Getting the whites to firm up while retaining the yolk is easy, but if you like a flipped egg with a lightly fried yolk with gooey insides, then learning to properly flip is the only way. Also:
or cheat :D if you really need to flip them, then try it with one of these pancake pans. That's how I make omelets. \O/
Interesting. I could never see myself using one for pancakes or eggs - but omelets? Totally. Although I seem to have gotten the hold on it now, but it took me many tries.
I am making peanut butter pie to take to Thanksgiving. It's something I never heard about until I moved to this part of the country. Nothing in it is good for you except the peanut butter. I'll post some pictures later!
OK, so here's a serious question for serious cooks. I'm looking to up my candy-making game with a full size stand mixer, and I understand that all mixers really do is flaggelate the hell out of some stuff that is in a bowl. So other than bowl sizes and flaggelation speeds, why do prices range from $70 to $400+ on Amazon? Is there that much of a quality difference in the motors or is there something more that I'm missing? I JUST WANT STIFF-PEAKED EGG WHITES AND HAND-WHIPPED CREAM GORRAMIT. I like the cut of your jib.
You can use a simple hand mixer for both of these purposes, unless of course you're whipping like two dozen egg whites. If you're making hefty batters or doughs a standing mixer is good. Get the Kitchen Aid and get the meat grinder attachment and just call it your motorized meat grinder! Mmm delicious ground meats and sausage!
Yes. With stand mixers you'll mostly get what you pay for up to around the $300 range. Beyond that you might just be paying for special colors. Keep in mind that, especially with egg whites and cream, you want a damned heavy machine because you don't want it jumping all over the counter at the high speeds needed for that kind of whisking. ETA: As TrunkDr said, you can get great results for both tasks with a much cheaper hand mixer. Often even better because with a stand mixer you can wind up with some egg white in the bottom of the bowl that didn't get incorporated because of the reach of the attachments.
Those heavy and expensive ones, in my opinion, are only worth it if you're planning on baking with large quantities of ingredients and if you want to do it quite regularly. (I think they're probably extremely handy for making for example bread dough) On the other hand you might just like the look. I have one similar to this one and it's enough. But then, the maximum I bake at any given time is up to 3 cakes/puddings/pies and I never make my own bread or pie dough. There's a very nice italian bakery just around the corner for that :)
The $300 Kitchenaid is the one I have (or however much it is now) and it's a good one for home cooking use. Mine does a great job of whipping cream and beating egg whites. I actually have an immersion blender also, but (imo) it really is a somewhat one-trick pony, and not really good as a mixer.
I fairly consistently make my own bread, buns, and rolls (not to mention pizza dough) and the stand mixer is pretty great for that. It's also a big time saver when it comes to shredding meats. Instead of the two-fork method, I just toss the meat (usually chicken or pork, still warm) in the mixer with the paddle attachment and it'll shred it down quite well in about a minute. I've had it for nearly ten years, never had any problems with it.
OK, Peanut Butter Pie: Here are your players. As I mentioned, none of this is healthy: It all goes in the mixer in various orders: Voila: Pie Into the freezer it goes, to be thawed out for Thanskgiving dinner. I can tell already that it will be EPIC.
Athryn: liking that because I can't LOVE it. Thanks all. I was being a little flippant as I'm looking to do more than just whip up egg whites, including full-on meringues, marshmallows*, and whipped ganaches, plus using it for regular mixer things like bread or cake. Hand mixers don't do it for me because instead of hitting "go" and doing something else for a couple minutes (which is extremly valuable time in candy making) you have to hold the mixer, hold the bowl, pay attention, etc. *Hand mixing these = fail. There wasn't nearly enough agitation and the final texture was similar to gummy worms. :(
The best stand mixer you can buy is a KitchenAid Artisan 5-qt. It's heavy enough that it won't walk itself off the counter, the attachments reach the bottom of the bowl so you don't get little bits left down there, and its engine means business. KitchenAid puts out a bunch of colors a season that inevitably get discontinued after a few months. Keep an eye out for these to go on clearance - I got mine for almost half price by buying a spring color in midsummer.
