[Mike Nolan]

Is that the adjustable diameter ring with all the grooves in it? I've wondered how well those work. I've seen one at Marshall's a couple of times, but I don't make cakes very often and even less often slice them.

The last time I sliced a cake, I used my cake decorating stand, which rotates, and set a metal bar along one edge to help keep the knife level and steady.

One of these days I want to make a dobosh torte, which requires that the cake be sliced many times, sometimes up to a dozen layers. A dobosh is generally a rectangular cake, though, so the round slicing guide probably wouldn't be much help.

[Mike Nolan]

Do you have a chopping board, cake decorating platform or something else you can set the cake on to raise it so that you can use the cake leveler? Of course it needs to be narrower than the cake leveler.

My Wilton cake leveler has notches at 1/4 inch increments, but sometimes that puts the slice where you don't want it, so I adjust the height in roughly 1/16 inch increments by taping pennies to the bottom of the chopping board, a penny is almost exactly 1/16 of an inch thick, so 2 pennies is 1/8 of an inch, etc.

I have a 14" long Dr. Oetker cake knife that I could probably use with a rotating cake decorating platform to hand slice cakes (I've seen a demo of that, probably on Youtube), but my hands aren't steady enough.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 5 months ago by Mike Nolan.
• This reply was modified 8 years, 5 months ago by Mike Nolan.
• This reply was modified 8 years, 5 months ago by htfoot.

[Mike Nolan]

A genoise is usually a fairly thin airy cake, whether this one had a loft issue may be hard to tell until you cut into it and see how open the crumb is. But you should be able to split that one that thick with a cake leveler, I've seen that done to produce slices less than 1/4 inch thick. You may need something on top of it to keep it even.

Some people like the fancy Wilton folding cake leveler, I've used both and I prefer the smaller one.

My semolina bread came out pretty good for taste, it's pretty close to the McGinnis Sisters bread, maybe not quite as sweet. I think I'd need a loaf of each to check for differences. It made a good complement to the steak and sauteed mushrooms I made for supper, to sop up the juices.

The lame caught in the dough when I was making one of the slashes, and as a result one end got a bit squished, so it's not the prettiest loaf I've ever made.

[Mike Nolan]

The pecan meal I have is a bit coarse, though it works OK in a pie crust, I usually think of a genoise as a fine-textured cake. You have to be careful when grinding nuts and nut meal not to turn it into nut butter.

[Mike Nolan]

Looks good Len. My wife says it sounds a lot like a quesadilla.

[Mike Nolan]

Strong spices and heavy sauces were often used to cover up spoiled or inferior quality foods.

Also, I think the garlic available years ago was more pungent than many current varieties.

[Mike Nolan]

Personally, I think sugar is sugar. There's not much evidence that I've seen that 'raw' sugars are better for you than 'refined' sugars, they're both sugars! The real problems are that so many things have sugars added to them unnecessarily and that we choose to eat sugary things. (Look at how much sugary candy is sold ahead of Easter.)

My wife has been buying the low-sugar form of Heinz Ketchup, which of course they only sell in tiny bottles at 4-5 times the per-ounce price. I can't tell much taste difference, makes me wonder why the 'regular' Heinz Ketchup has all that sugar in it.

[Mike Nolan]

Sorry to hear of your loss, Sarah.

[Mike Nolan]

Ooh, I need to buy a new jar anyway, I'll have to look at the label carefully. We've been buying Miracle Whip Lite lately, I wonder if it has changed as well?

[Mike Nolan]

I usually keep some bleached flour on hand for cakes and cookies, as well as some even softer cake flour, and most of the time I have some unbleached AP flour, like Gold Medal, on hand because KAF flour is just too strong for many cakes.

Glad to hear you got it to release from the pan well.

[Mike Nolan]

Sad though not unexpected news, but what better day to hear it than Easter?

Rest in peace, Mrs. Cindy.

[Mike Nolan]

Welcome back, Wonky.

I've created a few bread recipes, it can be both a challenging and frustrating process. I look forward to seeing your creation.

There's an interesting article in the latest issue of "Bread Lines", the newsletter of the Bread Baker's Guild of America. A BBGA member was asked to serve as one of the judges in a bread contest. The rules of the contest said that the recipe must be new, original and unpublished. This tended to rule out any lean dough breads, since there really isn't much that can be said to be new or original about a mixture of flour, water, salt and yeast.

As a result, all of the breads were enriched, most laden with fruits, cheese, nuts and other add-ins. The author thought most of the breads were both underdeveloped and underbaked, and thought that the rules tended to favor long lists of ingredients over the baker's skills in developing a good loaf.

The author's choice for the winner was one of the breads that wasn't still largely raw dough.

[Mike Nolan]

Food references as a form of cultural insult have a long history. Think about the Irish and potatoes.

In much French cooking, something is referred to as 'English' when it is considered crude or inelegant.

[Mike Nolan]

The autolyse step traces back to Prof. Raymond Calvel, who was primarily concerned with improving the quality of ordinary (white) bread in post-WW2 France.

However, it can be used with any flour, even non-wheat flours like rye and barley. The point of autolysis is to let the enzymes present in flour begin to break the complex carbohydrates down. Gluten development happens later on.

As I recall, Professor Calvel's autolyse step used just flour and water, no salt or yeast. If you are making enriched breads (ie, adding oil, sugar or milk), I'd do the autolyse step just as Prof. Calvel originally recommended. You can autolyse some or all of the flours, separately or together.

Calvel's book, "The Taste of Bread" (English translation, the original French title is "Le Goût du Pain") is an interesting look into this man's life work.

If your library has a copy, it's worth checking out. It's not an inexpensive book, in either language. You won't find many recipes in it, though.

[Mike Nolan]

I made one batch (24 rolls in 3 six-inch pans) of Hot Cross Buns last night, I think that may be all I do for Good Friday this year.

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