You’ve turned me into you!

[Euphony]

I was gonna question the Morton's thing, lol. Maldon is what I use.

Yeah. Google phones are too entwined with their search optimizations I'm noticing. Umbrella girl more popular so...

Morton's is okay. They actually have a level higher than grocery store standard which is pretty good but it's going to extra effort just to say "hey, I can actually use Morton's." Nah.

There's this smoked jalapeno salt from a local spice shop I want to try on some dark chocolate cookies.

This.
Is.
Interesting.

I've also done pink Hawaiian salt on white chocolate, pineapple, and macadamia cookies before, that was a huge hit.

I imagine it was. Of course wild variation in the naming/use but I found most to be too delicate to do much. If I wanted to dial in a specific texture, I'm there, otherwise, it's mostly lost on me.

I find smoked salt works best on cookies that could be cloying, like molasses or high brown sugar based doughs.

That's what it's all about. Though, admittedly, I started with it for that specific purpose but grown so accustom to the flavor profile, I shoehorn it in unless I just can't justify it. (no more only fringe cases)

It very much a "cookie taste" to me these days.

And the white chocolate was less rebalancing and more requested while looking nice on a plate with the color contrast.

Bingo. I don't mind when people are intellectually honest with their why. But those pounding the table for this new wave of "luxury" white chocolate changing the landscape need to dial it back a bit.

It's mostly fat. Fat is flavor, yes, but there are a ton of flavor compounds we identify as "chocolate" that ain't in that portion of the extraction. Maybe I don't have the palate for white chocolate "nuance" but I'd argue most don't and sure as hell don't when mixed through a cacophony of other compounds and subjected to Milliard temps and higher.

Chocolate has become as absurdist as wine in a lot of respects. Maybe my little corner of logical to me is as illogical as others.

But white chocolate "tastings" shouldn't be a thing and I'll die on that hill. Lol.

 

[Euphony]

@Erozetta @Euphony

I reckon you two should start up a Food Porn thread. This stuff redefines the eroticism of eating.

The best I can do is a cup-cake with a cherry on top!

Cupcake's cherry.

That'll bring in the reader numbers.

 

[Erozetta]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a chocolate snob, I will absolutely use some Toll house for nostalgia (and when I make and bake 50lbs of cookies to mail my family back home because I'm not about to drop $500 on baking for them), but if I'm making a cookie with an attempt to impress, I'm going all out and using the local made Maine butter (or in extreme circumstances, I will make my own), good vanilla, and decadent chocolates.

For the average person? I'm not gonna go through the expense of sourcing the good stuff when I know they aren't going to appreciate it the way another baker would.

That's just what those particular cookies were made with (though, I will admit, Hershey's cocoa powder is awful and Bensdorp *is* the only one I'll buy now unless in a pinch, but I think cocoa powder is a bit different than chocolate.)

Although, I am determined to make a set of cookies using the Lake Champlain Five Star peanut butter bars soon. Chocolate cookie base with that candy bar chopped up in it *has* to be good. That bar is basically the only candy bar I'll eat, so fucking good.

The trick with the ghee and marshmallow cream filling, is you don't use all ghee. About 1/4 of the butter called for gets swapped to ghee, the rest is swapped with 1/4 cocoa butter and 1/2 clarified butter. I didn't tell anyone it had ghee in it because I know people and they would be like "Eww, what's that?" 'cause they're assholes, lol.

Strawberry shortcake in question (strawberries got jostled and co-worker righted it but didn't wipe off the rogue cream before taking a picture, lol) It was a request. Vanilla sponge cake, "cheesecake" filling, whipped cream and a shit ton of strawberries. This has about 2lbs of strawberries in it, 8" cake that ended up about 7-8" high not counting the strawberry height, got about 26 servings out of it (I didn't cut it) :

 

[Erozetta]

Cupcake's cherry.

That'll bring in the reader numbers.

I have one called Cherry's Jubilee that features an adult dessert table at an after hours town cherry festival. (And the MFC tries to poach customers from her daddy's bar using desserts she makes when she gets word a new guy in town is planning on buying the bar instead of her dad leaving it to her like he promised.)

Another Lit writer referenced it in his story and it was honestly the most humbling experience that he asked if he could. The Key to Las Vegas series by BenLong He was upset when I took my stories down and I sent him PDFs of all of them, lol.

 

[Euphony]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a chocolate snob, I will absolutely use some Toll house for nostalgia

I just can't anymore. I'm low on the chocolate snobbery totem pole but I can't help but taste waxy blah in anything, even a blow out, cloying mess to be foisted on a "you shouldn't have guilt-ed me into the bake sale against my will" project.

