Latest news with #JacquesTorres
Wall Street Journal
03-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Wall Street Journal
Your Brownies Could Be So Much Better. Try This Chef's Recipe.
'Bad brownies, it's sort of like pizza to me: Even bad pizza is still pizza,' said Nicole Rucker, the owner of Fat + Flour bakery in Los Angeles. 'At the end of the day, it's going to be OK.' For the record, Rucker's brownies are much better than OK, and you should give them a try even if you already have a go-to recipe. They're probably better than yours, if not the best you'll ever bake. It's the bread flour that does it. Rucker's new cookbook, 'Fat + Flour,' offers six recipes for brownies; four call for that ingredient. It's Rucker's nod to pastry chef Jacques Torres's legendary chocolate-chip cookie, which features bread flour, and to television host Alton Brown, who brought that cookie to her attention with his adaptation of it. She also wanted to replicate the results she gets at Fat + Flour, where they produce such large brownie batches, they end up 'curing' them: 'We keep them cold for days and days and days, and they obtain this settled, chewy texture that, when it comes fully to room temperature, is very fudgy but has that chewy edge.'
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Bake like a pro with these picks from chef and 'Nailed It!' judge Jacques Torres
As the head judge on Netflix's Nailed It!, pastry chef and master chocolatier Jacques Torres has seen his fair share of collapsed cakes and tragically melted frosting designs. Baking under stress can lead to disaster — which is why he makes sure to keep things "leisurely" in his home kitchen. In fact, he recently renovated the space to make it easier for him to both cook meals for his family and test out new recipes and products. "Most of my life I have spent in the kitchen, so it was important to me to have a functional and comfortable working space," he says. He installed luxurious Miele appliances — "they help me bake and cook with accuracy and ease," he says — but he also relies on a bunch of affordable, tried-and-true gadgets and tools. Read on for Jacques's kitchen essentials, and if you're curious how other star chefs stock their spaces, check out these fabulous finds from Andrew Zimmern and Marcus Samuelsson.
Yahoo
07-03-2025
- General
- Yahoo
I'm a culinary pro, and Ina Garten is right — this pepper mill is fab
Pepper mills are not something I think about on a daily basis, but I write about cooking and kitchen gear, so it was only a matter of time before I was asked to test the best pepper mills. When I sorted through the internet's incredible assortment of grinders, I discovered that Ina Garten and master chocolatier Jacques Torres have the same favorite: the PepperMate Traditional Pepper Grinder. So I added it to my list of mills to — and was duly impressed with its performance. Here's my PepperMate Traditional Pepper Grinder review. This squat, plastic pepper grinder isn't cute or trendy or particularly high-end (outside of its excellent ceramic grinding blade), but it works lightning fast. I can see why it's on Garten's preferred equipment list — a collection of tried-and-tested products from the likes of All-Clad, Le Creuset and Kuhn Rikon. Unlike more traditional vertical pepper mills, the PepperMate mill has a horizontal grinding mechanism that you crank with a more natural hand motion, potentially reducing strain, which is particularly helpful for anyone with arthritis or hand strength issues. Related: Ina Garten adores these 20+ handy kitchen essentials, and they start at just $5 This grinder's two-stage mechanism first cracks the peppercorns and then grinds them to whatever consistency you've selected when twisting the key grind knob from left (coarse grind) to right (fine grind). With just a few cranks, it grinds a tremendous amount of pepper compared to other mills. The mill features a clear plastic removable tray on its bottom to catch anything you grind, so there's no mess and no waste. You can also use this mill to grind many other spices (salt and dried herbs like cumin, coriander seeds, mustard seeds and anise) up to the size of a coffee bean. Jacques Torres uses his to grind cacao nibs! Plus, the ceramic mechanism won't absorb odors or flavors. In 2018, Ina shared this video on Instagram explaining how to make the best homemade croutons. She says to heat the oil before you throw in your croutons and season them with lots of salt and pepper —which she grinds with the PepperMate mill. My admittedly shallow gripe with this pepper grinder is that it's not particularly attractive. Its non-traditional side crank, squat shape and general plastic-forward look mean that I don't want it on my dining table, the way I might the Cole & Mason Derwent mill or the Peugeot Paris mill. If you're in need of a new pepper grinder that performs quickly and precisely for daily use in the kitchen, the PepperMate is an excellent choice. And if you value the endorsement of pros like Garten and Torres, the choice is even easier.
Yahoo
14-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Chocolatier Jacques Torres shares 8 kitchen finds that make cooking a treat
It's a busy time of year for Jacques Torres. The master chocolatier and head judge on Netflix's Nailed It! does his biggest business around Valentine's Day — plus, he always makes a big thing of the holiday at home, cooking breakfast for his wife and two kids to start the day on a sweet note. "I make homemade chocolate-covered strawberries, waffles with chocolate sauce and my Classic Hot Chocolate," he says. Recently, the chef renovated his kitchen to make it easier for him to both prepare family meals and test out new recipes and products. "Most of my life I have spent in the kitchen, so it was important to me to have a functional and comfortable working kitchen," he says. He installed luxurious Miele appliances — "they help me bake and cook with accuracy and ease," he says — but he also relies on a bunch of affordable, tried-and-true gadgets and tools. Read on for Torres's kitchen essentials, and if you're curious how other star chefs stock their spaces, check out these fabulous finds from Andrew Zimmern and Marcus Samuelsson.
