Dateline: 09/01/97
It's hard to believe that this is my eighteenth -18- feature for The Mining Company. It is so exciting to work for such a "ground-breaking" company, in a practically new form of communication: the Net. Even though I'm a slave (love-slave) to my weekly features, I love it! I hope you can savor the flavor of my past features and not feel like it's "leftovers again".
I began my features with the very basics: Three Steps to Better Baking. Baking is like performing a chemistry experiment. You need the prior preparation, the right ingredients, and in the exact amounts.
My second feature: Take the Carroll Challenge was a little quiz to test your recipe knowledge. I gave the ingredients, not in preparation order, with some great clues. My favorite clue was with dessert #4. You'll love it too, if you're a movie buff.
The Definitive Substitution and Equivalency List was my next feature. If at all possible, I try not to use ingredient substitutions. But... who always has every ingredient on the shelf? This a great list everyone should keep handy.
If you thought cookies were all the same, you need to read All About Cookies.
There are six different types of cookies: drop, bar, ice box (refrigerator), pressed and molded. You can also find some great cookie making tips, too.
You want to make a dessert but don't feel like going to the grocery store. If you have the items on The All Purpose Dessert Making Grocery List you can make most any of the desserts in my Resource Library.
Speaking of desserts... My Favorite Carry-Along Summer Desserts: Dirt and Margartia Pie are definitely worth trying if you haven't yet. Margarita Pie is being served at my house on Labor Day.
You can guess the origins of this feature. I love cheesecakes.
They can be so elegant and have so many different flavors. Tips for a Perfect Cheesecake was a natural subject for a feature of mine. Did you know your cheesecake won't crack if you have a shallow pan of water on a rack below the cheesecake?
Who didn't grow up eating lots of JELL-O? Well, Happy 100th Birthday JELL-O is a personal salute of memories to that gelatin wonder.
Quick and Easy Desserts are just that: quick and easy. This time you don't have time to make a fancy dessert but need to serve one. Here's a list of ingredients to keep on hand to make great desserts in a short period of time.
I love watching cooking demonstrations. Cooking Shows and the Chefs That Do Them is a nice compilation of the shows and/or chefs I get in the Atlanta area. You can never get too many dessert making ideas. I hope this feature will incite you to watch some of the chefs in your area.
Cakes are the easiest desserts to mess-up. That's why I wrote Basic Cake Making in hope of helping you make a successful cake. This is an advance feature on cake making. I am presently taking a cake decorating class and will tell you all about it soon.
"I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream."
With it being so hot this summer, this feature on Ice Cream was a natural. I found some really great links to ice cream companies, recipes, and some weird and miscellaneous facts.
Another natural feature with the continued hot weather was Quick Breads: Muffins and other Sweet Breads are so closely related to Desserts and Baking that I just had to do this feature. You just can't beat the smell of quick breads cooking in the oven.
I got a little whimsical with An Ode to a Watermelon.
I love watermelons, just can't get enough of them in the summer time. I hope you enjoy my poem and the interesting recipes and facts I found on watermelons.
Riddle: What's cold, fruit and liquored flavored, and fat free? Answer: Sorbets. I hope my feature takes the mystery out of sorbets and makes everyone prepare one today.
I didn't get any chocolate satisfaction from muffins, watermelons, or sorbets. I just had-to-have some brownies. Besides the recipes I found on the Net, I hope you like the three recipes I put in my feature on Brownies.
Wow, I'm looking forward to my next eighteen features and the eighteen after that and so on. I hope you are, too!
Happy Baking!!
Carroll
