I wanted to have some biscuits on hand for breakfast and decided to try a different recipe this morning. They came out well – even the ones in the row on the left cut from the second gentle gathering and rolling of scraps. It’s not at all surprising because King Arthur Flour recipes have never disappointed me. I usually make Flying Biscuits from the cookbook by the café of the same name I often visited at Candler Park, long ago when they had just three restaurants around Atlanta. King Arthur Flour calls the ones I made today simply Baking Powder Biscuits. I followed their advice to use buttermilk instead of milk. Like most baked goods, biscuits freeze nicely and thaw quickly, so that’s where five of them are now.
Because you could probably call me an old geezer without me grimacing too much, and because I have a history of getting influenza and pneumonia at the same time – five days in hospital over Christmas 1997 and a much less severe episode stopped by speedy application of Tamiflu and antibiotics in 2016, when the vaccinations I had for both did not cover the strains I caught – I got permission to start working exclusively from home on 9 March and have self-isolated since then, encountering just eight people through yesterday, all at a distance. My company activated its remote work plan a week later on 16 March at noon.
Edited 23 March to add: The state of Massachusetts has followed suit a week later, shutting down non-essential businesses and issuing a “stay at home” advisory from 24 March through 7 April.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of monitoring the news minute-by-minute, so I’ve been trying to limit that to no more than thirty minutes once a day. I’ll admit I’m not successful every day, but I am certain that a normal work day followed by cooking, baking, reading, and watching shows and films from the many thousands of hours in my media collection are far healthier ways of spending my waking hours, and I remain pleased that I’ve never joined any antisocial media network. I wince at the endless hours of feverish scrolling a lot of people must be putting themselves through. During work, the twenty-one hours of live music from Transatlantic Sessions that I have makes for a mellow background. It occurs to me that this would be a fine time to bring out the data DVDs I have of the earliest series of The Great British Bake Off from a decade ago.
As far as cooking and baking go, in recent days I’ve made, along with a few other things, six quarts of my hybrid French onion pot roast beef stew, six quarts of split pea soup, corn bread, Nancy Silverton’s La Brea Bakery bran muffins, banana cream pie partially based on a recipe from McEwen’s Restaurant in Memphis, and these biscuits – see the title of this post for the rationale. Slow-cooked bacon and some freshly-baked bread are on the horizon. I may make the simple but quite excellent River Cottage basic white loaf recipe or, if I’m more ambitious, I’ll refresh my sourdough starter, which will take a few days, to make a boule. Some of those recipes are here on the site – search at the magnifying glass under Mark Twain there on the left or, if you’re on a phone, search is at top right.
Today’s breakfast was poached eggs and sawmill gravy on a split biscuit:
Click for a larger version
Edited 23 March to add:
Sausage, egg, and blackberry jam biscuit beats sausage, egg, and cheese
It appears there are some people out there buying the 52-pound (that’s weight), US$600 Modernist Bread volumes and actually using them (more on the books in the comments here). I suppose some home bakers might feel inadequate reading the details in the linked Eater.com article on expensively-overproduced hobbyist bread for the braggart, but I didn’t. Mostly, the words “overthinking”, “overkill”, and “overcompensating” came to mind, and, as I finished the article, “Criminey.”
Mind-boggling though those details are, it was still sort of interesting to read.
A sample caption from breadstagram: “Loaf from yesterday’s cut video. 80% bread flour, 20% whole wheat, 80% hydration, 2% salt, Leaven was 100% hydration, whole wheat, young (4 hours), and comprised of 10% of total *dough* weight (60g for a 600g loaf). Hand mixed via Rubaud Method for 10 minutes. Bulk for 3.5 hours, low 80s F, with coil folds at 60 minutes and 120 minutes (around 40% rise in volume).”
Yeah…no. The stress these people put on themselves doesn’t sound enjoyable. I’m glad my bread-baking remains at a relaxed level. I’d stop doing it if it seemed that much like work.
After seeing this ThermoWorks article this morning, I decided it was high time I made soda bread for the first time – the result above. This late date is slightly embarrassing since I’m of Irish extraction (100%, I think) and this is maybe the twenty-fifth or thirtieth kind of bread I’ve made.
Several years ago, I bought the pictured 3.5 quart KitchenAid Dutch oven (alas, long-discontinued) to get a better shape on the sourdough boules I bake, and figured its smaller size would probably help with this fairly wet dough as well, and it did indeed. It probably sped the baking a bit, too. When I took the lid off at 40 minutes, the central temperature was 203°F/95°C, just a couple degrees and minutes from being done.
It’s a fast and tasty bread. I’ll be making it more often than never from now on.
The full quotation is from Katharine Hepburn when she was 70:
“I don’t have to watch my figure as I never had much of one to watch. What you see before you is the result of a lifetime of chocolate.”
These are my fortified version of her one-pot, one-pan brownie recipe. Hepburn’s brownies were well-known by her friends and her recipe accompanied an interview in Ladies’ Home Journal in 1975. In 1987, it was included in this book that’s in my collection:
Click for a larger version
Click for a larger version
My variation on her recipe has toasted pecans swapped in for the walnuts and is enriched with espresso powder and extra chocolate and vanilla. These are quick to make and disappear even faster in a murmur of Mmmms, so you may want to consider a double batch. They’re ideal when you’re perhaps a little pressed for time but want a great dessert – whip these up in under an hour, including the time to preheat the oven and toast the pecans, and serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
For that still-warm-from-the-oven effect, I recommend microwaving one brownie for 9 seconds. And a napkin. Maybe a Wet-Nap.
Katharine Hepburn’s Brownies – My Variation
2½ oz/70g unsweetened chocolate – I use Ghirardelli (in New England, Market Basket has the best prices on Ghirardelli by far)
1 stick/4 oz/115g unsalted butter, or salted butter if you have no unsalted
1 cup/200g sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon instant espresso powder (usually found near instant coffee in the supermarket)
¾ teaspoon table salt, or ½ teaspoon if you’re using salted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ cup/30g flour
1 cup pecan halves toasted at 325F/160C for 9 minutes and broken, processed, or roughly chopped into large pieces
1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips such as Ghirardelli 60% Cacao chips
Preheat oven to 325F/160C. Toast the pecans on a baking sheet for 9 minutes, then remove from the pan and allow to cool a bit. Break each half into four quarters or process/chop them into large pieces. Line an 8×8″/20x20cm pan with parchment paper – see the method below. You can instead butter the bottom and sides of the pan, but these are gooey brownies that really want to stick, even to a well-greased non-stick pan.
In a medium saucepan over medium-low heat, melt the stick of butter and the unsweetened chocolate. When melted, remove from heat – there’s no more cooktop heat from this point – and beat in the sugar. When the sugar is incorporated, beat in the eggs, then the espresso powder, salt, and vanilla. Fold in the flour, then stir in the toasted pecans and chocolate chips.
Pour into the parchment-lined pan and bake at 325F/160C for 40 minutes, rotating the pan 180 degrees at 20 minutes. Check them at 35 minutes – if you see the edges are darkening, get them out of the oven because they’re done. Cool for at least half an hour, then lift the brownies out using the sides of the parchment, peel the paper off, and cut into nine, twelve, or sixteen pieces (3×3, 4×3, or 4×4). A long, thin-bladed knife, cleaned and run under piping hot water between cuts, will help you produce squares instead of a pile of broken brownie pieces.
