In general it can be said of cookery that as the number of ingredients in a recipe decreases, the importance of technique increases. Flourless chocolate cake is an elegant illustration of this principle, demanding a delicate touch in the mixing stage, and more than that, expert command of temperature in the baking stage. That said […]
READ ONThe beauty of a flourless chocolate cake based on only three ingredients is that it makes chocolate the clear centerpiece. Which means your selection of chocolate is the critical factor to the cake’s success. This again is one of those times when the home cook has a big advantage over the professional baker, since there’s […]
READ ONI was thinking it’s been a while since I’ve gotten into anything really serious chocolate-wise. Now I think the time is ripe. Summer is over and we’re all feeling sorry four ourselves. Time for a joy injection: Flourless Chocolate Cake Ordinarily I avoid Emeril recipes like I do a 2-year old with pinkeye, however I’m […]
READ ONBrowsing one of my favorite food references over the weekend, I came upon a funny little bit of editorializing that I wanted to remark on. The book was Food Lover’s Companion, Second Edition, by Sharon Tyler Herbst. I love it, though it isn’t nearly as thorough as other food references. It does however possess the […]
READ ONNot a whole heck of a lot to debrief in a pudding recipe I don’t think. Soak, stir, cook…bing bang boom. However what I will say is Mr. Brown has concocted a mighty rich pudding recipe here, and the wife (even though she’s pregnant and should theoretically be enjoying full pig-out rights) is sensitive to […]
READ ONFor those of you getting tired of me crying “I’ve finally done it!” with my Chicago-style deep-dish pizza crust recipe, you might want to just go ahead and move on to Creampuffs in Venice now (anyway, Ivonne’s got a pretty wicked-looking Nutella panino up there this morning). But I did make a pretty significant improvement […]
READ ONHaggis. It’s a Scottish thing, probably originally a Roman thing brought to the British Isles and still enjoyed there (kinda). It’s one of those love-or-hate-type deals, and I definitely fall into the former category. I may blog on bread and pastry but I’m a carnivore to my very core. I’m also a Scotsman by heritage […]
READ ONMaking tapioca is a slightly involved process, though it really makes sense when you think of it in terms of what it really is: a kind of cassava starch pasta. Starting with the pure cassava starch that I talked about in the previous post, the starch is moistened slightly and put into large rotating pans, […]
READ ONAs I mentioned, cassava root starch is very similar to cereal grain starch. It’s made up of the same basic molecules: the very long, straight carbohydrate amylose, and its branched and bushy carb counterpart amylopectin. Thus, it can be made into flour (it’s also make into flakes) and used in many of the same ways […]
READ ONThe wife’s craving gives me an opportunity to discuss a topic that baffled me for years: tapioca. I was told that tapioca was made from the same root that yucca came from, but that seemed impossible. Those little translucent pearls seemed to have nothing in common with the big, fibrous tubers that were so easily […]
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