Chocolate Ingredients Tip

Always taste your butter before you use it in a recipe. Sometimes a herd of dairy cows wil come across a patch of wild onions in a pasture. Believe it or not, this flavor comes out in their milk and in the resulting butter, and no one wants chocolate that tastes like onions!

Here's a trick used by pastry chefs worldwide: Because vanilla beans are so expensive, don't throw the bean away once you've removed the seeds. Instead, stick it in a jar with sugar and let it dry. The sugar will absorb the flavor of the vanilla and you will be left with vanilla sugar. When the vanilla bean has dried completely, you can also grind it together with the sugar in a food processor, for a stronger-flavored vanilla sugar. Use this in place of regular sugar in any recipe where you want to add a subtle vanilla flavor.