Lining a Pan with Parchment
Cut a piece of parchment paper the same shape but roughly 50% bigger than the pan. I start with these pre-cut half-sheet pan (12×16”) parchment sheets: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KY5KLZK
Cut diagonally in from the corners of the parchment to the corners of the pan
Spray pan with cooking spray (or use a dot of butter at each corner) just to help the parchment stay put
Place the parchment in the pan, overlapping the diagonal flaps. You don’t need to spray the top of the parchment. So long as it’s silicone-treated, it will peel off just fine.
Click any of these for a larger version
Notes on Pecans
Costco often sells 2-pound bags of pecans for US$14-15, which is probably close to what you’d pay for two pounds at a roadside pecan farm stand in the South. However, note that most nuts will go rancid after 6-12 months – walnuts and pecans the quickest by far – but they won’t go off if you freeze them and thaw only what you need for a recipe. Thawing takes just half an hour at room temperature. I use a fair amount of pecans, so I always have two or three bags in my freezer.
Feels like I’m in Anaheim – except that Mimi’s would have an orange slice and maybe some melon on there, too
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My slow-cooked bacon method is here. Real dinerware like the 13″ oval platter above – which weighs more than two pounds – is over here.
The answer to the long-lived question of how to come close to Mimi’s Cafe honey bran muffins is this: Stop searching for Mimi’s Cafe bran muffin recipe altogether and just use Nancy Silverton’s terrific recipe. It addresses all the problems I noted previously here and in this way to office mates I shared these with two weeks ago:
I had tried several copycat recipes that gushed they were “just like Mimi’s honey bran muffins!”, but all of them were so far away – mostly way-too-sweet, dense brown muffins with a small handful of bran added as if in afterthought, and many with a sickly-sweet brown sugar/butter/honey glaze deposited in the tin before the batter that incorrectly hardens on the bottom of the muffins.
The results of Silverton’s recipe really are very close to if not even better than Mimi’s Cafe bran muffins: full of earthy bran flavor, soft and light in texture, and not oversweet. To complete the Mimi’s experience, drizzle a little diluted honey onto the bottoms of the still-warm muffins after you invert them out of the tin.
The ingredients are pretty easy to commit to memory, and most of it is in half-cups. Note that there’s almost three times as much bran as flour in the recipe. This is key.
Clockwise from upper left: raisins simmered in water, still to be puréed; vegetable oil; water; unprocessed bran, toasted; egg plus egg white; all purpose flour, whole wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; buttermilk; lightly diluted honey; light brown sugar; raisins left whole. The orange zest was in a tiny prep bowl that I forgot to put in frame.
Drizzling the diluted honey on the still-warm muffins
I can confirm that these do not last long at all
My notes and then the recipe:
You can easily find unprocessed bran in US supermarkets that have a small Bob’s Red Mill and/or Hodgson Mill section, usually in the baking aisle. Bob’s is in 10 ounce bags – about five cups – while Hodgson Mill comes in 14 ounce boxes with about seven cups:
Make sure you butter the bottom and sides of the muffin wells or these will stick, even in a non-stick tin (I forgot once). I also smear a little butter all around the top as well so the muffin tops don’t stick.
I’m lazy but also efficient: Instead of melting and brushing butter – requiring more washing up – I use the vinyl prep gloves that I get by the case from a restaurant owner friend. Pop one glove on, grab a hunk of room temp butter, start smearing, and I’m done in sixty seconds. Cleanup consists of tossing one glove. Under the same lazy/efficient rationale, I use a Microplane zester for the orange zest and zest an entire orange, which is about three recipes’ worth, then freeze the remaining zest in a small container. I also toast the bran using a parchment sheet on a 16×12″ half-sheet baking pan for easy cleanup and transport: When toasted, just pull up each corner of the paper to form a sort of basket and pour the bran into the mixing bowl.
Resist any temptation to use golden raisins – they’re not right for this recipe (I tried them once).
Once you mix the dry ingredients into the wet, get the batter in the pre-buttered tin and into the oven without delay (I use a #16 ice cream disher for quick portioning instead of the piping bag mentioned in the recipe). The baking powder and baking soda react quickly with the buttermilk and you want them to start baking while the batter is nicely puffed up.
My only addition to Silverton’s recipe is that I let the muffins cool in the tin for about five minutes, then loosen the muffin top edges with something that won’t scratch the non-stick surface, then invert the muffins onto a sheet of parchment paper on the counter (catches dripping honey), where I immediately drizzle a microwave-warmed 2-to-1 honey-water mixture onto the bottoms of the muffins for the full Mimi’s Cafe effect. I use a condiment squirt bottle to drizzle a teaspoon or so on each small muffin, or a couple teaspoons each for large size muffins.
Mimi’s correctly serves their large-size bran muffins warm and upside-down with a pat of butter on the side. If you don’t warm these before serving, both texture and taste will suffer. From room temperature, microwave one small muffin for 20 seconds; 35 seconds for one large muffin.
Like most breads and baked items, these freeze well. I make a dozen small muffins every ten to fourteen days and, once cooled, I freeze half a dozen in a gallon size freezer bag, then take them out days later when I’ve et the first six.
Every baker has her version of a bran muffin, and I have mine. Most recipes call for sweetened bran cereals and lots of sugar, defeating the purpose of this healthier style of muffin. I make mine the way they should be, with lots of toasted unprocessed bran and pureed raisins. When toasted, bran adds a distinctive, nutty flavor. The cooked and pureed raisins saturate the muffins, giving them their unusually dark color and moist, fruity quality.
Special Items: ½-cup-capacity muffin tin, lightly coated with melted butter; (optional) pastry bag fitted with a wide tip
2 cups unprocessed bran
1½ cups raisins
1½ cups water
½ cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon orange zest, finely chopped (about one-third of an orange)
½ cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
½ cup vegetable oil
1 extra-large egg
1 extra-large egg white
½ cup unbleached all-purpose flour
¼ cup stone-ground whole-wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon kosher salt
Adjust the oven rack to the middle position and preheat the oven to 350F/175C.
Spread the bran on a baking sheet and toast for 6 to 8 minutes, until toasted, stirring halfway through to ensure that it doesn’t burn.
In a small saucepan, stir together 1 cup of the raisins and 1 cup of the water and simmer on low heat until the water is absorbed, about 15 minutes. Place in a blender or in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade, and process until pureed.
Pour the bran into a large bowl, add the buttermilk and remaining ½ cup of water, and stir to combine. Stir in the raisin puree, orange zest, and brown sugar.
Add the oil, whole egg, and egg white, mixing well to incorporate.
Sift the flours, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into the raisin mixture. Add the remaining whole raisins and stir to combine.
Fill the pastry bag half full and pipe or spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tins, filling the cups to just over the rim and mounding the batter slightly.
Bake for about 25 minutes, until the muffins are well browned and firm to the touch.
Yield: 12 regular size or 6 large muffins
Menu from the very first Mimi’s Cafe in Anaheim, California; click for a larger size
I borrowed it from the restaurant around 1980 and it’s been on my kitchen wall in its folded form ever since; I have no intention of returning it
Back in July, I noted King Arthur Flour’s blog entry for blueberry hand pies, and finally got around to making a blackberry version this past weekend. Then I made a bunch more Monday night to bring in to work – the results pictured above – with some adjustments that made them noticeably better. Foremost, I did four turns of the rough puff pastry instead of just the two called for in the recipe. That added only an extra half-hour of chilling and five or six more minutes of pounding/rolling/folding, and it was worth every minute.
