THE NIBBLE BLOG: Products, Recipes & Trends In Specialty Foods


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COOKING TIPS: The Butterball Hotline (1.800.288.8372) & Turkey-Carving Video

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Don’t thaw in the bathtub while bathing the kids.

For 10 months a year, the Butterball Hotline is an automated tip line. But for almost 30 years, live operators take over during peak turkey season, November and December, and a tidal wave of people (last year, around 100,000) phone for their advice. If we may cross over to fiction for a moment, even President Jed Bartlett called for help, in one of the more endearing scenes on “The West Wing.”

The 55 operators who staff Butterball’s Turkey Talk-Line know their stuff(ing): All have degrees in home economics, food science or nutrition. While some have been on the line since its inception, newbies are trained to address every situation, from the banal but necessary (optimal size turkey to buy, thawing techniques, cooking times and temperatures, amount of stuffing needed, how to use a meat thermometer, carving knives, presentation tips and food-safety concerns) to the erratic (you’d be surprised how many people thaw the turkey in the bathwater while bathing the kids).

More recently, everyone has had to come up the curve on deep fat frying a turkey, which has become a more popular way to prepare the holiday bird. (But don’t get too excited—it’s the least healthy way to prepare a turkey.)

The hotline, 1.800.288.8372, is available 365/24/7.

  • One thing you need a visual demonstration of is carving. See a video on how to carve a turkey, from Chef Daniel Humm of one of our favorite restaurants, NYC’s Eleven Madison Park (and a James Beard Foundation Rising Chef award winner).

 

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TOP PICK OF THE WEEK: Sprinkles Cupcake Mix

In greater Los Angeles, home to Sprinkles Cupcakes,* there is the usual discussion board controversy. You’ll read everything from they’re “the best there is” to “avoid at all costs.” We only know Sprinkles cupcakes from their mixes. We’ve made every one, and we stand firmly with “the best there is” crowd. Maybe your homemade cupcakes are as good, but they can’t be much better.

*The original store is in Beverly Hills. There are outposts in Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Newport Beach, Phoenix/Scottsdale and Palo Alto, with 16 additional locations on the boards (see the website).

If you’re looking for a better cupcake than what you can buy…if you’re tired of trying recipes, only to find that they’re not what you were hoping for…we hope that your search, like ours, has come to an end. Your new favorite gourmet cake mix purveyor is Candace Nelson, co-founder (with her husband) of Sprinkles Cupcakes. Some day we’ll get to a Sprinkles bakery; until then, we can only judge the cupcakes made from the mixes as A to A+.

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The best cupcakes in town are at your house,
with Sprinkles cupcake mixes. Photo by Victoria Pearson | Sprinkles.

We baked up all seven cupcake mixes: Banana, Dark Chocolate, Lemon, Pumpkin, Red Velvet, Spice and Vanilla. There’s also Chocolate Peppermint which, along with Pumpkin, is a seasonal mix flavor.

  • Read the full review to discover our favorites and how to make the best cupcakes in town.
  • Find more of our favorite cupcakes and recipes in THE NIBBLE’s Gourmet Cakes Section.

 

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TIP OF THE DAY: Glamorous Garnishing, Up Your Game In Food Garnishes

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A bowl of tomato soup garnished with crab-meat, fresh basil, shredded Grana Padano cheese and snipped chives (photo © Wisconsin Dairy)..

 

Remember when a garnish meant parsley? Today, part of the creativity in cooking is the choice of edible garniture. Just a bit of glamorous garnishing makes any plate look better.

Try whole or halved cherry or grape tomatoes or actual grapes, caperberries with stems (or scatter small capers on the plate), beads of whitefish caviar, edible flowers…

There are dozens of tasty choices whether your course is sweet or savory.

So whether you’re presenting the turkey, yams, stuffing, cranberries, or other dishes tomorrow, consider whether sprigs of rosemary, orange peel, dill, or other garnish (yes, even parsley) can make them even more of a visual “wow.”

> For a cornucopia of ideas, see our article on glamorous garnishes.