Here's the one I'm considering: http://www.target.com/p/kitchenaid-classic-plus-stand-mixer-white/-/A-592769 Amazon says it's normally $300 but currently going for $229. Target also has it for $229 and I can pick it up on the way home today. It's not the artisan series but it is a KitchenAid and has nearly flawless reviews on both Amazon and Target. Using the comparison tool on KitchenAid's website, my choice has slightly less volume (4.5qt v. 5qt) and fewer accessories (no pouring shield in the box, a lighter-weight wisk, etc.) but otherwise is about comparable. Oh, and it's not available in cornflower blue. ;)
KitchenAid Classic is a really strong option as long as you're not a heavy bread baker. If you are, you'll burn through them at a pretty depressing rate.
I don't normally go in for cake baking, but I had a go at making a Honey and Ginger cake. It smelt good in the oven and didn't look too bad when I took it out. Since then there have been a steady succession of astro-physicists knocking on the door asking if they can have a look at our black hole. It was a little on the dense side.
For what it's worth, the pouring shield has been completely useless in my experience. Just another thing to clean when you're done, and I didn't find that it helped at all in the pouring process. Just pour right into the bowl. If a little flour escapes now and then, that's the price of baking.
Alright not to keep the thread all about ME ME ME but candy making shit just got real, yo. These marshmallows already taste like the real thing compared to my last hand-whipped attempt. The texture is just that important. SCORE.
That is what I have at home and it works fine. The only thing to really look out for with the new kitchen aid stand mixers is they now use nylon gears instead of metal. If you hear and smell the mixer struggling, lower the work load or you will kill the insides quickly. I use mine for all kinds of stuff and have had no issues. We use their commercial brand at the school and after 3 years of heavy constant use we have lost only two. One because it was put on the edge at high speed and rocked off, the other was due to too much stiff dough and the motor burned out. My advice (that someone already gave) is you will get what you pay for (outside buying a different color) when it comes to any kitchen gear/tools.
We received the Artisan as a wedding gift and I exchanged it + $100 for the Pro. It's a badass mixer and I highly recommend it. But unless you do a lot of baking, I'm not sure I would have spent $400 on it.
Not sure if that will work for me, I never flip to the other side, I put a layer of cheese and sometimes a layer of meat on there to get that warming up immediately before covering with the other bread and flipping over. Are you saying cook the mayo side? Kinda tough to cover the pan I used. I flipped two fried eggs today and they came out OK, but the second one the yolk was all the way on the side and I was afraid it would break if I tried to pick it up too early, so I ended up having no gooey goodness on that one. The good news is that this has motivated me to try something else. I think the family being over for Thanksgiving this week will give me a great chance to spend some time cooking with my mom. I've had years of that opportunity but never took it, but now I feel like it's time I really pay attention to what she's doing, and hopefully some day go to Poland and make my grandmother proud.
Re stand mixers: if you don't bake somewhat regularly you don't need one. If you do you need one. They're pricey (300 or so, prime target for the rare 20% off bed bath and beyond coupons), but the upside is that your grand kids will probably end up using it.
Also: with the holidays coming, it's baking time. I started baking a few years ago to supplement my stove top work, and it's turned out shockingly well; my desserts are tremendously popular. This year for Thanksgiving (which is at my cousin's house) I'm going to be baking a pumpkin roulade, which is sort of rolled cake with a cream cheese filling. I'll also be making my Tres Leche cake, which is normally a Christmas exclusive, but a lot of the relatives coming to Thanksgiving this year won't be at Christmas, so I'm going to make an exception. For Christmas desserts, I'm going to make the Tres Leche cake again, along with some mini raspberry cheesecakes (cupcake sized cheesecakes basically) and a desert called Dacquoise, which consists of layers of meringue sandwiched with hazlenut buttercream frosting and then covered with chocolate ganache. That's an ambitious undertaking, but I've got to do last year's surprise hit, which was a three layer chocolate mousse that was just divine!
It was a bit of a gamble on my part in terms of the overall difficulty of assembling the thing, and the presentation. As it turned out the layers weren't quite perfectly even throughout but that didn't matter, it was absolutely delicious. The other part of the surprise is that it may have been more popular than the tres Leche, which is a perennial favorite and one I'm basically injuncted against never not making.
Yah it's great stuff. We used to get it from a Portuguese joint, when they closed up I took over (and have since surpassed the original).
Yes. Commercial mayo is essentially 1 part egg, 1 million parts oil. It stays where you put it, it doesn't burn as easily as butter, and it's delicious. You use it as the cooking fat, and instead of (for example) melting the butter and brushing it on, you just spread the mayo thinly across the grill-side of the bread.
