate, and bake about 7 more minutes, until lightly browned at the edges. Remove from the oven and let cool in the pan.

Perhaps my favorite feature of real buttercreams, aside from their fundamental deliciousness, is the extent to which they can be manipulated. For the creative baker, there's virtually no end to it. A complete catalog is impossible, though I'll do my best to summarize some of the most common variations.

Extracts are obvious, and there are more of them on the market than you might think. All kinds of fruit and candy flavors are available, though to my mind very few of them are truly great for buttercreams. Exceptions are of course vanilla, then hazelnut, almond, coconut, peppermint, cinnamon, butterscotch, maple, and citrus flavors like lemon and orange (though for a true citrus flavor you'll want to add some real citrus zest as well, plus maybe a couple of tablespoons of juice).

Liquers and spirits are another natural fit. Add up to three or four tablespoons of just about anything. Classics include kirsch, rum, brandy, bourbon, Amaretto, Kahlua, Grand Marnier and many others.

Then of course there are chocolates of various kinds, in pretty much any combination you can think of. Melted, they can be added to any finished buttercream, up to about six ounces for a French buttercream, eight for a meringue buttercream (in general, the darker the chocolate the better). In that family of flavors is of course coffee. A couple of tablespoons of espresso powder dissolved in a teaspoon of boiling water makes a fabulous coffee buttercream (or mocha when added to a chocolate buttercream).

Fruit flavors are another classic buttercream compliment. I already discussed citrus flavors, but berry purées like raspberry and strawberry work great too. About half a cup does the trick. You can also use jam, but you'll need to heat it slightly to get it to a pourable consistency.

If you really want to get jiggy widdit, a quarter cup of peanut butter can be added to a recipe of meringue buttercream...though I confess I've never tried it (seems a bit much to me).

That's about all I can think of for the additives — though that's not even getting into the manipulations of the base ingredients that are possible. You can swap out your sugar syrup and use honey or maple syrup instead, or use brown sugar or maple sugar instead of white. You can supplement your syrups with a few tablespoons of dark caramel or caramel syrup — even molasses. There's really no end to it.

I should say at this point that while all these ideas will flavor your buttercream, very few will color it in a manner befitting, say, an orange or a raspberry icing. For that you'll need to add colorings. In my experience (though as I said, I'm no decorator) paste colors provide more intensity, though liquids, especially for the novice, are easier to control.

So then...what are you waiting for? Go nuts!