 

 
 

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GIFT: Thanksgiving Cookie Basket From Corso’s Cookies

We received a Thanksgiving cookie bouquet and, though surrounded by piles of food samples requiring tasting, took a moment from the work of the day to relax with a cup of tea and enjoy the hand-decorated turkeys, pumpkins and ears of corn.

While many cookie bouquets are sugar cookies—hard and pretty flavorless—Corso’s Cookies produces softer, higher-quality shortbread, made with butter and almond flavoring. Even after a big lunch, they were popular with our group of Nibblers.

If you’ve missed the opportunity to send a Thanksgiving bouquet prior to the big day, there’s still time to send some for weekend enjoyment—or a Thank You bouquet to your dinner host. And of course, there are Happy Anything Else, Congratulations Get Well and many more cookie greetings. With the skyrocketing cost of paper greeting, cookie bouquets may become the new standard way of messaging.

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We gobbled them up! Photo courtesy CorsosCookies.com.

 

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Pumpkin Frozen Yogurt Or Pumpkin Ice Cream Pie Recipe

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[1] Here’s a different pumpkin pie for your holiday: made with pumpkin ice cream or frozen yogurt.


[2] Graeter’s, one of our favorite of the smaller brands, has a limited-edition pumpkin ice cream (photo © Graeter’s).


[3] Check your supermarket for pumpkin pie ice cream from Edy’s/Dreyer’s. Bonus: It’s their light (lower fat) variety. (photo © Dreyer’s).


[4] You can buy gingersnaps or make them, with this recipe (photo © McCormick).

 

If you’re looking for something special beyond the traditional pumpkin pie, how about an ice cream or frozen yogurt pumpkin pie? This recipe, created by Louise McLane, comes to us from one of our favorite frozen yogurt purveyors, Sweet Scoops. The stores are filled with ice cream and yogurt in seasonal flavors.

Just scoop the frozen delight into a pie shell and top it with toffee bits, chopped nuts, and a chocolate and/or caramel drizzle.

Of course, the pie will taste that much better if you use the gingersnap crumb crust below.
 
 
RECIPE: PUMPKIN ICE CREAM PIE

The best nuts to use in this recipe are hazelnut, pecans or walnuts. If you want to omit the nuts, substitute unshelled pumpkin seeds.

We added some raisins to the mix, for a flavor counterpoint.
 
Ingredients For The Filling

  • 2 pints pumpkin ice cream or frozen yogurt
  • Chocolate glaze (recipe below) or purchased chocolate sauce/fudge sauce
  • Toppings: toffee bits, nut, crushed crystallized ginger, etc.
  • Optional: whipped cream or marshmallow cream
  •  
    For The Gingersnap Crumb Crust

  • 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
  • 1½ cups gingersnap crumbs (24 small gingersnaps, crushed and pulsed in a food processor until finely ground)
  • 2 tablespoons sugar
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  •  
    For The Chocolate Glaze

  • 2 ounces (2 squares) bittersweet chocolate
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  •  
    Preparation

    1. BAKE the crust. Place an oven rack in the middle position and preheat the oven to 350°F.

    2. LIGHTLY BUTTER a 9″ pie pan. Stir together all crust ingredients in a bowl and press evenly on the bottom and up the sides of the pie pan.

    3. BAKE until crisp, 12 to 15 minutes. Cool on a rack to room temperature. As it cools, set the ice cream on the counter to soften.

    4. SPOON the softened ice cream evenly into the cooled pie shell. Place in the freezer while you prepare the topping.

    5. MIX together the nuts and toffee bits. Sprinkle liberally and evenly on top of the pie. Press them slightly into the surface to adhere. Return the pie to the freezer while you prepare the glaze.

    6. MELT the chocolate and butter in a double boiler or a small bowl over a pan of hot water on moderate heat. Either way, do not let the bottom of the bowl touch the water. Stir until completely smooth.

    7. USE a spoon to drizzle spoonfuls of the glaze over the pie in a zigzag pattern.

    8. RETURN the pie to the freezer before serving, for a half-hour or until the glaze starts to look dull.
     
     
    > THE HISTORY OF ICE CREAM

    > THE HISTORY OF PUMPKIN PIE

    > THE HISTORY OF PUMPKIN

     

     

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