America's Best

The perfect intersection of science and food...America's Test Kitchen...

The Girl has a subscription to Cooks' Illustrated and their companion website. She's had the subscription for a number of years, and I absolutely dig the magazine...and the website...and their recipes...and pretty much the whole crue.

The recipes are really the thing, and they do some really cool stuff to create the recipes. It's this little thing called the scientific method, and it makes their recipes just about as foolproof as any that I've ever tried.

They start by defining the problem. For example, they might want to find a recipe for pound cake that is moist throughout, crusty on the outside, and strongly enough flavored that it can hold up to some fruit sauce.

Next, they do their research, checking out dozens of recipes from cookbooks and websites. They look for commonalities and sort of average out the recipes to make a simple starting place.

From there they adjust each variable up and down to see what the perfect amounts and procedures are. For example, if the recipes call for everything from one egg through three eggs, they'll make a half dozen cakes - identical in every way except they'll vary the eggs until they get that amount right. Then they'll move on to repeat the process with the flour. Then they'll adjust the type of flour. Through every ingredient - amount and type - through every procedure - adjusting the order, adjusting the length of mixing or whatever - they make dozens and dozens of the recipe until they've figured out the perfect recipe.

Then they write the whole thing up, including everything from their impetus to perfect the recipe through the process they went through to find it, and then finally the recipe itself. Sadly the website doesn't have the full stories like the magazine does, but I can safely say that between The Girl and I, we've made probably a hundred of their recipes, and there hasn't been a dud in the bunch. Everyone turns out exactly like they've promised.

Seriously, any monkey can make their stuff and make it perfectly if you just follow the recipe.

Plus they've got all sorts of science to back things up.

Check these clips from the show...

First, behind the scenes, part 1...
Then, there's behind the scenes #2...
Their recipe for blueberry cobbler...
Some funny moments from the show...
Taste testing the best parmesan...And I realize that I've blogged about these buggers before, but I'm highly impressed with them, so I'll do it anyway.