My friend Christy just started a blog called Pretty Easy Living . She’s got a terrific design eye, so if you’re into low cost decorating, you’ll want to keep checking back with her. Speaking on behalf of all us other nerds, it’s nice to have you in the blogosphere, Christy!
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Here’s a nifty idea: for all those who are sick of trying to pry WAY over-baked blobs of blackened pie and casserole filling off the their oven floor, a flexible catch-all liner. It’s a coated fabric sort of thing (technical term), 23″ x 16.25″ inches, though it can be trimmed to match the size of your oven’s interior if need be. The nonstick surface resisted pretty much every bubbly, crumbly thing I threw at it over the holidays, surviving with only a few small dents. Any time I didn’t feel like washing off splatters of au gratin potato, I just threw it in the dishwasher. Problem solved.
READ ONThe rush of Christmas time is always followed by the even bigger rush of the birthday season (Mrs. Pastry and both girls have their birthdays shortly after). Which means I’m swamped. I’ll do my best to get a post or two up over the next couple of days, but for now it’s cake and candles […]
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Clarified butter is what you get when you heat butter to the point that the milk proteins curdle and settle out, the minerals and sugars clump and rise to the top, and much of the water boils away. What you’re left with is nearly pure butterfat.
What’s the advantage of that? Well, once all that’s done butter starts to behave a lot more like oil, and that’s a handy thing when you want the flavor of butter but also want to be able to subject it to high heat. If for instance you want to sauté with it or even fry in it. For the clarifying process has the effect of raising the smoke point of butter from around 325 degrees Fahrenheit to around 425 degrees Fahrenheit, which is pretty darn amazing.
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Oils are liquid fats. They are derived from plant sources (seeds, nuts, that sort of thing) and like animal fats have been in use by human beings for thousands of years. Speaking generally, they’re used more by cooks than bakers — solid fats are where it’s at for pastry types — but come in quite handy from time to time.
In the pastry kitchen oils are most valuable when they bring little-to-no flavor to the party. Though a walnut or a sesame oil might occasionally be used specifically for its flavor, most of the time pastry makers use oil solely to introduce richness and/or a moist texture into a cake or muffin formula. The same goes for frying, where the aroma of, say, peanuts or corn can muddle the profile of a fritter or a doughnut.
READ ONMotorized kitchen appliances with whirring blades can be dangerous when used in ways contradictory to manufacturers’ crystal clear instructions. Read, friends. Arm yourselves with knowledge.
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Shortening is pure vegetable oil, hydrogenated to give it a firm texture. It’s different from margarine (another hydrogenated fat) in that it was not created to be a substitute for butter, but rather as a substitute for animal fat, specifically lard. How does it stack up? Rather well. Like lard it’s all fat with no water in it. That means it’s great for things like biscuits and pie doughs, which lose some of their crispiness and flake with butter because of the water butter contains.
Unlike lard, however, it’s completely neutral in flavor. It’s also quite a bit less expensive. It also melts at a much higher temperature, around 118 degrees Fahrenheit, which is a good thing for things like cookies and (American) biscuits, since you get a lot less spread. And did I mention it keeps indefinitely at room temperature? No wonder that the emergence of shortening in the very early 1900’s coincided with a steep drop-off in the popularity of lard.
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Schmaltz is fat from a chicken. You don’t see it around much anymore, but once it was a very common thing in Germany and Austria, and among the peoples who emigrated from there, notably the Ashkenazi Jews. Though the word “schmaltz” can technically refer to beef, pork and even goose fat, it’s come to mean “chicken fat” among people who use it in the States. The cost common use for schmaltz was as a spread, which is to say it was used like butter on toast. However it makes a very nice general-purpose cooking fat as well, and is useful in baking as a tenderizer for doughs (I’ve used it in knish dough) and some crusts.
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Margarine is a vegetable oil-based fat that was created as a less expensive alternative to butter. Indeed the composition of margarine is very similar to butter, about 80% fat and 15% water, so the two can be used interchangeably. The earliest margarines can be traced back to mid-nineteenth century France. They were composed of beef fat mixed with water and milk solids for a butter-like flavor. When hydrogenation was invented around 1900, food scientists dispensed with the beef fat and moved to the purely vegetable-based formula we know today.
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Suet is beef fat, though not just any beef fat. It’s taken from the kidney region of the steer, so in that way it’s analogous to leaf lard from a pig. What’s special about suet is that it’s mild tasting and extremely firm, in fact it’s the hardest of all the fats humans commonly eat. Whoever can tell me what it is that makes suet the firmest of the fats gets a A for this course. Anyone? Anyone? Yes you at the back with the heart condition. That’s right: it’s the highest in saturated fats. Saturation = firmness, that’s rule of fat.
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