A friend I shared them with on Sunday had been looking for a fairly simple puff pastry recipe and asked for this one, so I sent her the link and my notes, that email pasted under the line here. I did all the “next time, I’m going to” things mentioned below for version 2 on Monday night and each of them paid off handsomely.
If puff pastry – even this simpler rough puff recipe – seems daunting to you, it isn’t. Scroll through their pictorial blog entry and you’ll see it’s pretty straightforward. I’ve wanted to try my hand at it ever since, some years ago, I saw the price on frozen puff pastry that’s made with actual butter – and quickly moved along, defensively clutching my money clip. Oooowee, that’s some profit! I should add that it wasn’t Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry Sheets because theirs haven’t been within a country mile of even two molecules of butter. Strictly oils and high-fructose corn syrup in there, friends – not what you would call traditional.
There were more pies than people on Tuesday; inside an hour, only five or six crumbs were left on the platter. This recipe is going onto my frequently-made list.
Step-by-step on the King Arthur Flour Baking Blog:
The changes I made were to 1) switch to blackberries, cutting them in half cross-wise because they were big (though they’re more tart than blueberries, I specifically did not increase the sugar in the filling because I prefer lightly sweet desserts where the fruit has the leading role), 2) add a half-teaspoon of cinnamon to the berry mixture, 3) use Sugar in the Raw to sprinkle on top instead of sparkling sugar because that’s what I have, and 4) use Julia Child’s method for the egg wash: Add a half-teaspoon of water to the egg, mix with a fork, then strain into a small bowl using the fork to further mix in the strainer and get the liquid through. Slackening the liquid and straining out the chalazae – those protein strands that anchor the yolk to the top and bottom of the shell – makes it easier to apply the wash well; coverage can be a bit spotty otherwise. This is especially true of very fresh eggs, where the chalazae are larger and thicker.
Note that you can use salted butter. There’s about an eighth teaspoon of salt in one stick of salted, so just reduce the ¾ teaspoon salt in the dough to ½ teaspoon and you’re all set. You can also sprinkle the pies with regular granulated sugar instead of larger crystals after the final egg wash. I think it does need that little bit of sweetness on top.
Flour your work surface well but not excessively throughout and brush excess off the dough before folding each time. Based on how quickly the dough softened as I worked with it, next time I make them, at the last rollout, I’m going to shape into the final 14×14″ sheet, cut the 3½” squares, arrange them on parchment on a baking sheet, and put them back in the fridge for 20 minutes. Then I’ll take them out and assemble the pies while the dough is nice and firm and get them in the oven. In assembling, I’m going to use a lighter touch with the fork crimping of the edges to allow the sides to rise more. The filling is thick enough that it’s not really trying to escape, so that won’t result in breaches.
Based on some other rough puff pastry recipes that do more than the two turns this one features, next time I’m also going to add the step of two more turns, for a total of four, after the initial 30-minute chilling, then chill the dough a further 30 minutes before the final 14×14″ rolling. This will produce 81 layers instead of just 9 from two turns. Traditional puff pastry dough gets five or six turns, producing 243 or 729 layers, respectively.
Sour cream is used here as the liquid instead of the water used in traditional puff pastry for four reasons: 1) adds liquid with additional fat to the recipe (like butter & shortening or butter & lard), 2), adds acidity that reacts with the baking powder (which reacts to both heat and acid), 3) tenderizes the gluten in the flour for a more delicate texture, and 4) helps baked goods in general retain moisture so they’re not dry husks after a day. Not that there are going to be any of these left in 24 hours, mind you.
Before doing the main batch, I did a couple of test profiteroles to ensure that using a #40 disher instead of a piping bag wouldn’t cause problems. They look pretty good to me – nice and crisp, too, after being slashed on the side and left in the turned-off oven for five minutes to dry the inside.
These are big enough that after I pipe the banana custard in, I can then slip the strawberry slice in through the side slash as a sort of surprise, with just chocolate ganache on top. (They are better with a good quality strawberry slice than without.) I made the ganache with bittersweet chocolate, double cream, butter, vanilla, and a tablespoon of rum.
The balloon above my head features a small light bulb and reads “Crisp profiteroles filled with the banana custard from that pie, drizzled with bittersweet chocolate sauce and topped with a strawberry slice.”
The whipped cream rosettes have relaxed a bit since Thursday, but I’m sure the friend I’m bringing this to won’t mind – especially after the first taste.
I keep the butter & cream cheese icing separate, warm the buns before serving, and let people slather on as much or as little icing as they like
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This is my new favourite recipe for cinnamon buns. With a dough not too far away from a brioche, they’re a bit crispy on the outside and, inside, beautifully soft and light but not mushy.
Ahead of time: An hour or two ahead, take two sticks of butter (three if you’re doubling the icing), a package of cream cheese, and two eggs out of the fridge so they can warm to room temperature. Note that you can use salted butter if you want – there’s a negligible 1/8th teaspoon of salt in a quarter-pound salted stick, so it won’t make an appreciable difference.
Ratios are crucial in baking, so I measure by weight – especially important for the flour.
Ingredients
Dough
1 cup (235 ml) lukewarm milk [heat in microwave about 1 minute until 115F/45C or so]
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1/3 cup (2 5/8 oz, 75g) softened unsalted butter, cut into half-tablespoon pieces
4 1/2 cups (19 oz, 540g) all-purpose flour
1 3/4 teaspoons salt
1/2 cup (3 1/2 oz, 100g) granulated sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast or active dry yeast
Filling
1/3 cup (2 5/8 oz, 75g) softened unsalted butter
1 cup light brown sugar, packed (7 1/2 oz, 210g)
3 tablespoons ground cinnamon
Icing (original is really sweet – see my adjustments below)
[I usually double the icing recipe and then let guests use as much or as little as they like. I also decrease the sugar and increase the butter and cream cheese to make the icing not as sickly sweet as the original recipe. For a single icing recipe, I use 8 tablespoons (half cup, 4 oz., 115g) cream cheese, 1/3 cup (3 oz, 85g) butter, 1 cup confectioner’s/icing sugar (4 oz, 110g), and the 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract.]
Directions
To make the dough: Mix together and knead all of the dough ingredients – by hand, mixer, or bread machine – to make a smooth, soft dough. [In a stand mixer with a dough hook, this will take 6 or 7 minutes. When the side of the bowl is fairly clean and the dough starts to climb the hook a bit, it’s ready. Note that, like brioche dough, which is similarly enriched with butter, sugar, and egg, this may seem too wet at the start, but it isn’t.]
Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, turn to grease all sides, cover the bowl, and let the dough rise for 60 minutes, or until it’s nearly doubled in bulk. [Enriched doughs can take longer to rise – up to two hours in a cold kitchen or if your ingredients weren’t at room temperature or if your yeast is a little tired – or just because. I use a large measuring cup that has a cover – see picture below – and wait as long as it takes to rise to almost the 2 quart mark.]
Deflate and roll out the dough: Gently deflate the dough, and transfer it to a lightly greased work surface. [It’s very important to grease the surface – you’ll need two feet by a foot-and-a-half – because you’re rolling a fairly wet dough to 3-4mm thickness and it would stick like tape otherwise. This may seem daunting, but don’t worry, the dough is very pliable and easy to stretch without tearing.] Pat the dough out into a rough rectangle, then roll to 16×21″/40x53cm, keeping the corners as square as practical.
Filling: [For this step, I find it’s easier to microwave the butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon for about 30 seconds, then mix to form a paste that you can spread fairly evenly onto the dough. Allow it to cool a bit if it feels hot. This method also stops a bunch of the filling from falling out and ending up on the bottom of your pan.] Original method: Spread the dough with the 1/3 cup butter. Mix the brown sugar and cinnamon, and sprinkle it evenly over the dough.
