A Life in Baking, Pastry, and Libations.
Fruit seasons can be remarkably short and I am always looking for techniques to preserve fruit to use during the off-seasons. Earlier this year, I wrote about a burgeoning obsession with harnessing the power of fermentation in desserts because under ideal conditions, most foods naturally ferment and the results are digestible and delicious. So much of... Continue Reading →
Flexi-chocolate is also known as pliable ganache or pliable chocolate. (Pliable chocolate is not the same as modeling chocolate, a blend of chocolate and glucose syrup that is also referred to as plastic chocolate.) Texturally, this ganache feels like a creamy chocolate gel but melts readily in the mouth. Like many modern culinary techniques, pliable chocolate... Continue Reading →
I love sorbet but sometimes it just doesn’t satisfy. I want something richer, but not as rich as ice cream. This sorbet cream satisfied on all counts. It had a dense, creamy texture that reminded me of ice cream but finished with the refreshing, fruity flavor of a sorbet. There are already so many terms... Continue Reading →
A perfect spring afternoon is a slice of carrot cake and a double cappuccino. In its current sugary, cream cheese-laden incarnation, the healthiest thing about carrot cake is its name. In fact, it would be more accurate to call it “Sweet cream cheese and spiced carrot-pecan layer cake”. Honestly, the cake seems like an... Continue Reading →
Apparently the pastel, sandwiched macaron that we've come to love is a recent innovation. The Basque macaron, a denser chewier single cookie version, claims to be the true, original macaron and predates the macaron parisien, popularized by Laduree, by three centuries. Even if this is mythology, it's interesting to have another style of macaron besides... Continue Reading →
A pictorial glance at the commercial ice cream industry: the uncensored truth behind how much we eat, what those marketing terms mean, and what those stabilizers do:
Buttery. Salted. Caramel. 