alanamoana
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Posts posted by alanamoana
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rob, nice tartlette. how did the curd come out?
i made some meyer lemon curd this weekend. used vanilla sugar and instead of cooking it with the butter, added it at the end and used my immersion blender...smooth, creamy and delicious! served it over macerated strawberries and raspberries on shortcakes (biscuits) with some unsweetened whipped cream.
only thing i'd do differently is use even less sugar for the meyer lemons. i reduced the sugar by one third of what the recipe called for and used more lemon juice, but they were so sweet (relatively speaking) i could have cut back on the sugar even more.
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I'm sure you've already considered this but I have a fairly large collection of "standard" muffin/cupcake pans that in actuality are of assorted sizes. The differences aren't huge but they're definitely different and make a difference in the end product when you put an equal amount of batter in them.
You know, Tricook, I was thinking about that. The 'standard' muffin pans I have were purchased by my parents when I was a child, and given to me years ago, Hmm..I would say they each hold exactly 'give or take' 1 cup of batter. I haven't bough a new muffin pan since, except for jumbo and mini.
I forgot to add, the 'standard' size paper cupcake liners fit perfectly into each well.
i have a pan where the 'standard' cupcake liners fit into the cavities. i just took a cup of water (one cup by volume, 8 oz) and it filled three cavities completely full. so, yes, you're probably over filling the cups.
however, there are a couple of other troubleshooting tips you might want to consider:
oven temp - if the batter rises properly but doesn't have a chance to set up and then settles down, it could be that you're baking at too low a temperature. if you're following the directions in the recipe, you should check your oven temp to make sure that it is calibrated. also, it will make a difference if you're using convection or still air.
leavening - could the recipes in the book have a different amount of chemical leavening than your 'tried and true' recipes?
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check out this page from chocolat-chocolat.com
they might have what you're looking for on another page if the one you're looking for isn't on this page
edited to add: due to the poor exchange rate with the us$, you can also look at this page from tomric.com
i've heard mixed things regarding their ordering and shipping process
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uneven heat in oven?
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you can just use parchment on the bottom without any other kind of pan prep for most cakes. i would say this is how it is done in most professional kitchens (don't know about bakeries...just restaurant kitchens)
the reason you shouldn't butter (or otherwise grease) the sides of a pan with a genoise (or any other cake that doesn't use a chemical leavener) is that there isn't the guaranteed lift that you'll get with baking soda/baking powder. you need to give the cake something to hold on to as it rises. same thing with angel food cake.
i also don't agree with taking it out of the pan right away. i would say let it cool for at least ten minutes before releasing (running a knife around the pan) and turning out. however, you don't necessarily want the cake steaming itself in the pan either.
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how is this for news? Grub Street article on Cafe Gray
a little sad for me...
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that cheesecake looks severely overbaked. is it possible that you mismeasured an ingredient somewhere too? usually when a cheesecake is overbaked, it just souffles, but this looks like it souffled and then collapsed (thus the hills, dales and cracks).
you might want to calibrate your oven temp. if you do it at low enough of a temp, you don't need a water bath.
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I have white lilly pastry flour. I'm thinking that is the same thing as White Lily self rising flour with out the baking powder.
Does anyone know?
My biscuits are also spreading out. I'm thinking either they are a little too we and not getting a clean cut with the biscuit cutter (I'm dipping the cutter in flour before each biscuit cut). Or maybe the butter has softened too much?
Thanks.
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oven temp is important (hot enough?), but also with biscuits, you can put them on the pan closer together so that they support each other when they rise. not so close that you have one huge biscuit...about 1/2" to 1" apart
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how thick (how much caramel) the caramel is in the bottom of the pan will determine whether there is a little disc of caramel left in the pan. obviously, the longer the flan sits before being unmolded will also determine if there is any caramel left in the pan as well...whether it gets dissolved before being unmolded.
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Does anyone have a recipe for a peanut butter macaron? I'm not having any luck finding one.
since macarons are made with tant-pour-tant (is there an 'e' in tant(e)?...wait, that would be 'aunt'), equal parts of nut meal and powdered sugar, you could try peanut meal. this is available at asian groceries. i think that if you tried to grind it yourself (even with adding sugar) you'd end up with peanut butter.
that would be a start, then you could make a nifty filling with peanuts or peanut butter.
rob: pm me if you want me to send you some peanut meal
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Once you get the chocolate into temper, they will hold it there, because their thermostats do have a very tight range.
Well that's good to know! I saw the big hotel pan size melters in use on one of the Food Network chocolate challenges; I had wondered if those things held the chocolate in temper.....now I know!
Sigh.......boy would I like to have one of those...........
I bought a Chocovision Revolation 2 off of eBay. $250. It's ok, but only for home use. It only melts and tempers up to 1.5 lbs of chocolate, and when you're working with chocolate, you know that's not much at all!
oh, another thing that sucks about them (aside from price) is that standard hotel pans don't fit in them (i'm pretty sure about this, but i could be wrong). just another way to get you to spend more money by buying an extra pan!
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So, I just made my first meringue and it was a disaster. Dark beige on the outside, nice and puffed up when it came out of the oven, then it fell, leaving a thin crumbly exterior and a spongy white interior.
I used a Jamie Oliver recipe for basic French meringue and thought I'd followed it to the letter.
What could I have done so wrong?
sounds like you baked it at too high a temperature and (while it sounds contradictory) too short a time.
with meringue, if you're looking for a crispy result, low temperature for a long time will get it to dry out sufficiently without getting too much color in the process.
