There's quite a bit of buzz about Heston Blumenthal's new cookbook, at least on the other side of the pond. One of the masters of molecular gastronomy and the owner of three Micheline star The Fat Duck, Mr. Blumenthal is renowned for his amazing, and amazingly complex food.

Now he's brought his molecular know-how to the masses...sort of. His new cookbook, The Big Fat Duck Cookbook, is a huge, 516 page, 12 pound, £100 ($200-though I found it for about $145) monster. I quite frankly have a hard time believing that many people are going to be rushing out to get it, especially at this economically uncertain time. It's pointed out in both of the articles in the Guardian this week, that not only is the book expensive, but it requires expensive and hard to find ingredients and equipment. Both of those aspects make it less likely that anyone would do anything more than drool over the reportedly exquisite photography.

Still, I'd love to be able to get a look at the Big Fat Duck Cookbook. I wonder if my local library will be getting this tome? If I could take pictures and see what recipes I could make, I'd definitely be one happy cook. Unfortunately, I think the library is the only way many people would be able to get a look at it.

The magic of wheat flour is its ability to produce leavened bread. Wheat is the only grain that can do that because it is the only grain that can make gluten, the three-dimensional protein structure that can stretch and expand and hold air, then set when baked into glorious bread.

That stretchiness and ability to expand both have a name. Elasticity, the stretchiness, is the tendency for the dough to want to shrink back into its previous shape. It's like a rubber band: after you stretch it out the band snaps back into place. The ability to expand is called extensibility. The dough becomes more extensible, it will expand, as the gluten structure is allowed to relax.

The give and take between elasticity and extensibility is what makes yeast raised bread what it is. It is able to be worked into desirable shapes and to expand with the gas inside of it. Because of the elastic element, bread dough has to be rested several times during the process to allow it to be more extensible, but you don't want to get rid of either aspect. Without elasticity, the dough would simply be a slack mess, unable to hold it's shape. The two elements work together to form the bread that we've depended on for a good chunk of human history.

Your recipe calls for butter or another fat. Depending on the quantity called for, there are different times you should add it.

Have you ever taken note of the bread you're served at restaurants in the pre-meal bread basket? I suspect that unless you're a bread snob, the answer is no. As a self proclaimed breadie, I actually have had conversations about the bread at restaurants with other bread lovers. Some of my bread friends refuse to eat bread out, just like I had friends in art school who would cover the bad art in hotel rooms so as not to be exposed to the negative vibes.

However, I haven't met anyone who would bring their own bread to nibble on. According to the Guardian, that's exactly what bread scholar Steven Laurence Kaplan does. He even brings his own bread to very high end places in France, the bread capital of the world, because he says that even in France bread is an afterthought in restaurants.

I have had good bread in one restaurant, but that place is directly across the street from the best bakery in town. I agree that bread is usually an afterthought in dining establishments, but would you, or should you, bring your
own? Take the poll below to throw in your own two cents.

Last week the new COOL (country of origin label) labeling went into effect. The legislation was actually created years ago but faced stiff resistance from the food industry. However, the recent salmonella outbreak in the US and the Listeria outbreak in Canada have made it impossible to hold it back anymore, and the labels have to be implemented within six months.

Some lawmakers and consumer groups are worried about the loopholes, though. According to Bloomberg.com, loopholes in the legislation allow foods of mixed origin to be exempt. That includes things like mixed vegetables, Spam, processed meats, and mixed nuts.

Some lawmakers are looking into making changes to close the loopholes, but of course the industrial food lobby's are against that. They're worried about how much all of the new labeling is going to cost. I understand that, but are their up front costs worth risking the health of consumers?

[Via Coldmud]

Among the many food blogs I keep up with, there are a couple of geek-oriented and pop culture blogs I also check regularly. One of my favorites is Geekstir, a blog dedicated to all things sci-if/geek/video games.

Even though Geekstir is not focused on food, there will occasionally be a post about geeky food. This post caught my eye because it's definitely something you could do on a lazy weekend afternoon. Well, maybe not the R2D2 cake, but you could make the Ewok cupcakes, as well as the Darth vader and Yoda pizza's. Have some fun this weekend, and enjoy some geeky food!