Slicing note: I use a very thin and sharp boning knife to slice the roll into buns, but you may find it easier to chill the roll in the fridge for half an hour before slicing and then use a serrated bread knife.
5a. For 12 large buns [these are huge]: Starting with a short end, roll the dough into a 16″/40cm log and cut it into 12 slices. [Cut in half, then cut each half in half, then cut each quarter into three equal pieces.]
5b. For 24 smaller buns: Starting with a long end, roll the dough into a 21″/53cm log and cut it into 24 slices. [Cut in half, then cut each half in half, then cut each quarter in half, then cut each eighth into 3 equal pieces.]
6. Place the buns in a lightly greased 9×13″/22x33cm pan. [3×4 rows for 12 buns or 4×6 rows for 24 buns.] Cover the pan and let the buns rise until they’re nearly doubled in size, about 30 minutes. [Again, your results may vary – it can take up to an hour. Be patient and let them puff up.]
7. While the buns are rising, preheat the oven to 400F/200C
8. Uncover the buns, and bake them until they’re golden brown, about 15 minutes. [Check them every couple minutes starting at 15 minutes, but I’ve found that golden brown won’t appear until 18-22 minutes have passed. If you have a probe thermometer, 190-195F/87-90C inside the center buns is your target.] While the buns are baking, make the icing.
9. To make the icing: In a small bowl, beat together the softened cream cheese, softened butter, sugar, and vanilla. [I double the icing recipe and modify by using a little more butter and cream cheese and less confectioner’s/icing sugar. See note above.]
10. Remove the buns from the oven. Spread the icing on the buns while they’re warm. [I keep the icing separate, partly so people can have as much or as little as they like and partly because only the baker normally sees that nice spiral. It would be a shame to hide it away permanently.]
11. Serve buns warm, or at room temperature. [Room temperature? Stop it.] Wrap in plastic and store at room temperature for a day or so; freeze for longer storage.
This is how slack the kneaded dough will be
The first rise will result in nearly two quarts/litres
Island surface sprayed with canola oil
Patted into a rectangle, then rolled out to about 16×21”/40x53cm and 3-4mm thick
Filling spread over dough – it doesn’t have to be perfect
Dough rolled up on long side, sliced in half, then quarters, then eighths
Those eighths cut into thirds for 24 medium buns
Arranged in buttered 9×13”/22x33cm pan for second rise – a bit wonky looking, but…
…after the second rise, the wonkiness from the slicing has corrected itself
Out of the oven
A previous bake of the larger size – they’re pretty huge
It seems that the local bakery I mentioned in this article has a) become a fair amount bigger than I knew and b) not scaled the operation up in the best way. The warning letter they got ten days ago from the FDA makes it clear they’re still operating a bit like they’re back in the good old days, when they were producing, say, several dozen loaves a day. When you grow quickly and start supplying some supermarket chains, you’re going to be inspected just as the big boys are and held to the same standards; they ought to have known that.
I began reading the letter with some dread because I like their sourdough. Thankfully, the infractions aren’t too awful, but I certainly hope they address them quickly and well. I wouldn’t want to read about “seizure and injunction” in a month or two.
One focus of the letter is that their “whole wheat” items aren’t, though they have some whole wheat flour. That you can tell at a glance – they’re far too light in colour. I just checked their web site and the whole wheat there is a lot darker than any loaf of theirs I’ve ever seen in person, so maybe they’ve already adjusted it. Not mentioned is their rye loaf, quite tasty but again far too light and too well-risen for a lot of rye to be involved; I think it’s probably a minority flour in that loaf.
I only found out about this because of news articles yesterday deriding the FDA’s admonition to Nashoba Brook Bakery to stop including “love” in their granola ingredient list. The CEO took exception to that and the whole wheat hand-slap, grumbling about the nanny state, and in the process, whether it was intentional or not – guess my guess! – successfully misdirected the majority of the media away from the lengthy list of mostly allergen-related violations in the FDA’s letter. But not everybody looked away to the pretty assistant at the crucial moment of the sleight. Personally, I would have fixed the problems post-haste, sent those responses the FDA never got, and kept my mouth shut.
Now, maybe love really is in there, but if honesty is always the best policy – see Mark Twain for the answer – we might see, for instance, Kraft required to list “indifference” and “avarice” among their processed cheese food product ingredients. I can easily see lawsuits if not fistfights breaking out over such subjective ingredients. Is this a road we want to go down? Probably not.
I’ll likely be making Jasper White’s Lobster and Corn Chowder this weekend or next, but I had a hankering for chowder today – without quite so much work – and selected the simple and delicious Shaker-style corn chowder from White’s 50 Chowders book, the recipe below. The corn and Yukon Gold potatoes here are from Willard Farm.
The only change I sometimes make to this recipe is to use rosemary instead of cumin in step 3 for a completely different background note – either a sprig of fresh rosemary, fished out afterward, or ½ teaspoon ground rosemary. Today I stuck to the original.
I forgot about the thinly-sliced scallion garnish in the prep bowl not even two feet away. Oh, well…still tasted great. Click for a larger version.
To go with, I made a couple loaves of simple crusty bread, River Cottage style, one of those to be frozen for later. At the end of this article, there’s a seven-minute River Cottage instructional video and recipe for the bread – do watch that video and see how easy it is. I’ve also included there Jasper White’s general notes on corn and on the importance of curing chowder (yes, some things do benefit from curing). I enthusiastically recommend his book on chowders – it’s both authoritative and fun.
Click for a larger version
Corn Chowder
From 50 Chowders – One-Pot Meals – Clam, Corn & Beyond by Jasper White (2000)
Yield: About 7 cups; serves 6 as a first course
Corn chowder is the king of farmhouse chowders. Hundreds of recipes for it have been published over the years, but since corn and salt pork were staples of the American farm, it is likely that corn chowder was being made and enjoyed long before any recipe was ever printed. The oldest recipe I have come across is by Mary Lincoln, founder of the famous Boston Cooking School, in her Boston Cook Book (1884). Fannie Merritt Farmer, her successor, also published a corn chowder recipe in the original Boston Cooking School Cookbook (1896). A crop of corn chowder recipes followed Mary Lincoln’s, appearing in cookbooks from Philadelphia to Los Angeles and just about everywhere in between. Some were thickened with flour, others with egg yolks. Some, like Fannie Farmer’s, used canned corn (which has been around since the mid-1800s), some used fresh corn. The use of milk, cream, or condensed milk also varies from recipe to recipe. The Shakers, members of the well-known utopian community, are renowned today for their austere yet beautiful furniture, but they were also highly regarded for their cooking skills, especially their farmhouse chowders. My version of corn chowder is made similar to the Shaker style, according to a recipe from the Shakers at Hancock Village in Pittsfield, Massachusetts (1900), using fresh corn, butter, and cream. Its mellow, sweet flavor and lovely pale golden color are very comforting, and it is a big favorite with children as well as adults.
Serve corn chowder as a starter, with toasted common crackers or Pilot crackers. Or serve with Sweet Corn Fritters, Skillet Corn Bread or Corn Sticks, or Anadama Bread on the side to add a delicious contrasting corn flavor to your meal.
Cook’s Notes
Since corn is the heart and soul of this dish, the success of your chowder will rely a great deal on the quality of the corn you use.
If you are making chicken stock or broth especially for this recipe, add the corn cobs (do not scrape them in this case) to that stock for more corn flavor.