Finished marshmallows pic: Part A: 3 tbsp (three packets if you buy it that way) gelatin 1/2 cup cold water put the gelatin in the water in a metal bowl; set aside. Part B: 1/2 cup powdered/confectioners sugar 1/2 cup cornstarch sift these two together; set aside. Part C: 3/2 cup granulated sugar 3/4 cup light corn syrup 1/4 cup honey 1/2 cup water combine all these in a saucepan; cook up to 250F (121C). pour hot syrup into mixing bowl and let cool undisturbed to 210F (99C). while cooling, melt the gelatin from Part A in a hot water bath. once it hits 210F, pour in the melted gelatin. Part D: 1 tbsp vanilla extract whip on high speed for about 6-7 minutes (it will be very light almost like whip cream). pour in vanilla extract while whipping. when finished, use oiled spatula to pour mixture into oiled baking pan (I use a square one about 9in = 23cm on a side). use spatula (or a fancy offset palette knife if you are a real chef) to smooth the mixture in the pan. let rest for at least 2 hours; I waited 3; some recipes call for overnight. once rested, remove the square marshmallow loaf from the pan and dredge in the mix from Part B. using kitchen shears or a knife and board, cut the loaf into 1in = 2.5cm squares. dredge each square in the Part B mix so that it doesn't stick. store in airtight container. On my picture above, you'll see one half the mallows are brown. Halfway through the loaf I added some cocoa powder to the Part B mix and dredged them in that to make them faintly chocolatey. I have not tried those yet so I hope they don't suck! :) Oh also, since I have a BRAND NEW KITCHEN STAND MIXER FROM TARGET ON SALE NOW ONLY TWO TWENTY NINE NINETY NINE, divinity happened today: I didn't grok the nice shaping-with-spoons method until near the end so they're a bit unsmooth and the grains all over the place are unsifted powdered sugar; so they look kind of weird. But I ate a little piece from the bowl which hadn't yet rested and HOLY GOD IN HEAVEN LORD JESUS they are good.
Divinity is really the best. My grandmother used to make Divinity fudge, I have the recipe kicking around somewhere.
Thanksgiving, circa 1975: you know "that dish"? The one that if it's not on the table, the family is appallled? When it comes out to the table everyone says "Oh, there's the _____!" The one that may or may not actually get eaten, but if it's not present, it's just not the same? My grandmother's "that dish" was pearl onions in a cheese sauce with bread crumbs, baked. I am trying to re-create it for my incredulous SF Bay Area in-laws. I believe it was originally pearl onions, melted velveeta, and bread crumbs from one of those cardboard tubes, but I may be underestimating my grandmother's cooking. All the recipes I'm finding are for cream sauce with a bit of cheese in it, maybe with bacon, or broccoli, or garlic, herbs, and caramelized onions. (Frankly, they all sound better than the original.) I can't find what I think of as the canonical onions-in-cheese recipe. I am sad. I may not be able to recreate Gramma's Oklahoma cuisine. Perhaps it is for the best.
I agree with your last sentence, 'cause that sounded friggin' disgusting. I understand what you mean...it took us years to convince my mother to stop making that nasty green bean casserole.
Have been adopted into a Russian Thanksgiving tomorrow...will post any interesting new recipes, if I acquire them. I feel like I should cook today, but once my roommate goes to work it'll be just me in the apartment for a day and a half. So it seems like way, way too much effort. :P
This is pretty much the closest I've found http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1650,158181-250202,00.html I'm pretty sure I've decided to do pearl onions and broccoli in a cheese sauce (real cheese, not Velveeta -- that was always off the table anyway) and do a bit of caramelization and garlic. It won't be much like her dish, but people might actually eat it. I'm only sticking with the onions because I already bought a ridiculous amount of them. Gramma's entire stock of recipes (which she would always share enthusiastically) consisted of recipes from the back of boxes and cans, and recipes cut out from the local newspaper, all of which involved opening a box, can, or frozen package of some sort, always identified prominently by brand name.
shift6, are you working from Peter Greweling's Chocolates and Confections? If you are not, for the love of god, go buy it. It's the single best candymaking resource there is.
See you in the drunk thread! I am! And I just added his other book Chocolates and Confections: Formula, Theory, and Technique for the Artisan Confectioner to my Amazon wishlist earlier today. It is a fan-damn-tastic book, no doubt.
