The Kitchn Archive: Sep 2013

If you’ve ever gone off book while following a baking recipe, you know the results can be disastrous. The chemistry of baking doesn’t lend itself as naturally to experimentation as cooking does — so how do the professionals do it? To answer that question we turned to Jenny McCoy, an awarding-winning pastry chef, baking instructor, and the author of Jenny McCoy’s Desserts for Every Season, who shared her advice for becoming a better, more intuitive baker.

If you’re an avid baker, you’ve probably heard that room temperature eggs make for better baked goods — but how much better? The curious folks at America’s Test Kitchen did some experimenting to find out if using cold eggs makes a noticeable difference in homemade cakes, or if pulling them straight out of the fridge is just fine.

Every sweet treat has a story. We often tell the stories of home kitchens and cooks here at The Kitchn, but we’re also curious about how professional kitchens work and how entrepreneurs build their businesses. Our Maker Tours tell these stories, and today we’re looking back at 10 of our favorites. Each of these tours is a sweet treat in its own way, from a visit to Jeni’s Ice Creams a few years back, to Kim Boyce’s whole grain-inspired bakery in Portland.

A can of chickpeas, an avocado, whole wheat couscous, a tube of harissa paste — these probably weren’t your mother’s pantry staples, but they have become the new basics in many home kitchens. They are also the foundation for quick, flavorful and healthy lunches that keep well, and today chef and author Aida Mollenkamp tells us how to turn a handful of these modern pantry staples into appealing and affordable lunches that come together in about ten minutes.

A popular headline resurfaced last week, and it was hard to miss. “Are you eating beaver butt?” The surprising answer is maybe if you eat any processed or pre-packaged foods. The FDA-approved food additive castoreum is a common vanilla substitute billed as a ‘natural flavoring’ on ingredient labels. Turns out it’s made from beaver butt.

When I knew I would be talking with Joyce Goldstein about her 5 Essentials picks, I revisited one of her most beloved cookbooks, Back to Square One, a collection of recipes from her still-missed San Francisco restaurant, Square One. The book is over 20 years old but it could have been published yesterday. Here you find a fresh, modern take on recipes not just from Italy and France, but from Persia, Greece, Morocco, Lebanon, Spain, North Africa.

Admit it: Part of the charm of buying your lunch is eating a fancy sandwich. Sure, you know you could make it at home, but when it comes down to it, time is short and it just seems easier to fork over a small handful of cash at that adorable gourmet deli near work. Homemade mayo is a whole other story (a very delicious story!), but even a store bought jar combined with the right ingredients can do wonders to spice up that sorry excuse for a turkey sandwich thrown together in the morning.