I love cooking on Sunday morning. Sunday is usually the one day of the week I can do whatever I want, so they're pretty laid back and slow. It's only been a recent discovery that I enjoy cooking on my one easy day of the week, as opposed to a bowl of cereal, but I'm glad I finally did come to that realization.

Some of you may remember a post from earlier this week about Nazuki, a spice bread from Georgia. Well, everyone's been pretty busy this week, so the second loaf was starting to go stale. Of course one of the best ways to use up stale bread is a nice bread pudding, and that's what I made for my Sunday morning. My first thought was to make a savory bread pudding with some tomatoes that I need to use up, but I just couldn't see using a sweet bread in a savory dish. The flavors wouldn' mesh.

After breifly flirting with making French toast instead, I mixed up some milk and eggs with some cinnamon and brown sugar, then pourd it over the crumbled Nazuki in a baking dish. The bread pudding didn't take very long to bake, and it was delicious when it was done. It was a sweet dish, but not any more so than French toast and less so than sweet syrup on pancakes. If you don't have any Nazuki on hand, I bet this would be great with cinnamon raisin bread. The recipe is after the jump.

The Georgian Feast is now officially my favorite cookbook. I've been meaning to get around to making the spice bread, Nazuki, for a while now and I'm glad I finally did. This one made the house smell so fabulously delicious that I'd make a killing if I could bottle the scent. Next time I sell my house, I'm making Nazuki every day (in case you didn't get the "Good Eats" reference, Alton did an episode where the premise was to make sticky buns for a nice homey aroma in the house so it would sell more quickly).

As with most of the recipes I've tried from my Georgian cookbook, this one was pretty simple. The author calls for active dry yeast, but that needs to be bloomed prior to use and adds an extra step. I just substitute instant yeast, aka bread machine or rapid rise, which can be mixed in with everything else. That way, all you have to do is throw everything in a bowl and mix it all up in one step (called the straight dough method).

My sister could not wait for the Nazuki to come out of the oven, and she cut into it as soon as it was cool. Sadly, my Georgian friend has been pretty busy this week, so he didn't get to try it and tell me if I got it right. Either way, it's delicious, and it will definitely be one of my holiday breads this year. Check out the gallery, and the recipe is after the jump.

That's right, cutting your meat consumption down to four portions per week, and cutting your milk/dairy intake down to 1 liter (about a quart), is a major step we all need to take to "avoid run-away climate change." At least that's according to a recent study released by the Food Climate Research Network, which operates at the University of Surrey in England.

The new study, reported in The Guardian this week, does touch on eating locally, avoiding waste, and cooking in larger batches as well as using a microwave. However, one of the main points is that the government should intervene and put everyone on meat and dairy rations. The argument is that awareness campaigns and trying to get people to voluntarily change their habits simply won't work: people won't make the tougher changes by themselves.

I know that people feel very strongly about the government telling them what they can or cannot do (or eat). Not only do I not want direct government interference, I don't think imposing rations would be very enforceable. However, I do think it would work if limits were put on how much meat could be produced. That would raise the price of meat and lower the demand for it dramatically.

Not everyone looks forward to the cooler weather of fall, and I'm one of them. I really prefer warmer temperatures, but I do look forward to fall food. All of the different squash dishes, puddings, and citrus flavors are so welcome that I can almost forgive the chill in the air. I've been searching for different fall influenced bread recipes and I think I've found some good ones. Check them out and you be the judge.

1. This fig and anise bread sounds so amazing, I'm planning on making this one soon!
2. What could be more fall than a pumpkin bread pudding?
3. It seems more difficult to find a pumpkin yeast bread, but I found one amid all the quick breads.
4. Chestnut rye is a little more unusual of a flavor, but that's what makes it special.
5. Sweet potato rolls deserve a place on everyone's fall table.
6. This cornbread from the Homesick Texan may not be strictly fall, but the cornbread dressing you can make with it sure is.
7. Orange yeast bread is also more rare than its quick bread cousin.
8. Sure cranberry is usually paired with orange, but why not let it shine on its own?

Are you a recipe-creating whiz? Well here's your chance to make $5000 off of it.

