Baking science

Mango Upside Down Cake is a new take on an old fashioned recipe. An ultra-tender cake made with buttermilk and almond flour is topped with fresh mango slices and buttery, lime-scented caramel. Read on to find out how I destroyed and then repaired this cake… So, a funny thing happened on the way to posting …

Vanilla Pastry Cream is used it to fill cream puffs or eclairs. But that’s just the beginning. One vanilla custard recipe, so many possibilities. In a professional pastry kitchen we don’t reinvent the wheel for every single dish. We have a repertoire of what I’m calling, “essential recipes”.  There is no need to have a …

Salt is ubiquitous. Virtually every dish that comes out of the kitchen has salt added. In fact, salt is so elemental to our culture that the word “salary” comes from the Latin salarium, which refers to Roman Soldiers’ payment for the purchase of salt. What salt does in Baking: Since it’s so commonplace do we even need to …

It’s not really possible to overstate how important the simple chicken egg is in the kitchen. Eggs are the base for a myriad of dishes, from rich custards to ethereal meringues. Eggs can be scrambled, fried or poached for a nutritious meal. The yolk emulsifies mayonnaise and the white is indispensable for the pastry chef’s …

Have you ever wondered why vodka sauce tastes good even though you can’t taste the vodka? Why do we use alcohol to make vanilla extract? Should you even care about this if you just want to make a cake? Keep reading to find out… Sugar syrups for candy making are boiled to specific temperatures and …