alanamoana

lior, yes, i've seen this on menus. to be honest, i just think it is a bastardization of the term. sort of like 'coulant'...it just sounds good on the menu. unless the french are coming up with new words that have real definitions. i'm open to other people's explanations...

here's the link to Annie's demo: chefpeon demo

there's also a tutorial here on eG somewhere... anyone? edited to add: the link to the tutorial but i'm sure you'll find as many methods as there are bakers making this kind of cake

Did you stir the chocolate between dipping the caramels and the pretzels? Also, did you stir the chocolate before you poured out the excess the chocolate? Temper requires: temperature, time and agitation. So, if you didn't stir between dipping the two different items, there could have been some over crystalization of your chocolate which caused the blooming. Then, if you stirred before you dumped the chocolate out, you could have redistributed the crystals thus bringing it all back into temper. Kerry? Kerry? Any thoughts?

just adding a "yes, ganache on buttercream works"...and a suggestion for your carrot cake next time: color some white chocolate or "candy melts" and pipe the carrots on parchment or a piece of cardboard wrapped in plastic wrap. then you can remove them when they set up and stick them on the cream cheese frosting. or you can do the traditional marzipan carrots

with the gougeres, make the batter, pipe it and freeze it unbaked (any time before the event). you can bake them out of the freezer (maybe give them ten minutes at room temp). it won't work the same if you just refrigerate it and likely the flour will discolor if left in the fridge. if your parmesan crisps lost their luster after cooling, then they weren't baked enough. there is a fine line between baking them enough for them to stay crisp and having them be a bit bitter from overbaking. just keep an eye on them and make sure you make them thin enough. they can be okay for a day or two, but you might want to keep them on some dessicant/limestone. in an airtight container wrapped with plastic wrap. you might want to undercook the orzo a little as you're storing it and reheating it in a liquid (but with all the italian food you prepare, you already knew that ). the baguette crisps can be made ahead and stored airtight. i don't think i'd assemble and refrigerate because you risk the crisps becoming sogs. now that i think about all of this advice, i should probably take a look at the actual recipes, eh? edited to add: by the way, i think you can do this without any problems. besides, don't you have two of the most capable and adorable prep cooks around?

could be that you were lucky and got a good batch of berries that didn't have too much water content and had a reasonable amount of natural sugar. that way, your sorbet wouldn't freeze with too much ice crystalization...thus making it smooth? (this is as much a question as it is an answer ) edited to ask: is the mixture cooked at all? could also be that the berries have enough pectin that when it is cooked or mixed with the acid in the lemon juice the pectin is activated enough to smooth out the texture of the sorbet...again, conjecture. how much sugar is in the recipe, relative to other ingredients?

i used to feel that way, but i've been making smbc a lot lately and i really like the fact that you don't have to boil a sugar syrup. i think the only difference is the method of making the meringue because in either smbc or imbc you can use different ratios of butter to different effect. at least, that's what i think.

is this an interview for front of house or back of house? is it meant to be a tryout as well? if so, then you'll need to have 'work' clothes also.

smbc does not involve boiling the sugar. the steps are: whisk sugar and whites together in a bowl over a pot of simmering water. you want to make sure the sugar is dissolved and the temp reaches about 160F. put the whites/sugar mixture on your mixer and whisk until cool. add the butter and flavoring and continue whisking until shiny. i don't know about american buttercream, but using powdered sugar will definitely give you a different product. the starch in the powdered sugar is still raw, so might give a different mouthfeel/texture. the overall texture of the buttercream is different as well. i think american buttercream ends up crusting over when left out, correct? smbc and imbc will both stay silky smooth and shiny at room temp.

if these are yeasted or have the addition of a chemical leavener, the difference in the butter won't be as noticeable as if you were relying on air beaten into the butter during creaming with the sugar (like in a classic pound cake that relies on mechanical leavening) the difference might just be lighter rolls had you used the softened butter rather than melted.

Ted, I don't think you have to be so specific. Just look up 'depositor' or 'pastry depositor'. I think any generic machine can do the job. But hey, I could be wrong!

what you can do, is start of with a high temp to get the oven spring and rise out of the croissants and then turn the temp down a bit to get a more even browning. if you keep the temp up the whole time, you end up taking them out a bit early so they don't get too dark and you often have the white striping.

