Pastry Maestra
Free Video Tutorials on Baking, Pastry making and Creating Desserts. Have a sweet life!
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hat is toffee? Is it a buttercrunch, or butterscotch? Is the butterscotch the same thing as the buttercrunch? Is there a difference? If those questions sound familiar to you, don’t worry, because many, many people – my students included – ask the same! Have no fear because the time has come to resolve this dilemma once and for all!
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s we’ve already learned in the post about toffee, buttercrunch is a candy very similar to toffee. Similar I say, not the same! However, lots of people, while talking about a hard, crunchy candy made of sugar and butter use both of those terms interchangeably.
B
utterscotch is a hard candy similar to toffee and buttercrunch, except that, instead of regular white sugar, it is always made of brown sugar and butter, with the addition of glucose syrup, vanilla and other flavorings.
A
h, Le Macaron! This sweet little masterpiece from France is a serious pain in the-you-know-where to make for many pastry enthusiasts – heck – even some trained chefs have been known to throw the whole batches to trash! But hey – don’t worry, with this step by step recipe, you’ll be able to ace it every time!
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s it a cake, or a sponge cake? Is it meringue?
Dacquoise [da-kwaz] can be a layered cake, a cake component, and it always contains meringue, however – it isn’t just meringue. It is one very special sweet treat!
T
he word nougat [ˈnuːɡət] comes from Occitan (also called Old Provençal) word pan nogat [ˈpa nuˈɣat], that seemingly came from Latin panis nucatus, meaning ‘nut bread’ (nucatum means ‘nutted’ or ‘nutty’). Nuts, right!?
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hen I’m thinking of brittle candy, one funny thing comes to my mind. I am a great fan of the Emmy Awarded sitcom “How I met your mother” – a comedy that is abundant in extraordinary actors and crazy screenwriters that gave me loads of wonderful laughs. One of those legendary moments is when Lilly, one of the main characters, is declared to be a ‘loud chewer’!
H
ave you ever been to Croatia? If not, it is about time to put it on your ‘must-visit’ list! You probably already know that we have a mild climate, beautiful Adriatic Sea, the rich history, and extraordinary tasteful local grown food.
O
blong and elegant, simple, but sophisticated, éclair is one of the French classics. The combination of freshly baked, crispy pâte à choux shell, light crème pâtissière and sweet fondant icing is a symphony of flavors and textures for your taste buds. No wonder the French are so proud and sensitive about their éclairs! And when it comes to making them, you’ll learn that it’s always the most difficult task to achieve perfection within simplicity.
H
ave you ever bought a chocolate bar or a chocolate bonbon, and when you impatiently opened the sweet package, you discovered an unappealing layer of something white on the surface of your supposed-to-be-pleasurable snack? And if you took a bite of that chocolate, it crumbled in your mouth in a kind of sandy way? Well, don’t worry, that chocolate bar wasn’t old or spoiled, and the white thing is not fungus, no – the problem is in a process called the ‘tempering’.
