My Madison Bistro
Feb 12 2011
I’ve mentioned before my love of frosting, especially frosting from certain bakeries. I was never sure quite what they did; I knew it wasn’t a meringue style buttercream, but it also didn’t taste like the homemade buttercream I make (butter plus confectioners’ sugar).
No, their frosting is bright white. I knew from experience that making frosting using non-hydrogenated shortening and confectioners’ sugar didn’t produce quite the right texture or flavor, either.
Feb 12 2011
At any given time, I have several variations of flour at my disposal: whole wheat, all purpose, bread, cake, almond, whole wheat pastry…
With that many varieties, it stands to reason that I sometimes run out of one or more. The kind I run out of most often? Cake. I tend to buy it when I need it but don’t really pay attention when I use it up, because I generally use it for one recipe: vanilla cupcakes.
When I decided to make some Valentine’s cupcakes, I realized I had no cake flour. But you know what? It doesn’t matter. As long as you have all purpose flour and some cornstarch in your pantry, you have everything you need.
To achieve a similar-textured flour, for every one cup of cake flour called for in a recipe, subtract 2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour and replace with cornstarch, then sift the flour/cornstarch combination a minimum of 3 times (more wouldn’t hurt).
A helpful hint here is to remember that there are 4 tablespoons in 1/4 cup. And if you happen to have a kid who doesn’t think they’ll ever need to know how to add and subtract fractions in the real world, have them help you make cake flour for a recipe sometime.
Feb 10 2011
I made way, way too much food for the Super Bowl this year. Though excited about the pretzels, we were simply too stuffed from everything else.
The good news is that these are extremely easy to make, though they do take a little time because you first poach the pretzels, then bake them. Still, in the grand scheme of things, big deal, right? I mean, they are homemade soft pretzels.
Feb 07 2011
For a few weeks now, I’ve had a craving for Oreos.
I thought about buying some, but I remembered seeing a recipe for the homemade version, and with the Super Bowl coming up, I thought, why not make them for the game?
I could make them a day ahead, leaving gameday for things that had to be done day-of… perfect. These were very easy to make, taste quite a bit like the real deal, and best yet, I could make some with a smaller amount of frosting to make someone else happy, as well as a few overly stuffed with frosting to replicate my beloved Double Stuf.
During the scary moments of last night’s game, these came in handy. They brought with them the comfort of a familiar cookie in a more grown-up version.
