Have fun making whoopie pies at home.
Photo courtesy SurLaTable.com.

The baking specialist has created a whoopie pie pan that makes it easy to get perfect cake “sandwich” halves. Otherwise, you have to drop batter with a cookie scoop onto a baking sheet, and pray that they’ll spread to even sizes. (Perhaps there’s so much filling in a whoopie pie to distract from the uneven cake layers.)

The nonstick pan is currently an exclusive at Sur La Table for $12.95. It makes 12 tops/bottoms, enough to make just 6 whoopie pies. That’s not a lot of output for all that effort of mixing, baking and cleanup: You’ll have to make a few batches to meet what will no doubt be great demand.

Find more of our favorite cookies and recipes in our Gourmet Cookies & Brownies section.

Ingredients
• 2 tablespoons peach purée (made from ripe peaches)
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 4 raspberries
• Lemon wedge for garnish
• Optional garnish: fresh mint sprig
• Ice

Preparation
1. Muddle lemons, peach purée, raspberries and lemon juice in a water glass or collins glass.
2. Add ice and fill the glass with cold water. Mix well. Sweeten to taste (but don’t overdo the sweetener—the goal is to taste the peaches and raspberries).
3. Serve with a lemon wedge and a straw.

To make a whole pitcher, multiply the ingredients by the number of people you want to serve, muddle in the pitcher, add ice and water and stir vigorously.

You can garnish lemonade glasses with
sanding sugar—or, for the Margarita crowd,
salt! Photo courtesy Whole Foods Market.

Half &half for people cutting calories and/or
fat. Photo by Jerry Deutsch | THE NIBBLE.

Our milk of choice is Special Request Skim Plus from Farmland Dairies. It adds additional milk protein to skim milk; the result tastes like 2% milk instead of 0%. It’s costlier because of the expense of the milk protein, but it’s more than worth it.

One cup of Farmland Special Request Skim Plus Milk contains 110 calories, no fat, 11 grams of protein and 405 milligrams of calcium. It’s not only lower in calories, but more nutritious than whole milk, which contains 149 calories, 8 grams of fat, 8 grams of protein and 302 milligrams of calcium found in whole milk. (Regular skim milk has 80 calories/cup; the extra calories in Skim Plus come from the added protein.)

Farmland Dairies dairy serves the East Coast, but other regional dairies have similar products. Try “super skim” and see how much more enjoyable milk-drinking can be. If you do live in the area, here’s a $1.00 coupon to try any of the products (good through October 31, 2010).

But Farmland Dairy’s FFH&H is made only from skim milk and milk, enhanced with vitamins A and D. It really tastes good! As with the Skim Plus milk, more milk protein and calcium are added to create creaminess. The MSRP for a quart is $2.99.

Milk-Buying Tips From Farmland Dairies

• Make the dairy case your last stop before checking out. At the checkout counter, have milk packed next to other refrigerated or frozen foods to keep it cool.

• Don’t leave milk in a hot car while you run other errands. Fifteen to twenty minutes in a hot car is enough to raise the temperature of a carton of milk ten degrees and shorten the storage life of the milk.

• Refrigerate milk as soon as you get home, before you unpack your other groceries.

• Keep your refrigerator temperature at 40°F or lower. As the refrigerator temperature goes up, the storage life of milk goes down.

• After opening, ultra-pasteurized milk and all other milk products should be consumed within approximately seven days, regardless of the “sell by” date. Once the carton is opened, the air that is introduced contributes to spoilage and effectively voids the “sell by” date.

• Temperature control is critical: One degree will affect freshness. Don’t leave milk standing out on the counter. If you leave it at the table (in the carton, pitcher or carafe), put it in a dish of ice.

But our mother—who makes the fluffiest scrambled eggs—reminds us that we left out one important tip:

• Eggs at room temperature will take in more air than cold eggs. If you don’t have time to let them come to room temperature, put the whole eggs in a bowl and cover them with hot water for five minutes.

• Add a tablespoon of milk per two eggs. (Half and half or cream will make richer eggs—but scrambled eggs in butter are, in our opinion, rich enough.)

For fluffier scrambled eggs, beat in lots
of air. Photo by Zsuzsanna Kilian | SXC.

• Don’t salt the beaten eggs (salt toughens eggs); wait until they have set in the pan before sprinkling with salt.

• If you have herbs, add them to the mix. We love snipping tiny bits of chive into our scrambled eggs. And if you have any shreds of smoked salmon to add… (Fade in Fred Astaire singing, “Heaven, I’m in heaven….”)*

Find more egg recipes and tips in our Eggs Section.

*From “Cheek to Cheek” by Irving Berlin.

Instead of mayo, make potato salad with
bacon vinaigrette. Photo by J.Java | Fotolia.

Given America’s desire for all things bacon, put German Potato Salad on your menu. Made with bacon and onions or scallions, it can be enjoyed hot or cold.

Here‘s the recipe.

Find more potato salad recipes.

By the way, in Germany this dish is just called “potato salad” (or Kartoffelsalat).