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Book Review: Ratio by Michael Ruhlman

I’m on a book craze right now and can’t stop stuffing my face with awesome literature. I recently finished reading An Edge in the Kitchen by Chad Ward and immediately after finishing, I picked up Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking by Michael Ruhlman which I quickly devoured in each spare minute that I had. In my opinion, Ratio should be required reading for anybody who cooks in the kitchen.

On Goodreads, I gave this book a 5-star rating. It’s awesome. Really.

The purpose behind Ratio is to enlighten and teach the home cook about the fundamentals of cooking in the kitchen. Sounds boring, I know, but the concept of ratios is simply fascinating. It’s not as if cooking with ratios is a super-duper, ultra-guarded secret (because it’s not), but interesting enough, it’s not well known among home cooks. Knowing ratios gives you the power to ditch the recipes, grow some wings, and fly! It won’t be long before you’re creating recipes of your own. In fact, using his custard ratios, I created a tasty (and interesting) vanilla peach custard. I’ll post the recipe once I refine it a bit. It was my first ever attempt at custard, but I could do it thanks to being taught simple custard ratios.

Let’s explore some of the fascinating aspects of Michael Ruhlman’s Ratio.
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Filed Under: Books, Movies, etc., Reviews Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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How to Make Lemon Poppy Seed Bread (with Glaze!)

So it’s been a while since I’ve posted a recipe, and I think it’s high time I do so again.

Contrary to popular belief I’ve actually been doing a lot of cooking lately. In fact, I’ve been doing so much cooking that I’ve accumulated a gazillion and a half recipes to share with you. Some I’ve found online, others I’ve created from the depths of my inner self–and that can get pretty scary.

Some of the recipes I’ve found are from other blogs that I follow, and today’s lemon bread recipe is an adaptation from the ever popular and addicting blog called Cookie Madness, written by Anna.

I’ve made this lemon bread a few times and this last time around I added the poppy seeds, which I absolutely love–and it’s not because they supposedly make you test positive for doping. Is that even true?

A few tips when making this bread:

  1. Do not pack your flour. You want your flour to be loose so that the bread isn’t overly dense.
  2. Although bread is super delicious right out of the oven, I prefer this bread after it’s cooled down and the flavors have had a chance to mix together.
  3. I’ve tried this bread plain and also topped with a lemon glaze, a chocolate glaze, and a regular glaze. I prefer the lemon glaze.

Alright, that’s enough mumbo jumbo for one post. Let’s get baking. As always, there’s a printable recipe at the bottom of this post. The pictures in this post are a combination of the different times I’ve made this recipe.
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Filed Under: Breads, Recipes Tagged With: , ,
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Video: Cutting My Ninja Cake

I had some fun and made a ninja cake for my birthday. Of course, if you make a ninja cake, you have to cut it with a sword. Here’s a tip… use a sharp blade or you’ll massacre your cake.

Read about the cake here.

Filed Under: Just for Fun, Videos Tagged With: , ,
8 September
Ninja Birthday Cake with Fondant
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Ninja Birthday Cake with Fondant

Alright! I’m finally posting my ninja birthday cake. For my birthday this year I was feeling a bit adventurous, wanting to deviate from the normal simple birthday cake and try something new and creative. I started searching the web for creative birthday cakes and came across a number of ‘mad hatter’ cakes (the kind that look lopsided as the cake ascends), but decided I didn’t have enough time to do that between my full-time job and only three days left before my birthday. Amidst this searching, the idea struck me to create a ninja cake. I drew out some ideas on a paper and finally decided on a simple double-layered chocolate cake with buttercream icing and marshmallow fondant. This was my first time working with fondant, and I found it rather enjoyable. I’ll share some lessons I learned when working with it a bit later.

Making the Marshmallow Fondant
I found an excellent Marshmallow Fondant recipe posted on Peggy Weaver’s Baking Corner. One of the reasons I chose this recipe is that it had detailed instructions and tips of how she makes the fondant work for her. So, here I am doing that fondant thang: [Read more...]

Filed Under: Desserts, Recipes Tagged With: , ,