Bakemaster Flex

April 2, 2013 by Tod Chubrich

I LOVE Amanda Hesser’s Essential New York Times cookbook.

My best friend from high school helped with the recipe testing for the book, so I eagerly awaited its release and snapped up a copy as soon as it appeared at Bi-Rite. The genius of this cookbook is that it’s crowdsourced–Amanda had Times readers write in with their favorite recipes from the Times over the years, tallied up the results, and painstakingly tested and refined each recipe. It’s become my go-to for classic American dishes like brownies — I made some for a friend’s Super Bowl party with our Madagascar chocolate, Alter Eco’s spectacular mascobado sugar, and Marin Sun Farms duck eggs that were so well received that I made them again the next day for the Dandelion crew, the general consensus being ZOMG BEST BROWNIES EVERRRR.

This time I made a buttermilk chocolate cake, a recipe from San Francisco’s very own Campton Place that was published in the Times in 1986.

Step 1: a contrived glamor shot for the ingredients, the stars of the show

Step 2: melt some chocolate and sift some flour and mix stuff and whatnot
Step 3: !?!?where’s my phone how could I forget to photograph this IT WAS THE WHOLE POINT
Step 4: whip up some egg whites in a copper bowl, because choosy chefs choose copper

Step 5: are these peaks stiff yet?
Step 6: SRSLY, my arm is falling off
Step 7: how stiff do they need to be anyway?
Step 8: gently fold the egg whites into the melted chocolate, butter, buttermilk, sugar, and egg yolks

Step 9: clearly gentle isn’t cutting it.
Step 10: gradually sift in the flour, pour the batter into two cake pans lined with parchment and bake!

Step 11: oooh pretty cakes.

Step 12: whip the butter for the buttercream, mix in egg yolks, melted chocolate, and sugar

Step 13: frost that cake!

Step 14: Mmmmmmm

Scrapeasaurus Rex

February 21, 2013 by Tod Chubrich

There’s no shortage of Wonka-esque molten chocolate flows in the factory: between the four melangers, two temperers, and dozens of pans that ferry the chocolate between them, we have innumerable surfaces with luscious chocolate coatings that we need to scrape clean. My quest for the ideal implement (a treasure trove of innuendo if there ever was one) began when I emptied a melanger for the first time back in July–it’s a messy business at best–and thought, there’s got to be a better way!

We experimented with various spatulas, metal, plastic, and silicone, but a satisfying scrape eluded us until light dawned and I considered the squeegee.

Our silicone savior arrived just in the nick of time for our new molds and the transition to the fill-and-scrape method of tempering, which was one small scrape for a man, but one giant leap for our company. We’re still searching for the perfect squeegee–just an inch longer and a tad sturdier, please!–but for now, these silicone squeegees from OXO are pretty awesome, so we ordered fifteen more. And…if you put them all together in a hotel pan after doing the dishes…you get a Scrapeasaurus Rex…rawr…which is rad!

Because we’re actually dinosaurs.