Although potatoes help to thicken this chowder, I also use a bit of cornstarch to give it an extra smooth and creamy consistency. Mix the cornstarch and water to create a smooth paste, called a slurry, before you add it to the chowder.
The ground cumin adds an interesting but subtle contrast to the predominant corn flavor of this chowder. In the Southwestern-style corn chowder variation that follows, the amount of cumin is doubled, letting it stand out even more. The small amount of turmeric brightens the chowder’s color, making it a little more yellow.
For equipment, you will need a 3- to 4-quart heavy pot with a lid, a wooden spoon, and a ladle.
Ingredients
A note on this blog entry: For my own future reference, I’ve put double-recipe quantities in square brackets here – so “3 [6] medium ears” just means 3 for a single recipe and 6 for a double.
3 [6] medium ears fresh yellow or bicolor corn
4 [8] ounces slab (unsliced) bacon, rind removed and cut into 1/3-inch dice
2 [4] tablespoons unsalted butter
1 [2] medium onion (7 to 8 ounces [14 to 16 ounces]), cut into 1/2-inch dice
1/2 [1] large red bell pepper (6 to 8 ounces [12 to 16 ounces]), cut into 1/2-inch dice
1 to 2 [2 to 4] sprigs fresh thyme, leaves removed and chopped (1/2 [1] teaspoon)
1/2 [1] teaspoon ground cumin [alternate: 1/2 teaspoon ground rosemary or two sprigs fresh rosemary]
1/8 [1/4] teaspoon turmeric
1 [2] pound Yukon Gold, Maine, PEI, or other all-purpose potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch dice
3 [6] cups Chicken Stock or Chicken Broth
Kosher or sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 [4] teaspoons cornstarch, dissolved in 2 [4] tablespoons water
1 [2] cup heavy cream
For Garnish
2 [4] tablespoons minced fresh chives or thinly sliced scallions
Directions
1. Husk the corn. Carefully remove most of the silk by hand and then rub the ears with a towel to finish the job. Cut the kernels from the cobs and place in a bowl. You should have about 2 cups. Using the back of your knife, scrape down the cobs and add the milky substance that oozes out to the corn kernels.
2. Heat a 3- to 4-quart heavy pot over low heat and add the diced bacon. Once it has rendered a few tablespoons of fat, increase the heat to medium and cook until the bacon is crisp and golden brown. Pour off all but 1 tablespoon of the bacon fat, leaving the bacon in the pot.
3. Add the butter, onion, bell pepper, thyme, cumin [or rosemary], and turmeric and saute, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon, for about 8 minutes, until the onion and pepper are tender but not browned. [If using rosemary sprigs, fish them out and discard.]
4. Add the corn kernels, potatoes, and stock, turn up the heat, cover, and boil vigorously for about 10 minutes. Some of the potatoes will have broken up, but most should retain their shape. Use the back of your spoon to smash a bit of the corn and potatoes against the side of the pot. Reduce the heat to medium and season the chowder with salt and pepper.
5. Stir the cornstarch mixture and slowly pour it into the pot, stirring constantly. As soon as the chowder has come back to a boil and thickened slightly, remove from the heat and stir in the cream. Adjust the seasoning if necessary. If you are not serving the chowder within the hour, let it cool a bit, then refrigerate; cover the chowder after it has chilled completely. Otherwise, let it sit at room temperature for up to an hour, allowing the flavors to meld.
6. When ready to serve, reheat the chowder over low heat; don’t let it boil. Ladle into cups or bowls and sprinkle with the chopped chives.
VARIATION: Corn Chowder with Tomato and Basil
Peel 1/2 pound ripe red tomatoes: Score an X in the bottom of each tomato. Drop into a pot of boiling water for about 30 seconds, until the skins loosen. Cool the tomatoes in ice water, drain, and pull off the skin. Quarter the tomatoes and cut out their juicy centers, reserving them for another use. Cut the tomato flesh into 1/2-inch dice; you should have about 3/4 cup. Add the tomatoes to the chowder right after you add the cornstarch (Step 5). When you remove the chowder from the heat, stir in 2 tablespoons of chopped fresh basil along with the cream.
VARIATION: Southwestern-Style Corn Chowder
Increase the cumin to 1 teaspoon. Just before you add the cornstarch (Step 5), add 1 small poblano chile, roasted, peeled, seeds removed, and cut into small to medium dice. After you add the cream, stir in 2 or more tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro.
VARIATION: Corn Chowder with Sweet Potatoes
To make this delectable sweet chowder, substitute 1 pound sweet potatoes, cut into 1/2-inch dice, for the white potatoes. Sweet potatoes cook a little faster than all-purpose potatoes, so reduce the cooking time to about 8 minutes, then proceed with the recipe as instructed.
Simple White Loaf
From River Cottage
1 kg bread flour
10g fast-acting yeast
15g fine salt
1/2 tbsp canola or olive oil (optional), plus extra to oil the dough
600 ml water
1. Combine the flour, yeast and salt in a large bowl. Add the oil, if using (not essential, but it makes for a slightly softer, more supple crumb), then add the water. Stir to create a rough, sticky dough. The dough really should be quite sticky at this stage – if it isn’t, add a splash more water.
2. Turn out the dough on to a lightly floured surface and knead for about 10 minutes, rhythmically stretching the dough away from you, then folding it back on itself. The idea is to stretch and develop the gluten within the dough, not to beat the living daylights out of it. Avoid adding more flour if you can: the dough will become less sticky and easier to handle as you knead, and a wetter dough is generally a better dough.
3. When the dough is smooth and elastic, form it into a ball, coat it very lightly with oil and place in a clean bowl. Cover with cling film or put inside a clean bin-liner and leave in a warm place until doubled in size – in the region of 1½ hours.
4. Tip the dough out on to a lightly floured surface and deflate with your fingertips. Reshape the dough into neat rounds and put on a lightly floured board to prove for around 45 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 250°C/475°F/gas mark 10, or its highest setting. Put a baking tray in to heat up.
5. When the loaves have almost doubled in size again, take the hot baking tray from the oven and sprinkle with a little flour. Carefully transfer the risen loaves to the tray. Slash the tops with a sharp, serrated knife and put in the oven. Bake for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to 190°C/375°F/gas mark 5 and bake for about 30 minutes more, or until the crust is well-coloured, and the loaf sounds hollow when you tap it sharply with your fingers. Transfer to a rack to cool completely before slicing.
Jasper White on Corn
From 50 Chowders – One-Pot Meals – Clam, Corn & Beyond by Jasper White (2000)
The flavor of corn combines so naturally and beautifully with other chowder ingredients, it is little wonder that this staple of the American kitchen has found its way into hundreds of chowder recipes. The essence of chowder is making something special out of what is at hand, and for many people, especially those away from the coast, corn fits that criterion. In addition to playing the leading role in Corn Chowder, it performs wonderfully as a supporting ingredient in Lobster and Corn Chowder, Savory Summer Fish Chowder, Chicken Chowder with Corn, and several others.
Canned corn has been around for more than a hundred and fifty years, and its use in corn chowder is probably just as old. I do not use canned corn, but you can substitute canned or frozen niblets by volume in any of the recipes that call for fresh corn. Canned creamed corn has an artificial flavor I dislike, and I do not recommend it. My style of cooking celebrates fresh ingredients, and I don’t like to use foods that are not in season. Since chowder doesn’t call for or need the most tender delicate types of summer corn (trucked-in cellophane-wrapper supermarket corn works fine), I am content to make good corn chowders from fresh corn for eight or nine months of the year.
