Whenever you buy chocolate, it’s tempered. Bars, chips, disks, chunks…whenever chocolate leaves the factory, it’s tempered. The only time you’ll ever bring home untempered chocolate is if it’s been baked (say, in a chocolate chip cookie) or if you happen to leave it in a hot car and it melts. In either case, the carefully […]
READ ONNo, wait…it’s both! Here’s a fascinatingly redundant gizmo by Taylor that I can’t quite figure out. One thing is for certain, however, I’d eventually put it into the dish washer. (Hat tip: April. Thanks!)
READ ONGiven that there are two different sorts of very interesting chocolate components at work in the opera cake project that’s underway (tempered chocolate and ganache), I thought it might be worthwhile to take a slight detour into chocolate chemistry the next couple of days. Understandably, I’ve received quite a few questions about the process since […]
READ ONIt was a beautiful early autumn weekend here in Kentucky, and the Pastry clan took advantage by spending most of it roving around the Louisville area. One of our stops was at an historic plantation home where a variety of performances and reenactments were taking place. Truth be told, we really went there for the […]
READ ONIf you ever doubted that Michael Pollan wanted to rule your life, you need to go check out the most recent New York Times food section. In it, there’s a short essay by the man himself, previewing his upcoming January release. The book is a compilation of Pollan-approved eating and dietary rules, offered up by […]
READ ONAny 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 […]
READ ONLots of email this week! Reader Bill writes in to ask: You write a pretty glowing review of gateau. Can I infer that you prefer it to what you call “New World” cake? In fact, no. If I were forced to choose one kind of cake to eat for the rest of my life, it’d […]
READ ONAs far as the popular food press is concerned, no. In fact there are more than a few recipe writers out there who will call an American-style layer cake a gâteau just so they can sound fancy. But in fact there are real differences between the two, even if the words themselves mean largely the […]
READ ONI marvel at the specialized knowledge of some people. After reading my post on the history of Opera cake last night, Jim Chevallier of www.chezjim.com went to work checking sources. His response this morning was: “Like I don’t have enough to do with baguettes and such… But you know, those unresolved culinary mysteries are hard […]
READ ONSomeone with an excellent memory wrote in overnight, reminding me that I once said that I don’t like using cake syrup. This person clearly has the memory of an elephant, but yes, that’s true. In general I don’t like using cake syrup for American-style layer cakes. It’s my view that cake syrup is abused by […]
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