The Well-Equipped Cook: The Cheese Connoisseur’s Tool Kit

Honor your favorite cheeses with these top tools. [Cook's Illustrated] The Well-Equipped Cook A Curated Collection of Equipment with Tips, Videos, and Recipes [The Cheese Connoisseur’s Tool Kit] Volume 121 The Cheese Connoisseur’s Tool Kit [view guide] Cheese is a must in any well-stocked kitchen, whether it’s grated Parmesan for pasta, cheddar for grilled sandwiches, or a variety of picks for the perfect cheese board. And when you’re investing in quality cheeses, you want to have the right equipment on hand, like storage wrap that extends the life of the cheeses and graters that help you achieve just the right consistency for any given recipe. In this week’s guide you’ll find all of our top-rated tools for storing and cooking with cheese, along with our favorite ingredients for the ultimate cheese board. Hosting a party for fellow cheese lovers? Our new book [All-Time Best Appetizers] features information on popular cheeses plus lots of cheese-centric recipes, including Spicy Whipped Feta and Baked Brie with Honeyed Apricot. You’ll also find other ideas and inspiration for your next party, including how to stock a bar, assemble a menu, and properly prep crudités. Don’t miss these guides Our buying guides contain recommended equipment from our rigorous equipment testings. We post new guides every week, but they’re available for only a limited time. As we often say, we do the testing so you don’t have to. [Tools for Pumpkins] [Essentials for Pumpkin Season] [Tools for Making Pancakes] [Must-Have Tools for Pancake Aficionados] [Microwave-Safe Kitchen Tools] [Make It in the Microwave] [Everything You Need to Make Pho] [Everything You Need to Make Pho] [Perfect Pasta Kit. Shop now →] KITCHEN MUST-HAVE Formaticum Cheese Bags [Formaticum Cheese Bags] [BUY NOW] When you spend money on fancy cheeses, the last thing you want is for them is to go to waste due to improper storage. Tight wrappings can encourage the growth of mold as moisture is released, while loose wrappings let cheese dry out and harden. But [our favorite cheese storage wraps from Formaticum] strike a happy medium and keep cheese fresher longer. These wax-coated bags are lined with thin, porous plastic, so they allow moisture to wick off the cheese yet not escape entirely. HOW TO MAKE Cheese Soufflé [Cheese Soufflé] Cheese soufflé may look complicated, but it’s really just a béchamel sauce combined with egg whites and air. To ensure that our soufflé had lots of cheese flavor but didn’t get weighed down, we used a combination of Gruyère and feathery Parmesan. We beat, rather than folded, the egg whites into the mixture, which helped create the perfect consistency, and we opted to leave an inch of space at the top of the soufflé dish to prevent spillover and eliminate the need for a parchment collar. [Get the recipe ›] [America's Test Kitchen Cooking School] WATCH AND LEARN Shaping and Topping a Pizza Stretch dough carefully by lifting and pulling, rotating it after each pull. [Watch the video ›] test kitchen quick tip The Fast Track to Soft Cheese Soft cheeses such as Brie and Camembert firm up in the refrigerator, so it’s important to bring them to room temperature before serving. Since this can take hours, we wanted to find a faster approach. We tried using the microwave’s low-temperature defrost function as well as a warm water bath. The microwave approach failed because it heated the cheese too rapidly, but the water bath was gentle and effective. In less than an hour, our cheese was just the right temperature and ready to serve. [Read more ›] [Brie] [More Cook’s Illustrated Buying Guides] bonus guide 15 Essential Tools for Pie Baking The holiday season is fast approaching, so seasonal pies are on our mind. Everyone has a favorite flavor to look forward to—and who doesn’t secretly love a leftover slice for breakfast? Since it would be a shame for your homemade pies to suffer at the hands of underperforming tools, we’ve put together this roundup of our favorite (rigorously kitchen-tested) pie-baking equipment. [View the guide ›] [Order All-Time Best Appetizers for just $15.95 →] EQUIPMENT GIVEAWAY Schmidt Brothers Midtown Block [enter to win] This smaller version of the Downtown Block secured all our knives nicely. With a base lined with grippy material, this block is very stable. An acrylic guard affords extra protection against contact with blades. It can be yours! All you have to do is [click here] and you’re done. One lucky winner will be chosen at random each week, so keep reading The Well-Equipped Cook for your chance to win! [America's Test Kitchen] [Cook's Illustrated] [Cook's Country] [Cook's Science] America’s Test Kitchen is the home of Cook’s Illustrated and Cook’s Country magazines, America’s Test Kitchen and Cook’s Country from America’s Test Kitchen public television shows, dozens of best-selling cookbooks, member websites, the America’s Test Kitchen Cooking School, and Cook’s Science , a new digital experiment with cooks, scientists and journalists reporting from the world of food and science. We have a single mission: to help you succeed every time you cook. FOLLOW US [Facebook] [Twitter] [Pinterest] [Instagram] [YouTube] [Forward to a friend →] View this email in a [Web browser]. Offer expires November 9, 2016. All prior sales excluded. No substitutions. We sent you this email because our records indicate that you requested to receive email from America's Test Kitchen. 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