Kim, is the recipe for the cake on recipeGullet?! it looks amazing, moist and delicious...i like your cute use of the swirled chips as garnish.

another thing to note, boiling water will destroy the ability of gelatin to set up...do as other posters have mentioned and dissolved gelatin in hot (but not boiling) water

That really depends on what type of baking you're doing. Restaurant work isn't "normal" by any stretch of the imagination. Baking could be more "normal" but usually includes extremely early hours (if not graveyard type shifts). You'd definitely have to be the boss in order to end up with a decent schedule!

The commercial almond paste is much cheaper, about $4/lb, I don't know if can get marzipan commercially and at a good price. ← i'm not sure where you're getting almond paste for $4/lb, but that is a good price. Pastry Chef Central has both almond paste and marzipan in 7# cans for $42.99...the same price. Of course, you'd have to pay shipping with them. but i feel like the pricing shouldn't be all that different between the two products. especially because marzipan actually has less almond than almond paste.

Definitely agree with Nakji... When I first started working at a restaurant in Southern California, I started to learn kitchen Spanish. I've always had it in my head that living in the United States, people should speak English. Well, the cooks insisted on speaking Spanish and said that I should learn it to. Much to their dismay when I could understand what they were saying about me or other gringos...but couldn't understand what we were saying! The process is ongoing and unfortunately, I'm illiterate...can't read or spell (I can fake it if I have to) but it was a relatively quick process to get going since I had already studied French in high school and I love languages.

If you do a search in the Pastry and Baking Forum, you'll find past discussions of this exact topic...albeit a bit less civilized. Historically, men occupied both sides of the kitchen because, well...women didn't work outside the home. So, all the great pastry chefs and savory chefs were men. But, behind every great chef or pastry chef is a very talented group of women at home . Now, with the playing field a little more balanced, it seems that women tend to enter into pastry because of perceived difficulties in maneuvering the hot line. I've worked in many places with equal gender representation on the line and among chefs both pastry and savory. I do find that like Tiny mentioned, in some of the bigger cities like New York, Chicago and LA, you'll find more male pastry chefs than female. I think, and don't take this the wrong way, that some of the more experimental cooking methods (think molecular gastronomy) tend to attract men. Therefore (and there's no research to back this claim) cities like San Francisco that haven't grabbed on to the molecular gastronomy locomotive tend to have more female pastry chefs. I don't know if it is a personality thing where women like to make more sensual/comforting desserts and men like to experiment with beakers and cool equipment. I know there are exceptions to every rule...so please don't start coming up with a list of men who make comfort desserts and women who make experimental style desserts...I'm not making a judgement either way. I'm at work so I'll add more later...but those are my thoughts for now

any reason why you don't just buy marzipan? the commercial stuff i use isn't very difficult to work with at all. edited to add: i'm assuming availability is a factor...

that would be Bo Friberg, Harold McGee and Peter Greweling...a little easier to search using the proper spellings

i'll assume that since you're opening a shop, you've been selling cakes for a while, right? if that's the case, then maybe you should use the type of oven that you're used to using already. your recipes work with it and you won't have to make any adjustments. if you're looking to increase your production substantially, then you might have to consider different equipment. i'm not sure what a 'digital' oven is. can you explain that one? are you talking about a Combi? gas and convection are not mutually exclusive. you can have an electric convection or a gas convection.

kalamansi pate de fruit with a white chocolate ganache infused with lemongrass?

lior, this is a glazing screen, also called a truffle grid...sometimes in a commercial kitchen we use roasting racks for the same thing. the ones made specifically for chocolate usually have a smaller grid pattern.

there are a couple of things to troubleshoot here torsten: oven temp: if the oven temp is too high, the outside will bake, set and color before the inside gets a chance to bake so it just sort of collapses once taken out of the oven. the chocolate might act a bit like an insulator as well. over proofing: if the croissants over proof, the interior might become spongy. but i feel like it might be a case of too many turns. if you roll and turn the dough too many times, you loose the layers and instead just get buttery bread instead of flaky croissant. i'm sure someone else can think of something else that i'm missing, but it is hard to do without specifics. good luck! rob, don't know what to say except...hope that note sticks!