They’re little French cakes. Some people refer to them as cookies, even pastries, but the reality is they’re just little tiny almond cakes, frequently served with small scoops of ice cream and/or fruit. They can be round, oval-shaped or square, but the traditional shape is rectangular sort of like a gold bar. And indeed, some people theorize that it’s the gold bar shape that earned them the name financier.
READ ONI’ve been forgetting to mention that yours truly is a finalist in Saveur Magazine‘s Best Food Blog Awards for 2012. So if you have the time and inclination head on over a cast a ballot! ‘Cause I mean, is there anything YOU’d enjoy more than seeing MY name up in lights? Didn’t think so. Joe! Joe! He’s our man!
READ ONLet me apologize for the lack of posting today. I was hoping to get something going when I got up, but having been on the road six hours a day for the last three days I’m whipped. I always have odd dreams when I’m this exhausted. Last night I dreamt that I had a time machine and traveled 1000 years into the future.
There I found a society that was much like our own, save for the way they spoke about their calendars. Evidently the citizens of this society had become so spooked by millennial anxiety in the run up to the year 3,000 that their government stopped counting years numerically (2910, 2911) and gave them names instead.
READ ONWell it’s happened again, the madeleine-shaped Joe Pastry signal is shining high in the clouds over Gotham City. Someone needs baking help — fast! I’ll be back in a few days to make some financiers!
READ ONReader Cynthia writes in to ask a very cool question: why are eggs and chicks associated with Easter? They have no strict religious significance (i.e. they don’t occur in the Bible anywhere) so…what gives?
The reason I like that question is because just about everywhere you see it asked, the response is the same thin gruel of warmed-over paganism. The goddess Eostre etc., etc., symbols of fertility yadda yadda, cycle of renewal blabbity blabbity. It’s all so much thoughtless gibberish.
READ ONReader Rainey writes in to ask me to expound a little on the phenomenon of crystallization, specifically in sugar (marshmallows) but also in chocolate. Those who know me know that if there’s one thing I like to do, it’s expound. So let’s take the first part first.
Sugar crystals can be a blessing or a curse depending on the outcome you’re after. They’re great for, say, rock candy, but not so great for marshmallows. Marshmallows are made from table sugar (sucrose), which is especially crystal-prone for the simple reason that its molecules are so similar to one another. When you have a lot of similar molecules in very close proximity to one another you get a sort of LEGO effect: the molecules stack up on each other and whammo: crystals. To prevent that from happening you need to bring some random flotsam and jetsam to the party: molecular junk that will get in between those very small, similar molecules so they won’t be able to lock together. This is the service that corn syrup performs. It’s made up of a hodgepodge of longer-chain sugars which get in between those little sucroses, preventing them from arranging themselves in orderly stacks.
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The thing I love about piping peeps is, every one ends up with a different attitude. Some are elegant and swan-like, some aloof, some have deep, deep self-esteem issues. It’s my piping inconsistency that does it, but what I lack in piping skill I make up for in the diverse cast of characters I create. You can almost make up a play with them right there at the dinner table.
READ ONSeveral readers have written in asking if there’s a way to get a good, stiff peep-worthy marshmallow without the use of gelatin. The answer is yes, 3/4 teaspoon of agar agar should do the trick!
READ ONReader Lilly writes:
READ ONWhat is the ineffable thing that gives marshmallows that almost chalky mouthfeel that they have? Egg whites? No. Sugar? No. Gelatin or vanilla? Couldn’t be. But that’s everything that’s in a marshmallow except for the water, so where does that texture come from?
That’s a good question, reader Jay. Marshmallow is one of the simpler foams, but still an interesting object to contemplate. It’s primarily a sugar syrup with lots of air whipped into it, though it wouldn’t hold up for terribly long if it didn’t have some sort of support. That support is usually gelatin.
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