My good friend Sally C. writes in to ask: You say you can freeze this? Wouldn’t it separate? The answer is a.) Yes and b.) No. Classic buttercreams freeze very well, though it often happens that they look a little droopy or grainy when they’re thawed. This is easily remedied by, of course, beating them […]
READ ONIt’s not because of emulsifiers or anything like that (most egg emulsifiers are in the yolks, anyway). The reason has to do with torque, shearing forces and other physics terms that I don’t really have a great handle on. Suffice to say that chilly egg whites are more viscous than room-temperature whites, and so the […]
READ ONThat’s true, at least at the outset of a foam-making excursion. An egg foam won’t form well if there’s much fat present in the mixture. However you can bring plenty of fat to the party after the foam is formed with few ill effects. Why? It all has to do with proteins, specifically egg proteins, […]
READ ONThose who claim buttercreams are too rich, too heavy and too “buttery” have probably never tried a meringue buttercream. This Italian-style meringue buttercream is light and delicate on the tongue, with a butter flavor that can be drastically de-emphasized (though it’s beyond me why you’d want to) with flavorings. Italian buttercream is the more durable […]
READ ONReader and good friend Lisa writes in to ask: Hope you don’t mind fielding this, but I’m wondering about your caramel: Does this mean I can just try my hand at making caramel, and then dip apples into it for caramel apples (rather than melting the chunks of caramel you buy a the store)? Because […]
READ ONBut I did redo my Neapolitan pizza how-to over on the right this morning, to reflect improvements both in the recipe and my overall technique. I’m finally getting used to the brick oven. The pizza is approaching excellent. Try the same thing in your home oven with high heat and a pizza stone!
READ ON…are putting the hammer down on me today. I’ll do my best, but may have to pick up with buttercreams on Monday.
READ ONAs I mentioned in my morning’s post, a lot of people have historically had trouble making true buttercreams at home. The upshot of that has been that starting roughly thirty years ago, home bakers pretty much quit trying to make them altogether. The tragedy of that is that nowadays most people don’t have the faintest […]
READ ONMy good friend Mexico Bob writes in to ask: On the CBS Early Show this morning a man said that in every cake and cookie recipe that you make involving white flour you should add a teaspoon of Cardamom. What’s this all about? Is it something that we might use in a Danish? Funny you […]
READ ONThere’s a reason I’ve held out for as long as I have on the subject of buttercream: it’s an almost impossibly broad topic. There are a gazillion different recipes for buttercream out there, and each one, it seems, has a professional baker or cake maker standing behind it proclaiming it’s the best. Me, I’m not […]
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