[Mike Nolan]

I've never had much success with blitz puff pastry, so I make the real stuff, a batch takes me 3-4 hours for 4-5 turns. Roll out, fold, refrigerate for 15 minutes, etc. I generally divide a batch in half for the final roll-out.

I've seen some puff pastry recipes that recommend an overnight rest between turns, to let the flour continue to hydrate and give the dough time to relax. If you do that, you need to let the dough warm up for 15-20 minutes before starting the next step so the butter isn't rock hard.

[Mike Nolan]

Just tell them you learned the trick from a baker named 3 Fingered Pete!

I'll probably try it some time, but most of the time I make smaller bagels (about 3.25 ounces of dough per bagel, most deli bagels start with around 4.5 ounces of dough) and most of them get a big heap of asiago cheese on top, so slicing them this way might be a bit more challenging.

[Mike Nolan]

So far all I've gotten is the 'You'll hear from us in a few days' message, I'll give them a few more days to respond then probably give them a call.

They have fixed the web link you had posted, it now says serving size is 1 tablespoon and there are 64 servings in the package.

[Mike Nolan]

You're correct that self-rising flour is more commonly used in European/British recipes than in the USA (except perhaps in the South.) I haven't dug out my Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood books to check, but my recollection is that if they want self-rising flour they'll say that.

[Mike Nolan]

I'm making black bean meatloaf, because I have two pounds of ground beef to use up.

[Mike Nolan]

I've been known to make 2 six-inch cakes rather than an eight or nine inch cake for Boston Cream Pie (and then I give one to my neighbor), I should think about downsizing the recipe I've been experimenting with so it makes just one six inch pie.

So far I think the best one I've made was the time I made two different batches of pastry cream (one using a classic French creme patisserie recipe) and then combined them. It had the richness of the creme patisserie, made with lots of egg yolks and heavy cream, with the firmness of the other recipe.

I haven't made my mind up about the right topping. I think it needs to be on the bittersweet side rather than sweet, but that's probably because the Boston Cream Pie we used to get in Chicago had that kind of topping on it. My wife prefers something a bit sweeter, but I'm more of a dark chocolate fan than she is.

[Mike Nolan]

Adding some corn syrup (mostly glucose) to a sucrose solution is a common trick, changing the ratio of glucose to fructose (the two component sugars in sucrose) interferes with their tendency to crystallize.

If you research the history of Boston Cream Pie, it isn't supposed to be very tall.

[Mike Nolan]

I've tried a few GBBO recipes, with reasonable results, though many English recipes use caster sugar, which is not generally available in the USA, though I think superfine baker's sugar comes pretty close. In most recipes, I don't think it makes much difference. There are differences in flour as well, North American flours are generally much stronger (higher protein/gluten content).

The continued success of Hell's Kitchen amazes me as well. I can't say I've learned much about cooking from it, but I wonder about the skill levels of the cooks in the restaurants I go to more than I used to.

[Mike Nolan]

Milkfat and butterfat are the same thing, there is only one fat in milk.

I'll have to check the cream packages in the Lincoln stores the next time I go shopping. As I recall, one brand showed the milk/butterfat content and another did not.

[Mike Nolan]

Given that the shows from GBBO being shown on PBS now are from several seasons ago, it might take a while for Mary Berry's new show to make it to USA markets, if it does at all. (Gordon Ramsay's British series didn't do so well on USA TV, which is why Hell's Kitchen is done in Los Angeles.)

[Mike Nolan]

Buttermilk is historically what's left after the butter has been made from cream, but buttermilk hasn't been made like that in years, probably decades. It's a 'cultured' product made from milk, so low-fat buttermilk starts with low-fat milk. So is sour cream, though low-fat sour cream always sounds like a contrast in terms to me!

I've got a book on cooking with buttermilk that starts out by having you make European style butter from cream and some active culture product (such as tefir, though cultured buttermilk or sour cream might work as well) and what's left over is the buttermilk you use in the recipes. Along the way, you wind up making your own creme fraiche.

The book, in case anyone is interested, is the Animal Farm Buttermilk Cookbook, by Diane St. Clair.

[Mike Nolan]

A few years ago Lincoln must have had a half-dozen or more new frozen yogurt/custard shops open up, several of them have already closed. Now everyone's opening coffee shacks.

[Mike Nolan]

I'll be interested to see if they explain how a pint of whipping cream contains 22 tablespoons. Was that a Land O'Lakes product?

I did get what appears to be the standard automated 'you will receive a response in 1-2 days' to my request for information from Land O'Lakes.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 11 months ago by Mike Nolan.

[Mike Nolan]

Interesting and well-written post, despite the snarky response from a reader.

I went back and re-read McGee and he also states that it takes 25% butterfat to produce a stable sauce without the risk of it breaking, so I've revised my earlier post. If you're buying table cream for this, check the label carefully for butterfat content. (Don't trust the nutrition label!) If it says 'whipping cream', it needs to be at least 30% butterfat to whip, so you should be OK.

A further note, if you're making a cream-and-wine sauce, it is advisable to reduce the wine before adding the cream, that lowers the risk that the lowered pH and alcohol in the wine cause the sauce to break (the cream to curdle) and it also makes sure the sauce doesn't taste like 'raw' wine.

One of my favorite dishes is Veal Zurich, which is made with a white wine and cream sauce. More than once my wife has asked, usually after plugging the recipe into a menu analysis program, "Can't you make it with milk?" I tell her no.

[Mike Nolan]

The small town I grew up in had 2 grocery stores plus a butcher shop when I was growing up in the 50's and 60's, today it has no grocery stores, though the one remaining gas station is also a convenience store so it carries a few groceries. (There were four or five gas stations when I was growing up.)

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