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Featured Cooking Articles

Christmas Recipes: Edible Gifts. No.3 of 8 - Gingerbread Decorations
Christmas recipe makes: 2 dozen Calories per biscuit: 125 Preparation time: 30 minutes Cooking time: 10 minutes Suitable for freezing at end of step 5. Christmas recipe ingredients: * flour, plain white 350 g (12 oz) * bicarbonate of soda, 5 ml (1 tsp) ...

How to Make the Perfect Traditional Indian Tea and Masala Chai
Indian homes are known for their warm hospitality and the Indian homemaker takes pride in her cooking abilities in bringing out elaborate delicious dishes and serves it with love to her family and friends. Go to any Indian home and you will be welcomed ...

The New Cuisine: Spanish Food Today
Cooking Spanish foods today is still very much a traditional affair. The essence of Spanish foods is simplicity and subtlety. The new Spanish cuisine is more about how ingredients and flavorings are blended than the way a meal is presented. The new ...





3 Methods For Perfectly Melted Chocolate
 
Melting chocolate for baking is an exacting task, if not done perfectly you can end up with a burned or grainy mess and ruin whatever you are baking. Below are 3 methods for melting chocolate, each can be successful in it's own way and you need only pick a method that works for you and get cooking!

In The Oven

Chocolate can be melted in the oven quite easily but you will need to be very diligent about watching it. It's easy to get caught up in your other baking chores and not realize that you have overheated it until it is too late. To melt chocolate in the oven, heat the oven to 110 degrees. Chop the chocolate and place in a dish inside the oven. Keep the door open and check regularly. It will take about an hour to melt thoroughly.

Double Boiler Method

This tried and true method uses two pots or a special double boiler pot. The bottom pot has about an inch of water in it and the top pot is a bit smaller and rests on the bottom pot. The water should be heated to just below a simmer. Chop the chocolate and put it in the top pot. The chocolate should be stirred until melted and you must be very careful not to get any water mixed in with the chocolate as this will make it grainey.

Microwave

Using the microwave to melt chocolate can be the fastest but also the most disastrous method as a couple of seconds of overheating can ruin the chocolate. Chop the chocolate and put it in a microwave safe bowl. Heat on 50% for 1 to 4 minutes - the amount of time needed will depend on the amount of chocolate you are melting so you will have to watch the chocolate the whole time. When you see that it is turning shiny and before it is fully melted, remove it from the oven and stir until it melts fully.



About the Author
Lee Dobbins is editor of www.online-gourmet-foods.com where you can learn more about gourmet food and find out more about gourmet chocolate.

Cooking News



Triple Pundit

Cooking for Solutions: An Alternative to Chef-Provocateurs
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While reactions to the Times story continued on Twitter, scientists, advocates and food policy media gathered last week at the Monterey Bay Aquarium for the annual Sustainable Foods Institute, part of Cooking for Solutions. The purpose of the event, ...
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Bittman builds your cooking skills a recipe at a time
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"How to Cook Everything. The Basics: All You Need to Make Great Food — With 1000 Photos" By Mark Bittman; Wiley, $35 What it is: "Everything" is a bold boast, but obviously longtime New York Times food writer Mark Bittman is not going to teach you how ...


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By Kristiano Ang A new survey suggests that in China and other parts of Asia, knowing how to cook may help you win the heart of a potential mate. Property ownership is often seen as a prerequisite to getting hitched in China, but if you're single and ...


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'How To Cook Like a Man' by Daniel Duane
Boston Globe
By Ted Weesner Jr. Page through Daniel Duane's “How to Cook Like a Man” and you will fast wonder what havoc celebrity chef culture has wrought upon present-day notions of masculinity. It's as if the blazing klieg lights of the Food Network, et al., ...


Artichokes 101: Tips for selection and cooking
Sacramento Bee
Cooked artichokes keep for a week, also, and can be heated up on the grill or in the oven just before serving. Freezing: Cooked hearts and blanched smaller artichokes can be frozen. To blanch, remove the outer petals (or bracts) so only the pale inner ...

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