Milk Street Q&A

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Esther and Wendy - Chris Kimball is my go-to when it comes to pie dough and pie baking (among many other things!) and he recommends that when doubling the recipe for a double-crust pie to increase the flour to 2 1/2 cups (slightly more than doubled) and then double the remaining the ingredients. Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Esther - The cloves are a hallmark in this dish so this may not be the right one for you! If you still want to make it with a different spice, you can, it just won't be garofolato di manzo alla Romana. You could try other warm spices like nutmeg, allspice, or cardamom but the flavor profile will be quite different. Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Katherine - Our recipes should work in your 6-quart electric pressure cooker. The only variable, and this may only apply to certain recipes, is if your pressure cooker has a much larger or smaller bottom surface area than a 6-quart Instant Pot. We did not test our recipes in a traditional slow cooker and the recipes were tested using the slow function on a 6-quart Instant Pot. Since this is a smaller volume than your slow cooker, we can't say for sure whether these would work the same in a 7-quart traditional slow cooker. Hope that helps! Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Katherine - Great question! Historically, we developed our recipes with Diamond Crystal because of the kitchen’s preference for its texture. But that meant we developed our recipes with more salt by volume (but not by weight) than a person using Morton’s would have. And because of that, when home cooks did use Morton’s in our recipes, they sometimes ended up too salty. So at Milk Street, we recently switched to Morton’s. By developing our recipes to use less salt by volume (but the same amount by weight, and therefore the same level of saltiness in the finished dish), we believe it will be more difficult for people to unintentionally add too much salt to a recipe. This switch was made in developing the recipes for the March-April 2021 issue. Recipes that appear in issues prior to that date (or in all published cookbooks at this point) would still call for the volume amount for Diamond Crystal kosher salt. We are in the process of updating all of our recipes to reflect Morton's kosher salt on the website, but this process needs to be done by hand. With thousands of recipes, I'm sure you can understand, this may take some time. In the meantime, our advice is to cut the amount of salt called for in the recipe in half if you are using Morton's kosher and making a recipe published prior to the March-April 2021 issue (or from one of our current cookbooks). If you find it is not seasoned enough, you can always season to taste at the end of cooking. We understand that this is confusing and are here to help if you have further questions! You can read more about this change here. Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Robert - We are so happy to hear you love Cookish! 120 vs. 125 vs. 130? One thing we’ve learned from teaching thousands of students at our Boston School is that medium-rare is subjective. Some students barely cook their steaks while others prefer it pale pink, and all call it “medium-rare.” We've noted pulling the steak when it reaches 120 degrees in this recipe since we assume a temperature rise during carryover cooking will put the steak squarely in the range of medium-rare. Rather than debate who is right when it comes to final steak temperatures, we tell students to know how well they like their steaks cooked, choose the best cuts for that preference, and own it! Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Amy - It's definitely not there for the flavor since there's actually not a whole lot of real vanilla flavor in vanilla pudding mix. Vanilla pudding mix is basically just sugar and cornstarch and it's the cornstarch that is the key ingredient in your cookies. The combination of cornstarch and flour in the cookie is creating an almost cake flour-like hybrid. Cake flour contains a relatively low amount of protein compared to all-purpose flour, which leads to less gluten formation. Cookies made with all cake flour will be very soft even when you've over-baked them. Since chocolate chip cookies are easy to over-bake and can become too crispy quickly, the pudding mix was added as a foolproof way to keep the cookies soft. They will, however, be more cake-y and lack the chew that comes from using higher-protein all-purpose flour, depending on how much cornstarch is in that pudding mix. I would experiment with eliminating the pudding mix and adding a couple of teaspoons of cornstarch to your dough to try to replicate it. Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Jacqueline - We tested our version with almond flour, but ultimately found that we liked the flavor and texture better using our own ground almond meal. This also allowed us to toast the almonds that we ground for inside the cake. The toasted almonds intensified the roasted quality of the chocolate. Since we really wanted the added crunch from whole sliced almonds on top of the cake, we found it was easier to just call for one ingredient and use it two ways. Unfortunately, we did not test our final recipe using almond flour in place of the sliced almonds. Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Kim - Depending on what your gluten-free pasta is made from (rice, corn, chickpea, buckwheat, etc.), the starch content could vary. There is also the issue of using the pasta water from rice noodles due to the reported levels of arsenic in rice. We found a great alternative that will work with all gluten-free pastas (and whole-wheat pasta which doesn't produce enough starch either). Hope that helps! Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Elizabeth Mindreau

Hi Karol - 200°F - 210°F for bundt cakes 210°F for pound cakes

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Bruce - Grape molasses is generally much sweeter than pomegranate molasses so you may have to add some vinegar to balance the sweetness. Best, Lynn C.