One of my favorite challenges in reworking or rethinking or creating a new recipe is to minimize waste. So, for instance, my preferred method of making macarons is to use a French buttercream as the base for the filling—which uses up all the egg yolks leftover from the macaron shell’s egg whites. (On that note, Sophie does have two great posts offering tips on using up leftover egg yolks and egg whites.)
Read MoreScientists basically agree on five “tastes”: sweet, salty, sour, bitter and savory (or umami). These are the sensations registered by our tastebuds. We can distinguish these aspects of a food even if we plug our nose, or have a bad cold.
What we can’t register when our nose is plugged is “aroma,” a sensation perceived by the nose. People say they can’t taste anything when they have a cold, but really what they mean is that the food has no flavor, because flavor depends on aroma.
Read MoreThis recipe is YUM.
I'm trying to think of another more intelligent way to explain it.
Let me put it this way: I made two loaves one afternoon. They were gone by the morning. Let me try again: I brought a loaf to a girls night. The four of us easily ate 3/4 of it in two hours. I may or may not have finished it off when I got home. Here's another scenario: I pulled a fresh loaf out of the oven, a friend stopped by, chat chat chat, 30 minutes later she says good-bye, and half a loaf is gone.
Read MoreLike Maria mentioned, we all have our favorite variations of the Joy of Cooking's Sugar Drop Cookies with Oil. The original recipe is perfect, so I don't typically mess with it. At the most, I might add some vanilla bean powder to the sugar that the cookies are rolled in, giving them a pretty vanilla-flecked exterior. But sometimes for a party I think it's fun to have a whole spread of the same cookie in different variations. Since these are so simple to mix up, and quick to bake, you can churn out a bunch of different variations within an hour.
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