Category: Pastry

Thoughts on Modernist Cuisine

It’s taken me a year, but I finally got a chance to spend a little quality time with Modernist Cuisine, the magnum opus/cookbook/manifesto by Nathan Myhrvold, Chris Young and Maxime Bilet. To all those who’ve been asking and asking me to write something about it, all I can say is I’m sorry. I didn’t know anyone who had the $500 to drop on a copy.

Considering the book is about 2,500 pages long, I really have very little to say about it. It’s gorgeous and intriguing, but I can’t say I found much in it that was especially inspiring. Oh sure there was a section or two on foams and emulsions, but nothing that’s going to be especially eye-opening for a

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So it’s come to this…

Things are tough all over these days. Cash-strapped governments everywhere are looking for new revenue sources wherever they can find them. That’s understandable to a point. But a pasty tax? That’s simply going too far. Let it be know that the Joe Pastry community stands firmly behind Mid Cornwall MP Stephen Gilbert in his effort to prevent this outrage. We also award him extra style points for his classy reference to one of Churchill’s greatest speeches. Go Gilbert! And thanks to reader Stephanie for the tip!

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A Geo-Historical Survey of Chocolate Sandwiches

The speculative history of the whoopie pie got me thinking about things that resemble whoopee pies here in the States. I realized that there are quite a lot of them, and all are quite old by popular food standards. Indeed I discovered that the whoopee pie, possibly invented in Pennsylvania and later popularized in Boston and Maine in the 1930’s, was a contemporary of the Moon Pie, created in 1929 in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

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Un-Gelling

Reader Patti writes:

I made your roux-and-butter frosting last night and it didn’t work at all. The flour and milk didn’t thicken even after refrigeration even though I simmered it for ten minutes. Once I added the butter I just got soup. Can you tell me where things might have gone wrong?

I certainly can, Patti! It’s the detail you included about simmering the flour and milk for ten minutes. The flour mixture did “gel”, the problem is that afterward it thinned back out again. To explain why I have to amend my analogy from down below where I compared gelling starch molecules to a “net.” The analogy wasn’t terribly far off. Starch molecules do indeed act like a net, just one with fish in it.

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What’s the science behind “Heritage” frosting?

So asks reader Pepper. That’s a good question. I presume what you’re really asking, Pepper, is how a mixture of flour, milk, butter and powdered sugar manages to stand in so well for a standard buttercream. The truth of the matter is that there’s not all that much difference between a heritage “cooked flour” buttercream and a standard buttercream, save for the fact that heritage frosting replaces half the butter — a fat and water emulsion — with a starch “gel”.

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Where do whoopie pies come from?

I’m venturing into dangerous waters here, I realize that. I’ve already received a few, shall we say insistent emails from Mainers since Friday. Since then I’ve been searching doggedly for historical material on whoopee pies…and have mostly come up empty. Which is not to say I haven’t found plenty of audacious (read: made up) stories about them.

Pennsylvanians claim whoopee pies are the invention of the Pennsylvania Dutch, i.e. Amish, i.e. German-speaking (“Deutsch”) housewives whose husbands shouted “whoopee” on discovering them in their lunch pails. Mainers claim whoopies were invented in a commercial bakery there —

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Fingers Typed Down to Nubs

I want to thank everyone who’s joined in to Joe Pastry since last week. I’ve been so busy responding to new reader comments and emails that I’ve barely been able to blog! I think I’m pretty well caught up now, but I just wanted to say that if there’s anyone out there who hasn’t received […]

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What on Earth is a whoopie pie?

Nice question, reader Ian. I’m sure there aren’t any in Australia. Up until recently there weren’t many outside of Pennsylvania and the New England region of the US. I’d never seen or heard of one until I started working at suburban Chicago bakery around ten years ago. Then, whoopie pies were considered quite exotic things in the Midwest. These days, however, just about every serious baker and/or sweet eater in the US has at least heard of a whoopie pie, as they’ve become quite the trendy item the last 5 years or so.

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Next Up: Whoopee Pies

The Baker in Need posts have prompted many, many requests for whoopee pies. Far be it from me to ignore the voice of the people — so whoopee pies it is! Oh and, sorry for the slow start after my return from Florida. I had a ton of commentary and email awaiting me. Back on Monday […]

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