Har-dee-har har!

Reader Richard wants to know if I plan on using real or imitation vanilla in my vanilla slices. Richard is referring to an incident that occurred a year or so when I extolled the virtues of imitation vanilla extract and shortly got dumped on — to put it mildly — by many (many) of my readers. On the list of all-time most unpopular Joe Pastry posts that one ranks right up near the top, outdone only by the post in which I criticized gourmet salts, the one where I argued trans fats were no big deal, and of course the one where I extolled my love of cheap coating chocolates. Of course I didn’t win many friends the time I implied that there might be holes in Darwinian theory, either. Nor did I that time I defended McDonald’s animal slaughtering practices, the time I published a list of my all-time favorite food additives, or the time I compared the search for authentic ethnic restaurants to an episode of A Cook’s Tour in which Anthony Bourdain was forced to eat raw warthog anus. None of those put me on the fast track to a People’s Choice Award, thanks for bringing all that up, Richard.

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Welcome to the Latest Pastry

I’m not really a cat kind of person. Also I’m not really a dog kind of person. I’m more of a I want my house kept free of hair, odors, dander, messes and while you’re at it keep your grubby paws off my nice clean couch kind of person. All that said one can only hold out against one’s own family for so long. If my younger daughter really really wants a dog, so much so that my older daughter really really wants a dog and such that finally my wife really really wants a dog, then I too want a dog. That’s the order of things.

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Can we talk buttermilk?

Reader Brian writes:

I really dislike buying a quart and throwing half away after baking biscuits, etc so I started using the dried buttermilk. I’ve had good luck with it. Have I just been lucky or is this a good substitution in most (all?) situations.

Hey Brian! That’s a great question because it’s a common problem. Many of us buy a quart of buttermilk, use a cup of it to make a batch of biscuits or some such thing, then watch helplessly as it (further) spoils over a period of several weeks. Finally, fearing to open the CO2-bloated jug for fear of what we might find in there, we just pitch the thing into the trash and hustle it to the curb before our spouse discovers we’ve failed, again, to properly recycle.

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Next Up: Vanilla Slices

Vanilla slices are to Australia what chocolate chip cookies are to America, or at least that’s what I read on a promotional website sponsored by Pepperidge Farm. They’re less appealingly called “snot blocks” down under, but to me they look a lot like Napoleons (mille feuille), just with a very, VERY thick layer of pastry […]

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Making Mud Cake

Mud cake is an easy-to-make gooey-rich chocolate experience. Oh sure I dressed it up a little here, but you don’t have to get fancy if you’re time pressed or bashful about meringue. You can serve yours with ice cream, marshmallow, anything you like. Just leave plenty of room after supper. In fact maybe just skip supper altogether, since one piece of this 2-inch-tall brownie-like cake and you’ll be set for the night.

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Making Swiss Meringue

Swiss meringue is a thick, marshmallow-like confection that can be baked in shapes, used as a base for buttercream, it even makes a handy dessert topping. It holds well, pipes beautifully and since it’s pre-heated before it’s even whipped, carries little (if any) risk of food borne illness. Did I mention it’s really, really easy to make too?

One of the basic rules of meringues is that the earlier you add the sugar, the denser and more stable the meringue will be. With Swiss meringue the sugar is combined with the egg whites in the very first step, so you can draw your own conclusions. A basic recipe is:

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On the Danger of Too-Small Pans

Huh. I thought I would be able to get away with an 8-inch springform pan instead of a 9-inch. Apparently not. This isn’t salvageable accept maybe as pudding, since there’s no way I’ll get the center set before the edges burn…and anyway with sides this tall it’d probably never stand up. Well, next time I’ll follow my own directions a bit more closely, eh? But dang, today is the best photography weather I’ll see all week!

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Appetites of “The Other”

It’s slowly dawning on me why mud cake is such a popular “American” recipe in Northern Europe. It’s so rich, gooey and indulgent, my guess is that few people there are willing to claim it as their own. Oh you know those Americans, they’ll eat just about anything. Of course we do the same thing in the States as we slather Hollandaise all over our spring asparagus. Oh you know those French and their dairy products. The French probably rationalize Hollandaise the same way. You know what goes on up in Holland of course, those people and their butterfat! There’s always a convenient “other” out there to blame your own excesses on, isn’t there?

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Does bar chocolate have an advantage over cocoa powder in cake?

That’s a very good question, reader Erika. To tell the truth I can’t think of many, other than that it allows the baker to hijack some exotic cacao flavors that are normally reserved for professional bakers or candy makers. Your typical supermarket might stock two or three types of unsweetened cocoa powder. Here in the States it’s usually Hershey and Droste, possibly Valrhona or Scharffen Berger if the store has an upscale clientele. These of course represent only the tiniest fraction of the powders that are available in the wider cocoa universe. Most of these never see the light of day in the retail world, and are only sold in large quantities to commercial bakers and confectioners. Baking with bar chocolate — expensive as it can be — equals the playing field a bit — at least for the true chocolate epicure.

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