A Life in Baking, Pastry, and Libations.
On our way home from a farm visit, my produce sales rep showed me a picture of the most intricately designed pie I had ever seen and asked me if it was edible. It seemed so although I guessed the crust was likely shortening-based to withstand that much carving and physical manipulation. The photo was... Continue Reading →
When people think of vinegar, salad dressings and pickles usually spring to mind. Rarely does one think of fruit. But after staring wistfully at the couple hundred apple cores left from Thanksgiving pies, I researched fruit vinegars to use these fruit scraps that would otherwise be resigned to the trash heap. There are many ways... Continue Reading →
Cake is not just dessert. Cake is a nostalgic treat of joy. Cake celebrates childhood, family, and fertility. An anniversary, a birth, a marriage (and sometimes divorce), they’re all special occasions that we celebrate with cake. My early attempts at baking cake were abysmal and Duncan Hines strawberry frosting rescued an under-baked cake, sagging under... Continue Reading →
Unbalanced and under~seasoned desserts: A sweet dessert is not always a good dessert. Sweet is a taste, not a flavor, that sometimes needs to be balanced with salt or acid if one is expected to keep eating… and enjoying. Not offering the dessert menu /desserts listed on separate menu: It’s hard to sell food... Continue Reading →
A chocolatier's worse nightmare.Watering down my chocolate goes against everything I’ve been taught. Should a few drops of water land in my chocolate, disaster! My chocolate is no longer fit for duty. As it turns out, mixing water into chocolate isn’t necessarily a bad thing. During the 1990s, Herve This and Heston Blumenthal noted that... Continue Reading →
I have this weird obsession with fruit consommés. I usually use the agar filtration technique to clarify fruit consommés but this technique can span three days and sometimes fruit does funky things when frozen and thawed. I had vacuum sealed a couple of bananas with vanilla bean and sprigs of lemon thyme to infuse the... Continue Reading →
Buttery. Salted. Caramel. 