Category: Guides

Trending Cake Decorating Techniques & Tips

Learn all about modern cake decorating styles

TikTok, the home of viral food videos, is awash with pastry art. Creators, with millions of views, design realistic cakes disguised as shoes, phones, everyday devices, and even other foods. Meanwhile, other netizen bakers showcase eye-catching methods of piping, layering, designing, and decorating desserts.

It turns out it’s not too hard to create a head-turning, modern dessert, but you do need the right equipment to get started. Here are some trending dessert decorating styles and how you can recreate them in your home or commercial kitchen.
Continue reading Trending Cake Decorating Techniques & Tips

Restaurant Gear for Crafting Perfect Asian Dishes

Restaurants can use woks, ranges and turners, and to make Asian cuisine.It’s 2024 and the world’s a village. Young Americans love to explore international cultures and flavors. Millions of young Americans listen to Korean-origin pop music (Kpop), consume Japanese-origin anime, learn Mandarin Chinese on Duolingo, and go out for Vietnamese cuisine. In the culinary world, global flavors and international cuisines are also trending, and diners look for exciting or novel flavors from other countries. Some of the most popular cuisines are from East Asia. A recent study found that Chinese, Thai, Korean, and Japanese were among the most Googled cuisines.

If your restaurant is looking to serve up dishes from East Asia, you need the proper equipment to make your Asian food dishes taste authentic and cook to perfection. Here, we will delve into some of the most popular flavors and the tools that are necessary to make Asian food, so you can start serving some popular global cuisines at your establishment. Continue reading Restaurant Gear for Crafting Perfect Asian Dishes

Navigating Allergen Awareness in Your Restaurant

Implementing food-allergy friendly policies in restaurants can save lives.

The Sergio Lopez Food Allergy Awareness Act is a Texas law that made Texas one of a handful of states requiring restaurants to post educational materials about food allergens, risks, symptoms of allergy attacks, and first aid. The Act became law several years after Sergio Alexander Lopez died from anaphylactic shock after eating a taco that contained peanuts. Lopez, a 24-year old music teacher with a peanut allergy, had confirmed with the restaurant several times that the taco was peanut free, but shortly after consuming it, he went into a coma and passed away a few days later.

The restaurant later defended themselves by explaining that Lopez had asked if the taco had peanuts, when it didn’t. It had peanut butter…

Continue reading Navigating Allergen Awareness in Your Restaurant

How to Put Little Treat Culture and Self Care on the Menu

Little Luxury is the TikTok self care trend that’s predicted to hit the food industry in 2024. In July of 2023, the Hashtag #littletreat reached 30 million views on TikTok. This phrase referenced a TikTok trend where influencers were highlighting the small ways they indulged — a $6 latte to get you through the early morning commute, splurging on an artisanal cookie after a long meeting, or treating yourself to a late-afternoon ice cream. “Something to get you through the day,” “You deserve it,” and “self care” are common captions to these videos.

Little Treat Culture, which grew into a trend on TikTok is moving from the social media world into the culinary-sphere. Whole Foods listed “Little Luxuries” as an expected 2024 food trend. But what does a “Little Luxury” mean and how can food establishments capitalize on this trend?
Continue reading How to Put Little Treat Culture and Self Care on the Menu

7 Ways to Set up an Eco-Friendly Green Kitchen

: There are a few small changes that home chefs can do to set up an eco-friendly green kitchen.

Did you know that by simply cutting your meat consumption in half, you can save approximately two trees per year? By carrying a reusable spork with you to school or work, you could save nearly 500 single use plastic utensils from the landfill per year. And that’s nothing compared to how much plastic waste you can prevent by using only reusable dishes in your home kitchen.

Those who love to cook (and to eat) have so many reasons to be grateful to Mother Earth. Our vegetables, fruits, grains, and even meat depends on air, water, and dirt. Unfortunately, producing these items has become a major driver of climate change, pollution, and deforestation. The Amazon and other forests are under threat due to land being cleared for agriculture or to pasture animals. Single use plastics, that don’t degrade in landfills, end up in the ocean. And, unfortunately, a lot of edible food ends up rotting away in landfills as well.

