If diet is a way to measure how stressed out we all are, 2010 must have been a very stressful year indeed. Have a look-see at the list of Food Network‘s top recipes for last year. Mac and cheese, roast chicken, lasagna…there’s even a recipe from Rachel Ray for “late night bacon.” I mean, how […]
READ ON…in case I forgot to mention it (which I did). No, the finished cake post isn’t ready yet.
READ ONHere’s something kinda cool from SonRidge: an anti-microbial pastry bag. It was especially handy for me this week since I was piping an unbaked frangipane, and that means raw egg (which, at least in the US, can carry certain health risks). What properties does the bag have that make it anti-microbial? Silver ions, which…well they…honestly […]
READ ONFrequent contributor Jim Chevalier poses an interesting question about laminated doughs: are there as many classes of them in France as there are in the States? He comments that as far as he knows the French have only “leafed pastry” (pâte feuilletée) and leafed pastry with yeast (for croissants). Here on the site I refer […]
READ ONFrangipane is pastry cream-lightened almond cream. You simply need to stir the latter into the former and you have an excellent filling for oh, say, a Galette des Rois. Start with two cups (one recipe) of almond cream and stir in half a cup of pastry cream by the spoonful. Once it’s all mixed in, […]
READ ONAlmond cream is a very straightforward affair. Start by grinding your almonds. Place them in a food processor (a coffee grinder also works very well if you want to do this in small batches). Grind them as finely as you can without reducing them to a paste. This is about as good as I can […]
READ ONMardi gras? Yep, it sure does. And funny, you find kings’ cake (“king cake”) there too. Only in New Orleans a king cake is a ring of brioche that’s colorfully iced and decorated. Seems king cake, for reasons that should now be rather easy to understand, are more closely tied to the idea of partying […]
READ ONSo where did the odd tradition of hiding a trinket in a kings’ cake come from? For that matter, what about the bit with the crown and being “king for the day?” While I’m always wary of hopping onto the well-trodden path that’s forever leading food writers back to Greece or Rome, in this case […]
READ ONAlmond cream is frangipane without the pastry cream, which makes it a better choice for high-heat applications. 3 ounces (2/3 cup) ground almonds 3 ounces (2/3 cup) powdered sugar 1 egg 1 tablespoon cornstarch 2 teaspoons rum 3 ounces (6 tablespoons) soft butter With a whisk, in a medium mixing bowl (or in the bowl […]
READ ONYou know, it occurred to me just this morning that I’ve never put one of these up, which makes me the a leading contender for the International Captain Obvious “Duh” Award when it’s bestowed in Copenhagen later this year. Lord, what a dimwit I am. Anyway, here’s one I like quite a bit: For the […]
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