TIP OF THE DAY: Tips For Baking Cakes

You need “technique” to bake a great cake. Photo courtesy ValerieConfections.com.   Want to make a cake as good as this one? Today’s tips for successful baking come from Pat Sinclair, a food consultant and author of Baking Basics and Beyond: Learn These Simple Techniques and Bake Like a Pro, and co-author of Scandinavian Classic…
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TIP OF THE DAY: Make Hazelnut Butter

Compound butter is delicious atop a steak; just don’t tell your cardiologist. Above, herb, gorgonzola and hazelnut butters. Photo courtesy AllenBrothers.com.   Here’s a treat from Chef Johnny Gnall: hazelnut butter—the compound butter, not the peanut butter spread alternative. He learned it a while back while working at Aziza restaurant in San Francisco, and is…
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TIP OF THE DAY: How To Make A Purée or Coulis

A slice of blueberry cheesecake with blueberry purée. Photo © Rohit Seth | Fotolia.   We asked Chef Johnny Gnall to discourse on purées—an easy way to add elegance to sweet or savory dishes. A purée is a terrific way to showcase a fruit or vegetable in a different way. This versatile sauce allows you…
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TIP OF THE DAY: Cheese And Honey For Dessert

A cheese plate with honeycomb. Photo courtesy Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board.   Some of the most sophisticated diners don’t think of ending a meal with baked goods, ice cream, pudding or other sugary dessert. Instead, they prefer a plate of cheese. Available in every texture from soft and creamy to hard and grainy, an assortment…
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TIP OF THE DAY: Why Your Favorite Food Products Are Discontinued

This week we received an email from a reader asking what happened to Bibi Caffe, a line of elegant, imported Italian sodas we reviewed in 2007. She wanted to know why the line was no longer sold in the USA, and asked if there was “any way to get it at all?” If “at all”…
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