Baking Basics
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Continue ReadingYorkshire pudding, from an American’s first perspective, is one of the craziest and strangest ways to make a German pancake. (Though, now I would say that Yorkshire pudding is more of a popover than a German pancake albeit that the differences are minimal.) When I first moved to England, I was rather reticent to try it. I mean, growing up eating Germain pancakes made me wonder at how it might…
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Continue ReadingWhile preparing my French onion soup recipe the other day, I decided to put croutons in my soup (tons of croutons instead of tons of cheese :). And I thought, hey! Why not just describe how to make some croutons really quickly? And whoola! Here we are! Now, I’m going to go out on a limb and believe that you have had a salad. A salad probably with croutons. At…
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Continue ReadingI’ve been making a TON of bread recently. In the past couple days, my oven has baked 10 pizzas, 4 focaccias, 1 pissaladiere, 8 loaves of bread, and reheating my spanakorizo from yesterday (leftovers). And I really excited to teach you today how to make the Polish poolish. Now if you don’t know what a poolish is, why it is useful, or what makes the poolish so awesome then you,…
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Continue ReadingTo Biga-n (‘begin’), welcome to the world of preferments. If you are entirely unaware of what a preferment is, think back to that funny gas the dentist used last time you were at the dentist. Laughing gas (nitrous oxide) is that fancy chemical used in cars to give Brian O’Conner a smashing failure in Fast and Furious. Each preferment has its own flavor, both unique and incredibly useful. A preferment, like…
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Continue ReadingRoyal icing is one of the common ways to top cakes or cookies. It’s made from powdered sugar, egg whites. You can use all kinds of colors to create a perfect sugary design. One of the best parts of royal icing is how easy it is to change. Need a thicker icing? Add more sugar. Too thick? Add more egg white. And once the eggs are room temperature you can…