Author: joepastry

Strawberries: The False Fruit

Imagine how betrayed I felt when I discovered that the strawberries I’d known and cherished all my life weren’t really berries at all. They weren’t even technically fruit. Alright! I cried out in the middle of the produce aisle, what ELSE have you been hiding from me all these years???

A strawberry is certainly no vegetable, but what makes it so unusual is that it carries its seeds on the outside. Most types of berries we know today (blueberries, raspberries, blackberries and the like) carry them on the inside. Just like an ovary — and in fact berries are plant ovaries — the critical bits of regenerative matter are kept protected in the interior.

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What is Crème Mousseline?

Those of you who have a hang-up about dietary fat, plug your ears. Classic crème mousseline is a 2-1 (by volume) mixture of pastry cream and cool butter, whipped together into a rich, silky foam. It could only have been invented by the French, God love those people. If you want you can substitute stabilized […]

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Next Up: Fraisier

Seasonal who? Locally sourced what? This classic strawberry “cake” is usually made in the springtime for reasons that should be obvious. However the strawberries at our local supermarket are so good right now I don’t feel a speck of guilt about making good on reader Kelli’s request from, what, five months ago? Let’s do this […]

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Stock Up On Vanilla for the Holidays

Reader Rainey writes:

Costco is stocking their seasonal stash of Madagascar Bourbon vanilla beans. They sell 10 of them for $12. They come in a couple glass test tubes which I find wonderfully convenient for that trick of nipping off one end and plunging the cut end into about 1″ of vodka. Once emptied they’re also useful for gifting a bit of vanilla sugar with one of the empty pods cached inside.

Informative AND educational. Thanks, Rainey!

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What are the best apples for caramel apples?

Great question, reader Pip, if that IS your real name. Silly of me not to post about it before. In general you want to use the same sorts of apples you use for other baking baking applications: firm, crispy and flavorful. I think red apples are best for candying: gala, fuji, cameo, pink lady, Jonathans. For caramel apples, the Granny Smith is the ultimate in my book, but Golden Delicious and Jonagold work well if tartness isn’t your thing. Really any of the red candy apple varieties work too.

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Making Caramel Apples

Most caramel apples are made using melted caramel candy for the coating, or a home made version thereof. Personally I prefer caramel sauce as starting point. You get a lot more flavor nuances when you cook the sugar to the breaking point, or at least that’s how I see it. That’s where the fun is. Cooking the syrup to the caramel stage is also a lot easier to my mind, as you don’t have to measure temperature. You just swirl it over the heat until it’s nut brown…easy.

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