Not a whole heck of a lot to debrief after this week’s Sacher Torte-making escapade. The nice thing about making a “glaze” instead of a simple chocolate coating is that the candy component of the glaze (i.e. the syrup) makes it shiny regardless of how well you temper it. So you get all the fun […]
READ ONI know what you’re thinking: Everything I’ve ever heard about melting chocolate says you should never EVER let even a drop of water get into a pot of melted chocolate, so what’s this about heating chocolate along with a sugar-and-water syrup? It’s a very understandable concern. But the issue is one of proportion. Add a […]
READ ONYes, if couverture is for coating things, then why does the Sacher Torte recipe call for it in the sponge? The only reason I can think is because it contains quite a lot of fat, and fat creates the sensation of moisture — necessary in a cake that’s known for being a bit on the […]
READ ONWhile I’m on this subject, it’s interesting to note that yeast organisms perform the same action (i.e. creating invert sugar) when they’re mixed into a bread dough. Yeast as you know have to consume sugar in order to live and reproduce, but as I’ve frequently discussed, they’re not capable of “digesting” complex carbohydrates (the very […]
READ ONI got a question last night as to whether cake syrup qualifies as an invert sugar. Talk about an early Christmas gift, that’s my favorite question! The answer is, in this case, yes. Not every sugar syrup is an “invert sugar” of course. Some are simply solutions of melted sugar in water (these will eventually […]
READ ONI chuckled more than a little last week reading an article in the Wall Street Journal called “Canned Gourmet Cuisine” (I’d link but WSJ is a pay-only site these days). It treated as a revelation the fact that some high-end restaurants use pre-prepared ingredients in their center-of-plate dishes. Of particular note, that Jean-George Vongerichten uses […]
READ ONIt struck me that it may might seem odd to a some folks in and out of Chicago that I didn’t reference Italians in the last post, since Italians are practically synonymous with the city (especially and of course with Mob activity). The reason is that Italians came on the scene a bit later than […]
READ ON…but I forgot to put up a post. I’ve been lazy to the point that I haven’t made pizza at home much the last month or so. Mostly because the deep dish crust has been boring me. Yet I have to say the potato thing has me re-engaged. It seems to be the perfect starch […]
READ ONThose sugar and/or corn syrup sprays I mentioned can of course be loaded up with food colors, which is how you get lime-green cherries and bright red chunks of pineapple.
READ ONAlso in this weeks’ New York Times food section (I’ve been giving them an awful lot of plugs the last couple months, haven’t I?) a cover story/announcement that the father of popular food science and author of the landmark On Food and Cooking, Mr. Harold McGee, will be penning a regular column for the Times […]
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