Tuttiefoodie and Scharffen Berger have just announced a chocolate recipe contest that sounds positively delicious. The Chocolate Adventure Contest seems like a great way to express your creativity, in this case with Scharffen Berger chocolate and an "adventure ingredient" from their list.

There are three categories (sweet, savory, beverage) and the winner gets $5000 plus a collection of cookbooks and mentions in Saveur magazine, Tuttiefoodie, and Scharffen Berger's e-newsletter. All you need to do is create a recipe using Scharffen Berger chocolate and submit it between October 1, 2008 and January 4, 2009. Check here for rules and details. Get really adventurous and submit up to ten recipes!

Even though it hasn't cooled off that much in my corner of the world, it is technically fall and that means it's pie season. I like to make a wide variety of pies, and that doesn't just mean the filling. There's a whole world of pie and tart crusts out there for an almost endless list of possibilities this fall. Click through to the next few pages for everything you'll need to know about pie and tart crusts for great pies this fall.

Flour is the basic structural ingredient. It's the starch in the flour that will, when mixed with liquid and heated in the oven, gelatinize and set when cooled. Flour also contains the proteins you need to make gluten, which is great for baking bread but not so desirable for making pie crusts. All you have to do is use a flour with a lower protein content, which generally means all purpose flour (cake flour might be too weak).

Fats are considered tenderizing agents for baked goods like cakes and pie crusts, rather than shortening agents like they would be for bread. In pie crusts, fats like oil, vegetable shortening, butter, and lard prevent gluten from getting formed in the first place by coating the flour granules, thus ensuring tenderness. Flakiness is achieved by the way you mix the dough: larger chunks of fat from less mixing make for more flakiness while more mixing and smaller fat chunks make a less flaky crust. They also add a lot of flavor, especially in the case of butter and animal fats. Lard and butter are also generally considered to have a better feel in the mouth, and lard is reputed to create a flakier crust than other fats.

Water and milk are the most common liquids, while buttermilk, eggs, and cream can also be used. Liquids function as a binding agent: they allow all of the ingredients to be evenly dissolved and incorporated. They also hydrate the the starch and protein in the flour and activate whatever leavening is being used. If you're using a liquid besides water, you're also adding fats, sugar, and acidity which is a good thing. The fats add tenderness, the adds to crust color, and the acidity makes the dough more stable and easier to roll out as well as taste better. Make sure to always use a cold liquid to keep the fat nice and cold, so it'll retain its shape/temperature and produce a flaky product.

Eggs are used for hydrating the dough, creating structure, giving color to the dough, and flavor. The whites are 90% water and the rest protein, so that aids in hydration and structure. The yolks are 50% water with the rest being mostly fat, contributing to hydration and tenderness as well as flavor and crust color.

Sugar adds sweetness and contributes the most to crust color. Ths crust turns golden brown because the sugar in the dough caramelizes as it's baked. Also, the texture of the dough can be changed by using sugar ground to different levels of fineness. For instance, powdered sugar makes a dough that is smoother, even if it doesn't taste as good as granulated.

Pie doughs are usually either flaky or mealy. Mealy dough is more compact and crisper, while flaky dough is, well, flakier. Both are tender. Mealy crusts are preferred for wet fillings, especially if you're going to fill the pie without partially baking the crust beforehand (blind baking). For mealy crusts, mix the fat longer so that the mixture looks like a course cornmeal before the liquid is added.

Flaky crusts can be used for wet fillings, but should be blind baked first. If you're doing a cream pie, bake the crust first then coat it with chocolate or cocoa butter to help prevent sogginess. You get flakiness by mixing the fat for less time, leaving it in bigger chunks. This creates layers of fat when the dough is rolled out, and a flaky texture in the finished product. Just keep in mind that this type of dough needs a little more hydration.

15oz pastry (or all purpose flour)
.75 oz sugar
1.5 tsp salt
11 oz butter, cold and cut into cubes/chunks
4.5 oz cold water

Mix the flour, sugar and salt to evenly distribute everything. Cut in the cold butter with a fork, your finger, a pastry knife or the paddle attachment on a mixer. mix until you get the desired size chunks of butter. Add the cold water just until incorporated. Rest the dough in the fridge for at least four hours to allow for proper hydration of the flour. Then you can roll out as usual.