Types of Corn
The best types of sweet corn for chowder are the hearty yellow or bicolor varieties. Most of the corn in the market today is one of the sugar-enhanced hybrids. Unlike the old-fashioned varieties that need to be rushed from the field to the pot, these maintain their sweetness for long periods. Because of the extended cooking corn receives in chowder, texture is not a factor. When you stop for chowder corn at the supermarket, you most likely won’t have a lot of choice, but the corn will probably be right for chowder. At the farm stand, remember that tender young freshly picked white corn like Silver Queen, which is an ethereal experience when eaten on the cob with butter and salt, will not have the same result cooked in chowder. In either case, look for large ears, preferably of yellow corn; bicolor is the second choice. And it is fine to save a few pennies and buy yesterday’s corn. Some of the best varieties of yellow corn are Earlivee, Kandy Kwik, Sugar Buns, and Tuxedo. Among the most flavorful varieties of bicolor corn are Athos, Double Gem, Delectable, and Clockwork.
I have come across early chowder recipes that call for dried corn, but I’m sure these were driven by necessity, not choice. Sweet corn is a vegetable, but dried corn is a starch. Adding it to a chowder would produce something more akin to porridge than chowder.
Cutting Corn from the Cob
To prepare corn for chowder, husk it, then carefully remove the silk. Wiping the ear with a dry towel will remove any recalcitrant silk. Stand the ear with the tapered end up on the cutting board. Using a sharp knife, cut from top to bottom, keeping the knife close to the cob but not cutting into it. Then use the back of the knife to scrape away the remaining moist bits of corn still attached to the cob — what I call the “milk.” The cobs can be broken in half and added to any stock that is intended for a corn chowder; if you are going to do this, don’t scrape the cob, just leave the milky bits on to flavor the stock.
Jasper White on “Curing” Chowder
The term curing is used in Cape Cod to describe one of the most consequential (and easiest parts) of chowder making — allowing chowder to rest while the flavors meld. Do not underestimate the importance of this process. It is during the resting and cooling-off period that chowder undergoes a metamorphosis, emerging with a deeper flavor and richer texture. Once you cook the chowder and remove it from the heat, you have two options: you can let it sit for up to 1 hour at room temperature to cure, or you can refrigerate it (curing it in the refrigerator) for up to 3 days. A 1-hour resting will improve your chowder immensely, and refrigerating overnight or longer is even better! If you decide to refrigerate your chowder, let it cool at room temperature for 30 minutes, then place it in the refrigerator uncovered. Covering can prolong the cooling process, resulting in a warm center that is ideal for bacterial growth. Bacteria ruins the flavor and shortens the shelf life of food. Cover the chowder only after it has chilled completely. I do not recommend freezing chowder, because it destroys the texture of the ingredients, but the stocks and broths in this book, which are often more time-consuming to make than chowder, can be made up to 2 months in advance and kept frozen. Always date the stocks and broths you store in the freezer.
Printing tip: At the bottom of each article on the site, a print/PDF/email function allows you to print or save a PDF of just the body of the article without any web site formatting. Scroll to the end of the article and find these icons: In the print dialog that opens, you can click on any element you don’t need to remove it from the printed/saved version.
I recently consolidated all I know about these delightful chocolate chip cookies for people I share them with, so here it is:
Serving suggestion the next day: Microwave one cookie for fourteen seconds. You won’t regret it.
The cookies, pictured above in my kitchen in 2010, are my variation of what are widely referred to on the web as the…
Throughout and at the end are my notes on improving and simplifying the recipe and making it more affordable while still delicious.
Ingredients
2 cups minus 2 tablespoons (8 ½ ounces, 240g) cake flour [examples available in supermarkets are Swan’s Down, Softasilk, and King Arthur Cake Blend]
1 ⅔ cups (8 ½ ounces, 240g) bread flour
[You can safely substitute 4 cups/17 ounces/480g of all-purpose flour for the cake and bread flours because the above combination results in a protein content right in the range of all-purpose flour; bread flour is generally 14-16% protein, cake flour is 7 or 8%, and all-purpose flour is 10-12%. King Arthur AP flour is 11.7%]
1 ¼ teaspoons baking soda
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 ½ teaspoons coarse salt [kosher salt to you and me – or you can substitute 1 teaspoon table salt]
2 ½ sticks (1 ¼ cups/10 ounces/280g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 ¼ cups (10 ounces/280g) light brown sugar
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (8 ounces/225g) granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons natural vanilla extract
[My addition: 1 ½ cups pecans, toasted as described in my note 1 below]
1 ¼ pounds/565g bittersweet chocolate disks or fèves, at least 60 percent cacao content (see tip) [see my note 3 on using chocolate that doesn’t require a bank loan]
Sea salt for sprinkling before baking [see my note 4 below]
Tip
Disks are sold at Jacques Torres Chocolate; Valrhona fèves, oval-shaped chocolate pieces, are at Whole Foods. [people with earthbound budgets, see my note 3 below]
Preparation
[Toast pecans as described in my note 1 below and allow to cool]
Sift flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Set aside. [flours generally don’t need sifting these days, so I just measure them into a bowl – the flour by weight – and whisk thoroughly]
Using a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream butter and sugars together until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla. Reduce speed to low, add dry ingredients and mix until just combined, 5 to 10 seconds. Drop [pecans and] chocolate pieces in and incorporate them without breaking them. [See my note 2 below about skipping this next step] Press plastic wrap against dough and refrigerate for 24 to 36 hours. Dough may be used in batches, and can be refrigerated for up to 72 hours.
When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat. Set aside.
[See my note 5 below about portion control – these are way too big] Scoop six 3 1/2-ounce/100g mounds of dough (the size of generous golf balls) onto baking sheet, making sure to turn horizontally any chocolate pieces that are poking up; it will make for a more attractive cookie. Sprinkle lightly with sea salt [I bolded that because it’s really easy to forget] and bake until golden brown but still soft, 18 to 20 minutes. Transfer sheet to a wire rack for 10 minutes, then slip cookies onto another rack to cool a bit more. [I simply slide the parchment off the baking sheet onto my kitchen island] Repeat with remaining dough, or reserve dough, refrigerated, for baking remaining batches the next day. Eat warm, with a big napkin.
My notes on the recipe:
Pecans: They’re essential in chocolate chip cookies for me. Before starting the recipe, I break a cup-and-a-half of pecan halves into quarters – that is, each half into four pieces – and toast them on a parchment-lined baking sheet at 300F for 10-12 minutes. When you start to smell them, they’re toasted. Don’t forget to boost the oven to 350F afterward for the cookies. Add the cooled pecans to the dough just before the chocolate chips go in. Pricing note: Costco sometimes has 2-pound bags of raw pecan halves for about US$13, which is what pecans used to cost down South about 20 years ago. That’s a lot of pecans, but you can freeze them and they won’t go rancid after six months as they would in the cupboard.
The so-called curing stage: Because I found it hard to believe anything can migrate anywhere in what is a very thick cookie dough, especially after chilling, and the fact that the flour will autolyze – soak up the liquid – in well under an hour, I did extensive blind taste-testing with friends when this recipe came out in 2008. We determined definitively that the 24- to 36-hour “curing” in the fridge is a sad example of wishful thinking of the “Sounds gourmet, right?” variety. Any difference in flavor was purely due to different baking times that people unconsciously or consciously used. It brings nothing to the party other than an unforgivable delay in access to your cookies, and who needs that stress?
