Just A Note
Hi! Just a quick note while I am waiting for muffins to come out of the oven. On Saturday, Dana and Jim (friends from my hometown) came to visit and we harvested pears! Lots of pears! Even the muffins I am making are Pear Muffins. We had enough to load a 2-gallon jar with the makings of Pear Liquor. I would post a picture but that would mean finding the camera, loading the picture, useing Blogger for pictures (always a lengthy process) and I am really hoping I will get called into school tomorrow so I should get to bed as soon as the muffins cool.
As a result of all this baking for the holidays I have learned that one of the thousand cookbooks we own is not reliable. If you have Gale Gand's "Just A Bite": Beware! I have made several recipes from this book and none of them were stellar. They weren't really bad (except for the canneles) but they weren't really great either. Most of the recipes are of the fiddly sort, Monday you do step one, Tuesday you do step two, or first you blanche the almonds, then you add all the seasonings, then you stir for 20 minutes etc. If I am going to put that sort of time into a recipe (not to mention the cost of the ingredients) I want at least "pretty good" before I repeat the experiment.
On the other hand I have never had a problem with any cookbook written by Rose Levy Berenbaum (The Cake Bible, The Bread Bible and so on) my cakes etc may not have been as beautiful as the author's but the taste was always outstanding. I suppose if I practiced more and had more patience (I want to taste it now!) my cakes would look a little better, but I know how good her recipes taste. Rose is one of my favorite cooks (hey, look! Another person I have never met who is one of the family) and I love the explanations she gives for why you should do things her way. Not only do you get good (delicious!) food, but you learn more about the science of baking. Give her a try!
As a result of all this baking for the holidays I have learned that one of the thousand cookbooks we own is not reliable. If you have Gale Gand's "Just A Bite": Beware! I have made several recipes from this book and none of them were stellar. They weren't really bad (except for the canneles) but they weren't really great either. Most of the recipes are of the fiddly sort, Monday you do step one, Tuesday you do step two, or first you blanche the almonds, then you add all the seasonings, then you stir for 20 minutes etc. If I am going to put that sort of time into a recipe (not to mention the cost of the ingredients) I want at least "pretty good" before I repeat the experiment.
On the other hand I have never had a problem with any cookbook written by Rose Levy Berenbaum (The Cake Bible, The Bread Bible and so on) my cakes etc may not have been as beautiful as the author's but the taste was always outstanding. I suppose if I practiced more and had more patience (I want to taste it now!) my cakes would look a little better, but I know how good her recipes taste. Rose is one of my favorite cooks (hey, look! Another person I have never met who is one of the family) and I love the explanations she gives for why you should do things her way. Not only do you get good (delicious!) food, but you learn more about the science of baking. Give her a try!
posted by NeedleTart | 9:30 PM
6 Comments:
I am helping Kristy respond to all the knitters that have signed up for CAP!Thank you so much! We are so excited about the tremendous response! We are sure that this will be a success. If you have any questions you can e-mail at grandmotherpurl@hotmail.com
I'm just impressed that you A. cook, and B. follow a recipe...knitting is the closest thing I've ever come to doing B. (Thanks for your comment on my blog btw--nice to meet you;-)
I am not sure i've ever had pear muffins, but that sounds good. I'd hate to do a recipe that has several different steps in it and then have it not turn out.
That reminds me, a few weeks ago I did make a recipe sort of like that. It was a pudding pie made from scratch and it was layers...chocolate, coconut cream, chocolate, and then marange (spelling?) on the top. The pudding cooked up nice, tasted good, was thick, then i put it in the refriderator and it got soupy on me. argh!! I ended up freezing it and pretended it was ice cream pie.
Anyways, I have seen those cookbooks called the Cake Bible, Bread Bible, etc.
(Re:Comment on my blog earlier:-) Thanks for the book rec's--I do like Elizabeth Moon, although I'm sort of on a huge vampire lit phase...Kim Harrison is currently on the top of my list! My books are available on Amazon.com (although do read the reviews first to see if you'd like them...I'm so flattered by people's interest but I don't want them to be disappointed)--thanks for the interest, and for the recommendations!
Sorry about your cat, but it is nice to hear that I'm not alone! I've always been blessed with cats that didn't care (or at least didn't protest) if the cat litter was two or three days old, but now I have one with a super-sensitive nose! The only place we have room for a litter box is a little dining cove off the kitchen, so she pees under the dining room table and it's soaked into the floor! Maybe one day it will fade, and in the meantime I hope my landlord doesn't have reason to stop by....
How does one make Pear Liquor? Sounds delicious!
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