Gingerbread New Year

December 30th, 2009  |  18 Comments

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Have you ever tried to edit your blog photos during the day? A sunny day? I’m sitting in front of my computer, which is situated on my desk in front of a bank of windows, wishing they made visors for laptops. The glare is burning my retinas, not to mention I can barely see the all-important gingerbread. I’m trying to situate my torso so I block out some of the rays, wrapping my arm around the screen as though someone is trying to cheat off me. It’s not working. Is it stupid to wear sunglasses indoors, inside your own apartment? Can’t bring myself to do it. True, I picked this apartment because it gets fat beams of light, but right now I’m contemplating moving this whole operation to the back of the closet. Where it’s dark. Where I can agonize properly over the quality of the photos.

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Fudging This Post

December 22nd, 2009  |  25 Comments

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Gluttony. It’s my favorite of the deadly sins and I’m good at partaking in it. And it doesn’t get more rampant than in the month of December. Seems like the second I leave the apartment, I’m offered barrels of cakes and bushels of cookies. Candy to the left of me. Chocolate to the right. I’m like a modern-day Ms. Pac-Man, chomping up everything in my path. And what kind of citizen would I be if I, too, didn’t add to the fattening of my friends and coworkers? Enter: fudge.

Back in the restaurant days of yore, I dressed up the food that came out of my kitchen with some holiday spirit. Each December, some type of fudge made its way on to the petit fours plate. Though I had it in my mind that fudge was supposed to be silky smooth, try as I might, mine usually came out grainy. I’d stand there and scowl at my batch, while my inner-Scrooge barked at the nearest pastry slave to get me more sugar. What I didn’t know at the time was that there was some science to the thing. Now it’s years later and the universe has recently presented me with more evidence that life comes full circle, in the form of this month’s Fine Cooking magazine.

When I turned to page 88, I had one of those adrenaline-fueled heart beats, like when you spot an old ex on Facebook. I saw something familiar, yet mysterious. The feature was about fudge. Specifically, how to get the confounding lot smooth. Well, lemme slap my hand against a forehead. I felt like someone had given me an answer to a riddle that was designed to be so obvious, I couldn’t see it. Turns out, it’s all about controlling sugar crystallization and yes, now it makes perfect sense. Read on, dear friends, so you can revel in another deadly sin. Pride.

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10 Great Gifts for the Aspiring Pastry Chef

December 18th, 2009  |  7 Comments

I can’t believe this. Gift-swapping day, a.k.a Christmas, is hurtling toward us at meteor-like speeds. I barely made a dent in my shopping, though have at least this weekend to do something about it. How about you? Do you wrap up your holiday gift purchases mid-summer or do you wait till the last minute, when nothing’s open but the 24-hour deli?

As I was contemplating what I should buy for others, my mind wandered back to me. (That’s really the most important thing, right?) I thought about some of the best gifts I received and use often and about the ones I still covet. A list started to gel, and I thought I’d share some of these gift ideas with you. Without further ado, some lovely ways to part with your money:


1) Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer

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KitchenAid Artisan 5-Quart Stand Mixers

Man, oh, man. This is really the ultimate pastry-making possession. Though I used it every day at work, it was a while before I got one for home. It made me feel like I graduated to the next level.








2) Pastry Tips

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Wilton Master Tip Set

Every cake and pastry decorating tip you’ll ever need. And some you won’t. But they sure are fun to goof around with and see what shape oozes out of each one. The plain ones are great for simply piping out things to bake: french macaroons, choux, meringue, and many others.







3) Flavor Extracts

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Nielsen-Massey Pure Extracts

These little bottles leave me feeling like a mad scientist. I dribble in a little of this, a bit of that, and get entirely different flavor profiles. These are potent and a few drops go a long way. You can make ice creams, flavor whipped creams and pastry creams, cookie batters, frosting, and on and on. There’s lemon, orange, peppermint, coffee, almond and chocolate. If you surf around amazon, there are even more flavor possibilities.




4) Mandolin

41bse7kE-pL._SL500_AA280_De Buyer Pro V Mandoline with 5 blades and Stainless Steel Pusher

This is another one of those tools that can make your desserts look really pro. Every slice and cut is pure symmetry and you get gorgeous pieces for drying fruit chips, shredding fruit, and crinkle cutting garnishes. The most important thing is to use the hand guard. I wish I had before I shredded the crap out of my middle finger.



5) Bundt Pan

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These always make impressive looking cakes. If you don’t believe me, scroll through some of the entries by the Food Librarian. She’s gaga for bundt and even made one-a-day for the whole month of November.




6) Cake Stand

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Anchor Hocking Presence Cake Dome Set

Display your beautiful creations with this baby.










