A hot cake plus cold frosting means cake death: soggy and ugly. Meg Ray, founder and owner of San Francisco's Miette patisserie and confiserie, explains what you're doing wrong when you're frosting a cake. Plus, more important, what you should be doing right: using good tools, keeping the components at the right temperature, giving it a crumb layer, and more.

How to Frost a Cake with Meg Ray

You're Doing It All Wrong is constructive criticism. Don't take it the wrong way: Just learn the right way.

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CHOW Associate Editor Roxanne Webber demonstrates the wrongs and rights of Thanksgiving stuffing. The biggest wrong? Sticking with the gluey mess that comes out of a box. You’re not saving yourself much time or money with that stuff.

How to Make Thanksgiving Stuffing with Roxanne Webber

CHOW Associate Editor Roxanne Webber makes her pie crust for the CHOW Thanksgiving pumpkin pie the right way, by using cold butter, not overworking the dough, and defying the temptation to add a lot of water.

How to Make a Flaky Thanksgiving Pie Crust with Roxanne Webber

Pastry chef Boris Portnoy gives new life to a Thanksgiving cliche. Generic, canned pumpkin pie mix plus freezer-burned pie crust equals fake smiles on the faces of your friends and families. Real smiles come from choosing your own pumpkin—there are many heirloom varieties to pick from—and then customizing and experimenting as you go, using Portnoy’s recipe as a guide.

How to Make Pumpkin Pie with Boris Portnoy

Chef, author, and consultant Joyce Goldstein is a culinary hero, and she has heroic ways with matzoh balls. She suggests babying the dough, using schmaltz for chicken-y flavor, and boiling the matzoh balls for a good, long time. Try out Goldstein's recipe for Matzoh Ball Soup.

How to Make Matzoh Balls with Joyce Goldstein

Sunset magazine food editor Margo True has learned the rights and wrongs of mashed potatoes from a reliable source-- her mother. Here, she demonstrates the wrong way (undercooking waxy potatoes, skimping on the cream, or, horror of all horrors, employing a food processor to mash) and the right way (using russet or Yukon Gold potatoes, cooking them as long as possible, drying them over heat before adding lots of cream, and topping with herbs). This approach elevates mashed potatoes to their rightful status as much more than a side dish.

How to Frost a Cake with Meg Ray

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