Category: Pastry

What’s the best way to add flavor to cheesecake?

I came home to over 200 comments and emails, so don’t mind if I answer a few in the main window here. This one from reader Hattie I especially like because, well, I love that name. But also because there are so many different ways to answer it.

I’ll be honest and say at the outset that a plain vanilla cheesecake is my personal favorite. However I recognize that there are plenty of cheesecake makers out there who consider plain cheesecake to be a mere starting point, a blank canvass if you will. For those folks I have a few basic suggestions.

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Back and Bewildered

Hey all, I seem to be plagued by one problem after another this fall/winter. Due to some apparent host problems I haven’t been able to access the site for the last four days. I haven’t even been able to see it from the front end most of that time, so I don’t know if it’s […]

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Later, Turkeys!

No I didn’t get my torte made, dernit. What a travesty, but I did flap my fingers quite a bit on chemical leavening, if that was any fun. I’ll set things to rights after Thanksgiving. Have a great one, all you Americans. Those of you in other locales, I apologize for the blogging lapse that’s […]

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The Difference Between Punching and De-Gassing

Reader Sally had a great question: what’s the difference between “punching down” dough and “gently de-gassing” it as so many artisan bread recipes instruct? Functionally speaking, Sally, there’s not that much difference, both are about releasing built up CO2 and stretching the dough to further distribute the yeast (being buds, yeast don’t move on their own so we have to manually move them if we want to spread them around a bread dough).

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Is clabber anything like yogurt?

In fact it is, reader Erica, it is exactly the same principle, the main difference being the type of bacterial culture involved. If you were around for my exhausting — I’m sorry I mean exhaustive — series on fermented dairy foods from several years ago, you may recall that it’s the species of lactic acid bacteria in the milk that ultimately determines both the flavor and the texture of fermented milk and/or cream. Milk exposed to the kind of lactic acid bacteria common to Khazakhstan will be transformed into a thick and tangy yogurt. Milk exposed to the kind of lactic acid bacteria common to places like Kentucky

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Tartaric Acid and Wine

Reader Gustav asks if the tartaric acid (cream of tartar) crystals that form on wine corks happen all the time or only if the wine has “turned.” The answer is that tartaric acid crystals can form anytime in just about any wine (white or red) and do not indicate that a wine has “turned” in any way. In fact tartrate crystals on the inside end of a cork probably indicate that you’re in possession of a rather good bottle. Mass producers of wine, knowing that wine drinkers are frequently put off by tartrate crystals

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On Kitchen Acids

Reader Cynthia writes:

So OK, I get that alkalines like baking soda are rare things in the kitchen. But what about the other side of the reaction: acids? They seem more common. Can you give us a list of things that react with soda? And are there any other alkaline ingredients out there?

Cynthia, I’d be positively delighted to answer. As you’ve intuited, acids are a much more common in the kitchen than bases. The strongest of these are vinegar, cream of tartar and lemon juice. Other citrus juices like orange and lime are acidic, so is tomato juice and any fermented dairy product (buttermilk, sour cream, yogurt, etc.). Other, milder acids include

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How does baking soda kill odors?

That’s an excellent question, reader Ronny! Given all you now know about how leavening reactions work, the answer will probably strike you as obvious. As you know, sodium bicarbonate reacts when it combines with acid and water. Many odor-causing molecules are organic acids, so when they come into contact with the soda in a humid […]

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A Semi-Irrelevant History Break

The history of chemical leavening is chockablock with characters. Not least among them a fellow by the name of George Rew, a young chemist who in 1889 developed the modern formula for baking powder in cooperation with a fellow named William Wright. Wright was an entrepreneur (a cousin of Orville and Wilbur of Kittyhawk fame), who hired Rew fresh out of the University of Michigan for his Chicago-based enterprise, the Calumet baking powder company. Together the two hit upon a formula that included not only calcium phosphate, but sodium aluminum sulphate as well.

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The Unconscious Baker

One thing I forgot to mention is that ammonium carbonate (baker’s ammonia) is also a common smelling salt. For those of you who don’t know what smelling salts are, they’re the stuff that Moe would use to revive Curly every time a tipped store shelf would bring a long succession of objects — jars, canned goods, bottled beer, skillets, ball peen hammers, railroad spikes…then finally cannon balls, anvils and boat anchors — down on Curly’s head.

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