I sometimes get messages from people pointing me to bargain deals they find on vanilla beans online, but I’m happy to spend a bit more on the top-quality beans that my friend Patricia Rain sources, someone who’s dedicated herself to doing the right thing for the native farmers by working to ensure that the producers she works with get their fair-share of the profits. I…
Several of you had asked about how to avoid cookies from spreading out during baking, which can be rather vexing…especially when you’ve gone through all that trouble of getting the counter all covered with flour, then rolling ’em out, and cutting them into all those nifty shapes. So here are some tips…
Although we can’t expect things to be like ‘back home’, many of us do miss certain things that we are used to in American recipes. While French has wonderful ingredients, for bakers, it can be a challenge to adapt to new ingredients or ones that behave differently than what we’re used to. Here’s a list of commonly used baking ingredients and where you can find…
Some people love it, and others leave it. Yes, it’s White Chocolate, that controversial melange of cocoa butter, sugar, and milk (more on that later). Often there’s vanilla, or vanillin (a synthetic vanilla-like substance) added as well. Dark, or bittersweet chocolate, contains cacao mass (the ground beans), sugar, cocoa butter, and sometimes vanilla and lecithin. White chocolate has none of the cacao mass, hence…
Here are some helpful tips to prevent cookies from spreading: Don’t Overbeat the Batter Far too many recipes advise bakers to simply “Cream butter and sugar until smooth”. So many people just turn on the mixer and go check their e-mail. When you beat butter and sugar, those little crystals of sugar create air pockets between the butterfat. The more you beat, the more air…
We all use vanilla frequently in our baking, and vanilla is reputedly the world’s most popular flavor. But many of us who use vanilla know little about it, except that it smells and tastes great…and sometimes seems outrageously expensive for such a tiny bottle. Fortunately a little goes a long way. I keep several bottles on hand, using vanilla from Madagascar and Mexico (the real…
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