Author: joepastry

Firm Butter, Greasy Butter

Got into an interesting conversation over the weekend about butter, and why inexpensive butter can make cookie dough greasy and hard to cut. It all has to do with melting points, which tend to be sharper with cheap butters that with higher quality butters. Allow me to explain. A melting point can be “sharp” or “broad”, a sharp melting point being defined as a rapid shift from solid to liquid. Cocoa butter is a great example of a substance with a sharp melting point. It’s solid as a rock at room temperature, then melts almost instantantly when it reaches 98 or so degrees Fahrenheit. Substances with a broad melting points, by contrast, change from one to the other more slowly.

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The Big Fat Surprise

Next week a major new book will be published on the subject of dietary fat and why it’s good for you. It’s called The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet by Nina Teicholz. Long time Joe Pastry readers know that this is a drum I’ve been beating for several years now, and I’m very pleased to see that Ms. Teicholz has done some serious research on this important subject. A feature was published about it in Friday’s Wall Street Journal. However because some readers will have trouble accessing it behind the WSJ‘s paywall, I’m going to quote it at length.

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Place Your Bets!

The bars are serving ’round the clock, learjets fill the skies and fresh mint is as rare and expensive as marijuana. It’s Derby time. The race is tomorrow and per family tradition we made our way to Churchill Downs at dawn to watch the horses warm up. Only this week does the track let people in ahead of the daily race schedule.

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Lemon Meringue Pie Recipe

Lemon meringue pie is a basically a citrus curd pie save for the fact that the “curd” is made with a mixture of water and juice (instead of all juice), and it’s thickened with cornstarch. The water provides added volume (and frankly also keeps the flavor of the filling from becoming overwhelming) and the cornstarch provides thickening as well as insurance against curdling in the oven. This recipe — which steals tricks from both Rose Levy Beranbaum and Cook’s Illustrated — combines a deep pie with a break-resistant American-style meringue.

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On Meringue Safety

Reader Mel writes in with a great question: since meringue is made from egg foam that’s often only lighty baked — and sometimes not baked at all — are there any safety issues with it?

I’m glad you asked that, Mel, since Salmonella Enteritidis-infected eggs have been in the news here in the States in recent years, and indeed Salmonella is a growing problem around the world. Still it’s important to remember that Salmonella is but one of many pathogenic organisms that can invade eggs in or out of the shell. To help limit the risk of getting sick as a result of them, most food authorities recommend heating anything with eggs in it to at least 160 degrees Fahrenheit (three minutes at 140 is also effective, as is 45 minutes at 130).

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It’s Not So Much the What, But the How

Reader Neil asks if it’s the proportion of sugar in a meringue that primarily determines its texture. There’s no question the amount of sugar is a big part of it, Neil, though process is also important. As a general rule, the earlier you add sugar to your egg whites the smaller the bubbles will be […]

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There Are Meringues, and Then There Are Meringues

The world of meringues is a wide one. Broadly speaking it’s divided into two categories: cooked meringues and uncooked meringues. However within those two groups there’s a lot of variation. Meringues can be mildly sweet or intensely sweet. They can be light and frothy or dense and marshmallow-y. They can be baked to crispness, browned in the oven (or with a blowtorch) or eaten as they are.

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Lemon Meringue Pie and PTSD

Ask typical home bakers about their experience with lemon meringue pie and the response is likely to be something along the lines of a haunted thousand-yard stare. The weeping…the weeping…

The things just ooze. Most infuriatingly, they do it in two directions: up (as a result over over-heated meringue) and down (caused by under-heated meringue and/or a broken custard). And what happens when meringues and custards weep? Soggy crusts, sticky, gummy toppings, grainy fillings…the whole custard pie bag of horrors.

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