Baking Rules a Pro Says You Can Ignore
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Tempering Eggs: Don't Bother
Chefs and many cookbooks suggest using the technique—which consists of gently incorporating raw eggs into a warm liquid or sauce, most often for custard or ice cream—in order to raise the eggs' temperature without running the risk of curdling or scrambling them. This classic maneuver also happens to involve a lot of annoying back-and-forth pouring and dirtying multiple bowls. Tosi doesn't buy it, since she's found that if you incorporate enough of a recipe's other ingredients into the eggs and blend it all immediately, and then heat that mixture all together, you're still changing the eggs' temperature gradually—without all the fuss.
It's Okay to Use Food Coloring and Supermarket Spices
At Milk Bar, the bakers don't use an ungodly amount of food coloring, but they use a little, since people expect banana desserts to look yellowish, and cooked bananas are decidedly not (they're an unappetizing brown). The bakery also uses McCormick spices. Tosi doesn't feel any reverse snobbery toward cooks who'd rather freshly grind their own whole spices, but "if you already have them powdered, there's no shame in that," she writes.
Get the recipe: Compost Cookies
More Baking Advice
Chefs and many cookbooks suggest using the technique—which consists of gently incorporating raw eggs into a warm liquid or sauce, most often for custard or ice cream—in order to raise the eggs' temperature without running the risk of curdling or scrambling them. This classic maneuver also happens to involve a lot of annoying back-and-forth pouring and dirtying multiple bowls. Tosi doesn't buy it, since she's found that if you incorporate enough of a recipe's other ingredients into the eggs and blend it all immediately, and then heat that mixture all together, you're still changing the eggs' temperature gradually—without all the fuss.
It's Okay to Use Food Coloring and Supermarket Spices
At Milk Bar, the bakers don't use an ungodly amount of food coloring, but they use a little, since people expect banana desserts to look yellowish, and cooked bananas are decidedly not (they're an unappetizing brown). The bakery also uses McCormick spices. Tosi doesn't feel any reverse snobbery toward cooks who'd rather freshly grind their own whole spices, but "if you already have them powdered, there's no shame in that," she writes.
Get the recipe: Compost Cookies
More Baking Advice
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