Continue reading 7 Ways to Set up an Eco-Friendly Green Kitchen

Tips on Throwing A Crowd-Pleasing Super Bowl Party

How to thrown an exciting Super Bowl party with decor, drinks, and food.The Super Bowl is one of the most watched televised programs annually, and the 2023 season is gearing up to be an exciting one. Whether you are there to cheer on your team, watch the halftime show, enjoy the commercials, or pass the night with friends, food, and alcohol, throwing a Super Bowl shindig is a foolproof way to make game day even more fun. You can throw a party at home or, if you manage a food establishment, turn it into a sports bar for the night.

There’s a lot that goes into planning a Super Bowl party: the decor, the viewing experience, the set-up, and most importantly, the food. Hosting a successful Super Bowl party can take some creative thinking and organizing. Here are some tips to make this season a memorable one.
Continue reading Tips on Throwing A Crowd-Pleasing Super Bowl Party

Essential Kitchen Tools For Serious Home Chefs

Essential kitchen tools for commercial kitchensWhat are the common elements found in a dinner party with friends, Thanksgiving dinner, and Sunday brunch with the family?

Bonding and camaraderie feature in all of the above situations, as does food. Long before people coined the phrase breaking bread, food was synonymous with companionship. Turns out that humans are not only social creatures, they are also social eaters.

The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in the next level of the food-friendship paradigm. Families under lockdown found themselves with more time on their hands – plenty of extra time to explore a new hobby. And, many fell in love with cooking with their kids, spouses, partners, friends, or even on their own. In fact, a survey by Premier Foods, showed that 73% of British people enjoyed the opportunity to invest time in home cooking and 91% hope to continue to hone their home cooking skills.
Continue reading Essential Kitchen Tools For Serious Home Chefs

One-Pot Cooking and Meals Reign in Restaurants in 2022

Part I: Slow Cookers and Crock Pots

Restaurants feature one-pot dishes, often made in a slow cooker or crock pot.

If you’re looking for a business forecast for the 2022 restaurant industry, the recipe to success may lie in one-pot cooking. As restaurateurs and caterers struggle to get back on their feet in the aftermath of COVID-19, many are turning to the food and beverages that became best-sellers during the corona crisis and which have remained popular among consumers ever since.

Front-and-center on restaurant menus for the New Year, expect to see wholesome one-pot dishes where all the ingredients cook together in a single pot, skillet, or cooker. These one-dish meals tend to contain all the elements of a healthy breakfast, lunch, or dinner – and then some. Combine your choice of protein, starch, vegetables, sauces, syrups, salt and pepper, then add herbs and spices, for a dish that takes the taste buds over the top. While these recipes were once geared primarily for family dining, single-serving one-pot creations for individual diners are now also rising in the rankings.

Continue reading One-Pot Cooking and Meals Reign in Restaurants in 2022

Shining the Limelight on Lemons

Cater to lemon-lovers with lemon-flavored dishes and desserts that steal the show

Attention lemon lovers around the world: If lemon is your favorite flavor, you have come to the right place! Similarly, if you are a seasoned chef, professional baker, budding culinary student, or restaurant owner, this Comprehensive Guide to Cooking and Baking with Lemons is the perfect recipe for success to keep your customers coming back for more.

So pucker up and prepare to learn all about lemons, one of Mother Nature’s most underestimated flavorful ingredients…

Tapping into the Taste of Lemon

Lemons are best known for their slightly sour or tart taste. Typically used to enhance the flavor of other foods (rather than be consumed alone), their pungent quality becomes citrusy, light, and refreshing when added to sweet and savory recipes alike. During the cooking or baking process, all parts of a lemon can be used: the juice, the pulp, and the peel/rind. Note: In recipes, grated lemon rind is often referred to as ‘lemon zest’. Continue reading Shining the Limelight on Lemons

How French Cuisine Has Permeated More Than Our Palates

French cuisine favorites boost restaurant revenues

From à la carte and à la mode to au gratin, crème brûlée, café au lait, soupe du jour, maître d, bon appétit, cuisine, and more, did you ever notice how many French culinary terms proliferate the American lexicon? Likewise, some of the world’s favorite restaurant dishes include recipes for French crepes, soufflés, baguettes, croissants, petit fours, vinaigrette, quiche, and more.

So why is it that professional chefs ‘sauté’ rather than cook in oil, ‘purée’ rather than blend, and compete so that customers choose their catering services to host the next grand ‘soirée’? Furthermore, given the widespread popularity of French haute cuisine, what secret tricks of the trade can help your restaurant’s chefs and bakers create mouth-watering, traffic-attracting pièces de résistance?

Continue reading How French Cuisine Has Permeated More Than Our Palates