Toll house isn't even Toll house anymore. No supporting evidence but it's changed drastically over the decades. Low end but staple basic was its level. I don't taste bare minimum chocolate anymore, I taste profiteering.

(Ghirardelli chips is my basic these days. It's manageable cost wise and tasty for what it is. It's very much my daily driver.)

Herseys isn't allowed in any discussion. The butyric acid notes are awful (I may have a sensitivity.) I get the why, they built their flavor profile on it (in wartime rationing IIRC) and that set consumer expectation. They are in a prison but of their own making. Awful stuff.

And yeah, cocoa powder is a different animal but I've found similar quality issues with their powder too. (so, problematic but in a different way)

Drost used to be pretty dang great but I've not burned through enough stock post covid to say that's still always the case. Things got weird when companies came back online. Inflation shook up some edge cases too. It's all been a mess so I just committed to relearning the landscape.
Lake Champlain was great what little I've had. Very much an eating level chocolate. They are real good about expanding flavors but with balance. I don't like spice and chocolate per se but they did a riff on Mexican chocolate that really knocked my socks off in the good way.
I really hate how people muck up the comradery of cookery/baking by injecting dumb prejudicial bs. You have no idea what's in that ball game hotdog you pay $15 bucks for but I use an Indian sounding word and squawking ensues. F that nonsense.
Shortcake requires someone really showing some effort to get me interested. That looks delightful. 10/10 would spike my blood sugar for.

 

[SimonDoom]

@Erozetta @Euphony

I reckon you two should start up a Food Porn thread. This stuff redefines the eroticism of eating.

The best I can do is a cup-cake with a cherry on top!

I'm all in favor of food porn, both in the "pure" sense-- just concentrating on the food, in a stimulating way--and in the sense of mixing food into other erotic activity. I've written one story of the latter type but lack the cooking skills to be confident at pulling off the former.

Perhaps an "event" as well as a thread?

 

[Erozetta]

I just can't anymore. I'm low on the chocolate snobbery totem pole but I can't help but taste waxy blah in anything, even a blow out, cloying mess to be foisted on a "you shouldn't have guilt-ed me into the bake sale against my will" project.

Toll house isn't even Toll house anymore. No supporting evidence but it's changed drastically over the decades. Low end but staple basic was its level. I don't taste bare minimum chocolate anymore, I taste profiteering.

(Ghirardelli chips is my basic these days. It's manageable cost wise and tasty for what it is. It's very much my daily driver.)

Herseys isn't allowed in any discussion. The butyric acid notes are awful (I may have a sensitivity.) I get the why, they built their flavor profile on it (in wartime rationing IIRC) and that set consumer expectation. They are in a prison but of their own making. Awful stuff.

And yeah, cocoa powder is a different animal but I've found similar quality issues with their powder too. (so, problematic but in a different way)

Drost used to be pretty dang great but I've not burned through enough stock post covid to say that's still always the case. Things got weird when companies came back online. Inflation shook up some edge cases too. It's all been a mess so I just committed to relearning the landscape.
Lake Champlain was great what little I've had. Very much an eating level chocolate. They are real good about expanding flavors but with balance. I don't like spice and chocolate per se but they did a riff on Mexican chocolate that really knocked my socks off in the good way.
I really hate how people muck up the comradery of cookery/baking by injecting dumb prejudicial bs. You have no idea what's in that ball game hotdog you pay $15 bucks for but I use an Indian sounding word and squawking ensues. F that nonsense.
Shortcake requires someone really showing some effort to get me interested. That looks delightful. 10/10 would spike my blood sugar for.

I haven't come across any issues in either their (Callebaut or Bensdorp) chocolate or powders. I'm wondering if it's the sources? I always order through the same company as a middle man (for vanilla, chocolate, all the baking things, lol) Olivenation.com <-- go to baking supply, haven't failed me in about 5 or 6 years now? Everything I end up ordering through them has been top notch.

Tollhouse, though, yeah, I pretty much save that for people who piss me off. Or if they actively request them I'll use them.

But, then again, I also can't eat chocolate because I get migraines, so I only sample a little bit here and there when I deem it worth the ensuing pain.

And I just realized I hijacked a thread. Apologies! I can discuss baking and cooking forever and did not intend to talk about it this much, lol.

 

[Erozetta]

I'm all in favor of food porn, both in the "pure" sense-- just concentrating on the food, in a stimulating way--and in the sense of mixing food into other erotic activity. I've written one story of the latter type but lack the cooking skills to be confident at pulling off the former.

Perhaps an "event" as well as a thread?

I'd absolutely be down for that.