Yahoo
13-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Climate change is turning Valentine's Day bitter for chocolate lovers
If you're not a fan of nuts in your sweets, Valentine's Day could cost you more this year. The chocolates inside many of this holiday's heart-shaped boxes will likely contain more filler ingredients like nuts and fruits to offset the cost of pure chocolate. 'We used to look at hazelnuts and pistachio as an expensive inclusion,' said Jacques Torres, a chocolatier with high-end shops in New York City. 'Today, those nuts allow us to lower the cost of our chocolate bar.' The price of raw cocoa, chocolate's key ingredient, has surged by 200% over the past year, according to Adobe Analytics, which tracks online retail prices. On global commodities markets, cocoa futures are down slightly in recent weeks after peaking above $12,000 per ton — a record — just before Christmas. Two years ago, they were less than $2,500. Torres said he had to raise prices by 20% last month to offset the higher costs, and he anticipates another hike before the end of the year. The historic price run-up just ahead of the chocolate industry's biggest day of the year has been months in the making. Disruptive weather patterns fueled by climate change have hammered West Africa, where most of the world's cacao, the raw form of the bean that gets processed into cocoa, is grown. Similar challenges have been mounting for coffee farmers, too, fueling a sharp price spike on global markets that consumers are increasingly expected to feel this year. The cacao bean grows best in temperatures up to 89 degrees Fahrenheit and with annual rainfall less than 2,000 millimeters. In 2024, 71% of cacao-producing areas in West Africa experienced an average of 42 days with temperatures above that heat threshold, with some areas receiving 40% more rainfall than expected during the peak of the rainy season, according to a report released this week by Climate Central, a climate research institute. The increased temperatures and precipitation contribute to fungal diseases in cacao beans, the researchers said. Warm, humid conditions also breed mealybugs, which can spread an infection that spoils cacao crops. The combined impact of excessive heat and rainfall severely affected yield for cacao farmers. In the 2023-2024 harvest season, production was down 13.1% from the previous season, the Wells Fargo Agri-Food Institute told NBC News. Intensifying and more frequent extreme heat events and excessive precipitation are directly linked to global warming, as rising temperatures trap more moisture in the atmosphere. Climate scientists project excessive rainfall patterns to persist in West Africa through the rest of the century, while the entire continent warms 0.3 degrees Celsius faster per decade than the worldwide average. 'This is kind of the new norm,' said Jason Clay, the executive director of the Markets Institute for the World Wildlife Fund. 'With climate change, we're seeing that there are more bad years than there are good years in some crops, in some locations.' The Wells Fargo researchers estimate the cocoa supply deficit is now the worst it's been in 60 years, standing at negative 478,000 metric tons. The crunch is triggering doubts about festivities beyond Valentine's Day. 'Now the big question is about Easter,' Torres said. 'The bigger question is next Christmas — that's where things are going to be a little bit more sticky.' Even Hershey is responding to the market squeeze. The chocolate giant requested permission from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to buy over 90,000 metric tons of cocoa, more than nine times the amount allowed by the exchange, Bloomberg reported last month. Regulators denied the request, saying a sale that large would've monopolized the global supply. A Hershey spokesperson didn't comment on the CFTC decision but dismissed worries of a shortage, saying the company 'has a rigorous commodity procurement process, and we are well-covered in our cocoa needs for 2025.' David Branch, sector manager of Wells Fargo Agri-Food Institute, predicts chocolate products could become the next victim of shrinkflation — when brands reduce the size of their products without adjusting prices proportionately, a practice that has drawn scrutiny among Democratic lawmakers as contributing to inflation. 'The 30-piece bags of the mini candy bars, I think we're going to see that shrink a little bit,' Branch said. 'It may be 20 pieces in a bag instead of 30, and the price point kind of stays the same.' Chocolate sales topped $21 billion in the 12 months ending in mid-August last year, up 1.5% from the prior 12-month period, according to the National Confectioners Association, even as units sold fell nearly 5% — indicating consumers spent more for less chocolate. Keeping chocolate affordable will require stepped-up environmental protections in cocoa-producing areas, advocates warn. 'Climate change has barely started to affect food production. It's going to get much worse,' Clay said. 'The good news is that if you get trees planted for shade, you can actually reduce temperatures from getting as hot as they do in these deforested areas.' Clay said chocolate producers need to work together, rather than in competition, to invest in protective measures. That includes planting more trees, ensuring sustainable pay for cacao farmers and genetically modifying crops to become more disease-resistant. 'It won't mitigate all the impacts of climate change, but it will reduce the biggest impacts,' he said. 'That's really what we need to hope for.' In the meantime, consumers may have to deal with more nuts and fruits in their chocolate, or reach for different types of candies altogether. Younger consumers may already be leading the way. The NCA cited Gen Z and millennial consumers' taste for 'all things sour, flavor mashups, different textures, and flavor experiences' for helping drive a 5.4% jump in sales of non-chocolate candies in 2024 — a bigger uptick than either chocolate or gum and mints saw last year. This article was originally published on