Inexpensive chocolate: Jacques Torres is a peach of a guy, but forget about his chocolate discs and those Valrhona fèves; they would make these cookies prohibitively expensive. Instead, use two 10-ounce/285g bags of Ghirardelli 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate chips, which are delicious, in shape halfway between a standard chip and a disc (meaning the chocolate spreads well inside the cookies – see the photo), and priced between US$2.99 and $3.39 a bag at Market Basket depending on whether they’re on sale. They’re strangely up to $6.99 a bag at Stop & Shop and other supermarkets, way above Ghirardelli’s suggested list price of US$4.75.
Sea salt: I use Maldon Sea Salt from the UK, available inexpensively on Amazon and in some US supermarkets. It’s also a nice finishing salt for salads, steaks, fish, &c.
Portion control: I find their suggested 3½ ounce/100g scoop size ridiculous – that’s a #10 disher size, what you’d use for an ice cream cone, fercripesake. It’s no wonder so many pictures of attempts at making these you see on the web depict wonky and/or partially raw cookies. I want more cookies that last longer, not cookies the size of Wales that I can’t finish, so I use a heaping tablespoon – a #30 disher or a not-quite-full #24 disher, which yield about an ounce or 30g, will do that nicely. With this size, you’ll get around four dozen cookies.
Discovered among the last few shelves of videotapes going to digital: A 12-hour French Chef marathon I taped when WGBH Boston aired it on Christmas 2004, four months after Julia Child left us. The tapes, with no labels on the spine but Post-its indicating the contents, included seventeen half-hour episodes I didn’t have in digital form before, including S07E20 More About French Bread. I just uploaded that one to YouTube – see below – to go along with the S07E19 French Bread episode someone else previously uploaded that I featured in an article here a couple years ago.
My two favourite series from the lists below are probably Baking with Julia, a thirty-nine episode, nineteen-hour series, and Julia & Jacques: Cooking at Home. The former is mouth-watering throughout – just this week, I watched three episodes on my tablet while waiting for my car window master switch to be replaced and was then compelled to stop at a good bakery – exceedingly rare around here, but one happens to be just half a mile from the Hyundai dealer. In the latter eleven-hour series, filmed in Julia’s Cambridge home when she was 88, Julia and longtime friend Jacques Pépin frequently compare and contrast home and professional cooking techniques and sometimes disagree about various methods – or whether something’s done. She gives him plenty of good-natured sass, but he returns the volley more often than not. Lots of fun.
Windows Explorer tells me I now have 208 files with 105 hours of Julia Child shows in 40 gigs. Absolutely delightful.
Speaking of delightful, the image I grabbed for the video’s thumbnail is when Julia politely shushes Professor Calvel to allow us, too, to hear “la musique du pain”.
Episode Guides
[1963-1973] The French Chef episodes [201×28].txt
[1968] White House Red Carpet with Julia Child [1×58].txt [1978-1979] Julia Child and Company episodes [13×28].txt
[1979-1980] Julia Child and More Company episodes [13×28].txt [1983-1984] Dinner at Julia’s episodes [13×28].txt
[1989] The Way to Cook episodes [6×58].txt [1992] A Birthday Party for Julia Child – Compliments to the Chef [1×58].txt [2021 edit: It appears the official title of the above is “Birthday Tribute to Julia Child: Compliments to the Chef”. It aired on 11 September 1992.
[1993-1994] Cooking with Master Chefs episodes [16×28].txt
[1993-1995] Cooking in Concert episodes [3×85].txt
[1994-1996] In Julia’s Kitchen with Master Chefs [39×28].txt
[1996-1998] Baking with Julia episodes [39×28].txt
[1999-2000] Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home [22×28].txt
[2000] Julia’s Kitchen Wisdom [1×58].txt
[I’ve none of the three in italics]
[1963-1973] The French Chef [51 of 201 eps, the rest on 3 French Chef DVD sets and Amazon Video]
S01E01 Boeuf Bourguignon.avi
S01E02 French Onion Soup.avi
S01E09 Vegetables The French Way.mp4
S01E19 French Crêpes.mp4
S01E20 French Crêpes II.mp4
S01E22 The Potato Show.mp4
S02E02 Cooking Your Goose.mp4
S02E07 Vegetable Adventures.mp4
S02E13 Elegance with Eggs.mp4
S03E17 Bûche de Noël.mp4
S03E20 Croissants.mp4
S05E03 Queen of Sheba Cake.avi
S05E09 Roast Suckling Pig.mp4
S05E10 More About Potatoes.mp4
S06E07 Asparagus from Tip to Butt.mp4
S06E18 Bouillabaisse à la Marseillaise.avi
S06E20 The Spinach Twins.avi
S07E01 Cake with a Halo.mp4
S07E02 Hamburger Dinner.mp4
S07E03 Salade Niçoise.avi
S07E05 Lasagne à la Française.mp4
S07E06 Waiting for Gigot.mp4
S07E07 How About Lentils.mp4
S07E08 Fish in Monk’s Clothing.mp4
S07E09 Gâteau in a Cage.mp4
S07E10 Cheese and Wine Party.avi
S07E11 Curry Dinner.mp4
S07E12 Apple Desserts.avi
S07E12 Apple Desserts.mp4
S07E13 Meat Loaf Masquerade.MP4
S07E14 To Roast a Chicken.mp4
S07E15 Hard Boiled Eggs.mp4
S07E16 Boeuf Bourguignon.mp4
S07E17 Strawberry Soufflé.mp4
S07E18 Spaghetti Flambé.mp4
S07E19 French Bread.mp4
S07E20 More About French Bread.mp4
S08E01 A Vegetable for all Occasions.mp4
S08E02 Pot au Feu.mp4
S08E10 The Whole Fish Story.avi
S08E16 The Lobster Show.avi
S08E18 Mousse au Chocolat.avi
S08E20 To Stuff a Sausage.avi
S09E06 Terrines and Pâtés.mp4
S09E11 Cheese Soufflé.mp4
S09E12 The Good Loaf.avi
S09E13 The Hollandaise Family.mp4
S09E14 Tripes à la Mode.avi
S09E15 Sole Bon Femme.mp4
S09E18 The Omelette Show.avi
S09E20 French Fries.avi
S10E07 VIP Cake.mp4
[1979-1980] Julia Child and More Company [1 of 13 eps]
Julia Child & More Company Summer Dinner.mp4
[1989] Julia Child – The Way to Cook [6 of 6 eps]
01 Poultry.mp4
02 Meat.mp4
03 Vegetables.mp4
04 Soups, Salads, and Bread.mp4
05 Fish and Eggs.mp4
06 First Courses and Desserts.mp4
[1993-1994] Cooking with Master Chefs [16 of 16 eps]
101 Emeril Lagasse.mp4
102 Michel Richard.mp4
103 Patrick Clark.mp4
104 Lidia Bastianich.mp4
105 Charles Palmer.mp4
106 Amy Ferguson-Ota.mp4
107 Robert Del Grande.mp4
108 Jean-Louis Palladin.mp4
109 Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken.mp4
110 Jacques Pépin.mp4
111 Jeremiah Tower.mp4
112 Jan Birnbaum and Lidia Bastianich.mp4
