I try not to venture into politics much here on joepastry.com since, well, this is a baking blog. And anyway the blogosphere is already stuffed to the gills with wannabe pundits masquerading as a food experts and movie reviewers. However sometimes the bigger political subjects have direct application to the world of baking, and today […]
READ ONA good question came in last night from a reader by the name of Benny (all the way from Israel by the looks of it) asking: Dear Joe, What causes the creation of “tunnels” in a yeast raised laminated dough? (volume is o.k.) Large holes (or “tunneling”) is a problem common to yeasted breads (especially […]
READ ONAll those posts on old-time dairying practices prompted more than a few “I remember when…” comments from readers. Here’s a great one from from frequent contributor Sally C.: Your posts have reminded me of Aunt Della — she sold her extra eggs to the egg guy (we had to candle them to make sure they […]
READ ONWith croissants of course. Pain au chocolat especially. Deliver a few of those and she’ll let me spend the whole weekend laying on the couch watching football. Laminated pastry may or may not have the same effect on your spouse but you won’t know until you try, will you? So here, if you’ve ever wanted […]
READ ONSadly no. Believe me, I’ve tried it. Store bought sour cream simply has too little fat in it. Whereas heavy cream contains something on the order of 40% fat, the sour cream in the plastic tubs is a mere 18% fat, about 12% less than the minimum you need to whip (and then of course […]
READ ON…of Not Eating Out in New York, who won Culinate’s Death by Chocolate grand prize with this fiendishly clever post. Very, very well done.
READ ONCroissant dough is essentially just puff pastry dough with some yeast and sugar added to it. It requires about half the number of folds (“turns” as they’re known in the trade), so it’s less time consuming to make. This dough freezes extremely well, for up to about two months, so make extra For the dough […]
READ ONAll this talk of butter and laminated dough the last couple of weeks has made me want to pick up and dash to Paris. Yet it’s fairly common knowledge that nowadays some of the best laminated pastry in the world is being made in Japan. Odd, isn’t it? Japan is not an historic wheat culture. […]
READ ONProfessional cookbook (especially baking book) writers frequently rend their garments in grief over the demise of real buttermilk. This recipe originally called for real farm buttermilk — oh for those happy wholesome carefree days! For indeed there is no actual buttermilk anymore, at least as it was once known and enjoyed. Today store buttermilk is […]
READ ONStop whipping that cream! You’ll beat it into butter!! This time that’s exactly what I’m setting out to do. And oh, how liberating it is. I have in my hand a pint of organic cream (not that it has to be, but you get a firmer butter when the cream hasn’t been ultra-pasteurized). It’s right […]
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