7) Ice Cream Maker

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Cuisinart 1-1/2-Quart Automatic Ice Cream Makers

Once you try making your own ice cream, store-bought will become as appealing as a paper cut. It’s just such a difference. And you can mix up whatever wacky flavors come to mind that you’ll never find in the store. Chestnut Mocha? Bananas Foster? Pineapple Cheesecake?







8 ) Books – A couple of beauties:

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Baking by James Peterson

What a tome! This is a big, beautiful book full of classic recipes. Every recipe has clear explanations and lots of photos of some of the more complicated steps. Very comprehensive. And as beautiful as a coffee table book.








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Rose’s Heavenly Cakes by Rose Levy Beranbaum

This went on my wish list as soon as I saw it. Yes, it’s all cakes and boy, is it comprehensive. The detailed explanations have so much helpful information, I can’t imagine getting anything but a perfect version every time. Each recipe is written in cups, ounces and grams and the “Tips for Success” section should indeed lead to success. The photos are a sight, too.







9) Silpats

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Silpat 11-5/8-by-16-1/2-Inch Nonstick Silicone Baking Mat

I got (demanded!) a few as a gift a couple of years ago. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING sticks to these. I can pipe stuff on without a care in the world.





10) Food Scale

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EatSmart Precision Pro – Multifunction Digital Kitchen Scale w/ Extra Large LCD and 11 Lb. Capacity

If you need a reason for a kitchen scale, see here.








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Coffee or Tea? Cannoli, that is.

November 27th, 2009  |  21 Comments

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Cannoli, I barely knew ya. Who could blame me? Cannoli haven’t exactly moved gracefully through the years. They’re considered a relic, gone the way of the Italian-American joints with the red-checkered table cloths and sloppy bowls of spaghetti. Into a hibernation, if not a flat-out extintion. Do you know anyone who’s made connoli in the last decade? Me neither.

Like fashion designers and movie makers who look to the past to resurrect trends, chefs pore over old issues of Good Housekeeping to find the gems of yester-year. Today, we’ve woken up floating islands, baked alaskas and peach melbas,  ushering them into the 21st century with our own diabolical spins. So why not cannolis? Why have they been left behind?

The examples you see in the occasional bakery don’t exactly inspire the baking Michelangelos in us. They’re greasy, wet and curdled, probably having sat there since the Carter administration. I’m not even sure what a good cannoli should taste like,  having never seen a good one, but I do know what I imagine it to taste like. The shell should snap with a delicate crunch when bitten into, making way for a smooth, creamy filling. They should, like peanut butter and jelly, be two contrasting beauties that depend on each other to make everything better.

Color me surprised to even be reflecting on cannoli, especially on this Thanksgiving weekend, but there is one person who still sees potential in this classic. Lisa Michele decided to bring them out of retirement for this month’s Daring Baker’s Challenge. Here’s the filling:

The November 2009 Daring Bakers Challenge was chosen and hosted by Lisa Michele of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. She chose the Italian Pastry, Cannolo (Cannoli is plural), using the cookbooks Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and The Sopranos Family Cookbook by Allen Rucker; recipes by Michelle Scicolone, as ingredient/direction guides. She added her own modifications/changes, so the recipe is not 100% verbatim from either book.

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Cherry Pistachio Biscotti

November 25th, 2009  |  13 Comments

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After the mountain of a post from last week, I had just enough pep to knock out an easy one. Biscotti are one of the first things I’ve ever learned to make — a beginner’s recipe, to be sure. Essentially, you stir it all up, form dubious looking logs, and bake. You can make it with one hand tied behind your back, when you’re drowsy, when you’re breast-feeding, when you’re in a heated debate, or even while you’re driving, if you’re eccentric enough to have an oven in your car. It’s that mindless. I was even too lazy to break out the KitchenAid, for pete’s sake.


It’s also worth mentioning that, other than the fat from the eggs and nuts, this recipe is mercifully fat-free. No butter, no oil. And after Thanksgiving, once you’ve stuffed the turkey and the turkey has stuffed you, you might be relieved to have a recipe that won’t leave you out of breath from flicking off the lights.

You may already know “biscotti” means “twice baked.” Once the logs are cooled, they get sliced on the bias, and toasted just enough to provide a pleasant crunch when dipped in your pumpkin-flavored coffee but not so much that you chip a tooth when biting in. (If you do chip a tooth, see my brother.) Also, “biscotti”, as my, former, very Italian boyfriend liked to point out is plural and what I really meant to say was “biscotto” when I asked for one. Who said I was asking for just one?

I wish you all a Thanksgiving to remember!

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