113 Andre Saltner.mp4
114 Nancy Silverton.mp4
115 Jacques Pépin.mp4
116 Alice Waters.mp4
[1993-1995] Cooking in Concert [3 of 3 eps]
Graham Kerr.mp4
Jacques Pépin Holiday Meal.mp4
Jacques Pépin Stuffed Turkey Roulade.mp4
[1996-1998] Baking With Julia [39 of 39 eps]
101 Craig Kominiak.mp4
102 Alice Medrich.mp4
103 Michel Richard.mp4
104 Lora Brody.mp4
105 Marcel Desaulniers.mp4
106 Gale Gand.mp4
107 Norman Love.mp4
108 Lauren Groveman.mp4
109 Mary Bergin.mp4
110 Steve Sullivan.mp4
111 Nancy Silverton.mp4
112 Nick Malgieri.mp4
113 Flo Braker.mp4
201 Esther McManus.mp4
202 Beatrice Ojakangas.mp4
203 Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid.mp4
204 Danielle Forestier.mp4
205 Markus Farbinger.mp4
206 Charlotte Akoto.mp4
207 Marion Cunningham.mp4
208 Johanna Killeen.mp4
209 Leslie Mackie.mp4
210 David Ogonowsk.mp4
211 Joe Ortiz.mp4
212 David Blom.mp4
213 Norman Love.mp4
301 Martha Stewart 1.mp4
302 Martha Stewart 2.mp4
303 Nancy Silverton.mp4
304 Michel Richard.mp4
304a Michel Richard.mp4
304b Michel Richard.mp4
304c Alice Medrich.mp4
305 Lauren Groveman.mp4
306 Johanne Killeen.mp4
307 Marcel Desaulniers.mp4
308 Nick Malgieri.mp4
309 Mary Bergin.mp4
310 Markus Farbinger.mp4
311 Jeffrey Alfor, Naomi Duguid, and Beatrice Ojakangas.mp4
312 Gail Gand and David Blom.mp4
313 Flo Braker and Leslie Mackie.mp4
[1996-1998] In Julia’s Kitchen with Master Chefs [37 of 39 eps]
101 Roberto Donna.mp4
102 Jasper White.mp4
103 Lynne Rossetto Kasper.mp4
104 Jimmy Sneed.mp4
105 Madhur Jaffrey.mp4
106 Daniel Boulud.mp4
107 Jim Dodge.mp4
108 Charlie Trotter.mp4
109 Leah Chase.mp4
110 Christopher Gross.mp4
111 Jody Adams.mp4
112 Zarela Martinez.mp4
113 Jean-Georges Vongerichten.mp4
114 Rick Bayless.mp4
115 Gordon Hamersley.mp4
116 Dean Fearing.mp4
117 Reed Hearon.mp4
118 Johanne Killeen and George Germon.mp4
119 Carol Field.mp4
120 Michael Lomonaco.mp4
121 Monique Barbeau.mp4
122a Jacques Torres.mp4
122b Jacques Torres.mp4
122c Jacques Torres.mp4
123 Alfred Portale.mp4
124 Mark Militello.mp4
125 Julian Serrano.mp4
126 Joachim Splichal.mp4
127 Lynne Rossetto Kasper and Roberto Donna.mp4
128 Jimmy Sneed.mp4
130 Killeen, Germon, and Gross.mp4
131 Daniel Boulud and Gordon Hamersley.mp4
132 Madhur Jaffrey and Reed Hearon.mp4
133 Dean Fearing.mp4
134 Jim Dodge.mp4
135 Jody Adams and Jaochim Splichal.mp4
136 Mark Militello.mp4
137 Jasper White and Zarela Martinez.mp4
138 Alfred Portale.mp4
139 Monique Barbeau and Jaques Torres.mp4
[1999-2000] Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home [22 of 22 eps]
S01E01 Beef.mp4
S01E02 Fruit Desserts.mp4
S01E03 Salad Days.mp4
S01E04 Our Favorite Sandwiches.mp4
S01E05 Vegetables.mp4
S01E06 Beef Stews.mp4
S01E07 Fish.mp4
S01E08 Roast Turkey Dinner.mp4
S01E09 Soup.mp4
S01E10 Eggs.mp4
S01E11 Pork.mp4
S01E12 Creamy Desserts.mp4
S01E13 Shellfish.mp4
S01E14 Roast Chickens.mp4
S01E15 Souffles.mp4
S01E16 Winter Vegetables.mp4
S01E17 Charcuterie.mp4
S01E18 Comfort Food.mp4
S01E19 Salmon.mp4
S01E20 Roasts of Veal and Lamb.mp4
S01E21 Potatoes.mkv
S01E22 Duck.mp4
[2004] Food Network Tributes August 2004
Emeril Live Tribute to Julia Child 2001.mp4
From Martha’s Kitchen with Julia and Jacques 2000.mp4
Julia Child – A Tribute – Food Network 2004.mp4
Sara Moulton – Cooking Live with Julia 1997.mp4
TV’s Greatest Food Moments 2003.mp4
Wolfgang Puck and Julia Child In the Kitchen 2002.mp4
Other
Other [1978] Chicago Tonight interview.mp4
Other [1997] Julia Child – A&E Biography.avi
Other [1997] Julia Child – An Appetite for Life 1997.mp4
Other [2000] Out of the Box with Jack Nadel interview with Julia Child.mp4
Other [2000] Julia’s Kitchen Wisdom.mp4
Other [2001] Chicago Tonight interview.mp4
Other [2005] American Masters – Julia Child.mp4
Other [2008] Julia Child – Culinary Revolutionary – The New School.mp4
Other [2012] Siting Julia – Radcliffe Institute Conference Panels.mp4
Other [2012] Dearie The Remarkable Life of Julia Child.mp4
Other [2014] Sharing Julia Child’s Appetite for Life with Noël Riley Fitch — Dinner in the Library.mp4
Other [2015] American History (After Hours) The French Chef, American-Style.mp4
Other [2017] Alex Prud’homme – The French Chef in America Julia Child’s Second Act (Full Lecture).mp4
Every now and then, I do a search to see if someone has come up with a home method to make wafer sheets, which are tricky even for commercial bakeries, where heavy steel plates, high pressure, and steam are integral to the process. Because their manufacture is so specialised, I don’t hold my breath for a home method to appear, but hey, people are inventive, so I still check.
This time, I found a site that claims you can do it, and easily at that. Have a gander at this link:
“Huh”, I thought. However, right from the start, it all went wrong. At the top, “Health Benefit & Recipes”? Then “a 5 Step Model”, followed by a picture of waffles? What gives? Then there are completely unnecessary and obviously cut-and-paste boxes with large photos and lengthy descriptions explaining what butter and sugar are, for what must produce eight or nine feet of paper if you were to print this ‘recipe’. All the photos in that article are lifted from other sites, and the ingredients are bizarre. There’s no sugar or butter or wet eggs in wafers. To quote myself in 2012, “A basic wafer manufacturer recipe would be along the lines of 200g flour, 280g water, 1g bicarb (baking soda), 1g salt, and 1g vegetable oil, though some add things like dried milk, dried egg yolk, and/or corn starch.” My left eyebrow was a good foot above my forehead by this point, but little did I suspect the hilarity to follow.
For the coup de grace, go down the bottom of that page, where it explains how to roll out the dough and bake the sheets – along with a very large photo of an oven display showing 400F just to make sure you don’t get that part wrong. Now just look at that result at the bottom – why, it’s just like a commercially available wafer sheet. Precisely so, in fact. Bloody genius!
Ridiculous and transparently fraudulent and almost certainly spit out by a not-terribly-bright algorithm under not-so-close human supervision, sure, but what on Earth is the point of cobbling together this fake recipe? I’m still scratching my head.
In the print dialog, you can click any element you don’t need to remove it from the printed/saved version.