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HI,
I want to try the financier recipe from my new Paco Torreblanca's book which is written in Spanish and English and in the recipe he uses „mantequilla avellana“ what is translated as hazelnut butter – most recipes that I know call for beurre noisette, also called brown butter so I am whandering if maybe the translation is wrong?
noisette = hazelnut in french
so, while we english speakers call it brown butter, in other languages it really is called 'hazelnut' butter, which i think is just because of the nutty aroma
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rob, in direct answer, we used to make an italian meringue at a restaurant where i worked. it was piped onto a tart a la minute and torched. the meringue was made during the day (when the production people worked and got off work at 2 or 3pm) and we used it for the dinner service (which started at 5pm and ran until 11pm) and it held up fine if it was made well. we usually kept it in the piping bag in the fridge and had extra on hand in a container in the fridge.
also, francois payard makes baked alaskas ahead (for special occasion cakes) and keeps them frozen with the italian meringue on the outside...seems to work for him also.
edited to add: might make a difference depending on the ratio of sugar to egg white that you're using.
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I'm new to making croissants and I have been trying different types of butter; that is, 80%, 82% and 85% butterfat content while keeping the rest of the recipe constant. I haven't tried the 85% yet, but the 82% croissants tasted a little bit saltier that the 80% croissants. Is it necessary to adjust the amount of salt due to the decrease in water content in the butter? (or any other component for that matter).
that would depend on whether you're using salted butter or not. most professional recipes use unsalted butter.
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Holy Crap Kerry! I'd love to see your mold collection, if that's just Easter stuff! How fun. Good luck with the TV spot.
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are you considering stirring the inclusions into the tempered chocolate before filling the molds?
from all of the "artisan" products out there, most chocolatiers make that type of bar by either:
a) putting the inclusions in the molds first and then pouring tempered chocolate on top, vibrating and allowing to set
or
b) pouring the chocolate into the molds, vibrating and then sprinkling 'inclusions' (i'll use air quotes on that because they aren't really inside) on the back of the bar and letting them settle in a little bit
either way, the packaging for the second method is usually clear so that you can see the flavor of the bar. to me, this is more like bark.
at any rate, other than that, there isn't anything special done to the chocolate or molds. i've made bark where i've stirred things into it, but i usually just pour it out onto parchment, so i'm not worried about shine...if i remember correctly though, it usually comes out fine on top...
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when using a commercial convection oven, i'd start baking at around 400F and reduce to 325-350F. i realized that the most recent times i've baked these, it has been at home in a crappy NOT calibrated oven, so who knows what temp i'm baking at. i do keep a pizza stone in my oven all the time which i think helps to hold the heat in the oven a little bit better. you can recommend that to your friend.
i think the extra butter and the egg yolks might make her recipe much heavier. let us know how they turn out.
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just a quick response with regard to texture: recipes i've used (and i love financiers) call for baking at a high temperature at first and then lowering the temp partway through baking. this way, you get a great crust with a dense and moist interior. i've definitely had them come out a bit 'translucent' in the middle without being raw...possibly just a touch underbaked.
here's my favorite recipe:
7 oz almond meal
7 oz powdered sugar (american versions do have some cornstarch in it)
3/4 C granulated sugar (table sugar)
9 oz egg whites
2 tablespoons liqueur of your choice
splash of vanilla extract
3/4 C all purpose flour (american all purpose is around 11% protein)
pinch salt
7 oz browned butter (weight after cooking)
please excuse the fact that i have volume and weight in the same recipe. this is a very old recipe of mine. you can see how it compares to the recipe that your friend uses.
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What do you mean by his method resolving a lot of issues for you?
I'd like to know that too.
Also, when I clicked on the link from the video to get the printed recipe, I noticed that it's
more or less a brioche dough. All I really want to know is why doing it by hand like that would
be any different than developing the dough on a mixer? I make brioche every week by the
way, so I'm just curious.
just from personal experience, unless i'm making very large quantities of brioche, the dough hook just does a poor job of developing the dough/gluten. this dough also has a much smaller ratio of butter in it (than traditional brioche) from what i can see.
i really think this method would take less time than on a mixer (although you couldn't multi-task) and it seems to develop the dough much more evenly than a mixer can. as a matter of fact, i've often started this type of dough on a mixer with the paddle attachment and then moved to the hook.
*i'm referring to kitchen aid type mixers. the more european style mixers usually have two hooks or the bowl moves making them more efficient.
i think as a learning method too, this is a good idea because people really should make doughs with their hands. you get a much better feel for when a dough is made properly when you've used your bare hands. might not be practical if you need 20# of dough though
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what did you use for the "rice"? I've had success using a very flexible jelly roll cake which held it's shape pretty well...it was a little difficult to cut, but I found freezing it and then cutting with a serrated knife dipped in hot water made nice clean cuts...
I've also made the nigiri style sushi by making coconut cakes rolled in coconut and then making the fish out of raspberry jello with a little bit of cream. People go crazy over the stuff!
you could use puffed rice cereal and marshmallow (a.k.a. rice crispy treats)
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I am going to make some now and see for myself ..it totally looks worth the effort ..it looks like it feels good!!! ..thanks!
ETA
I just made this dough it was easy ...came out exactly as he showed and in the process of rising now ..thanks so much for posting the link... I honestly think it resolved a lot of issues for me
Thanks for reporting on your experience with the dough and for the photo of your sweet roll! I'm glad you had a good experience with the dough. What do you mean by his method resolving a lot of issues for you?
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Hey Luis,
We've used the blue stuff near food for a long time. I think as long as it isn't in contact it should be fine. But I'm no scientist. It is being sold by food purveyors, but I think they're just selling it because there is a demand for it...they're not worried about poisoning anyone!
But the orange stuff looks like a good substitute!
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need to fix the link. you pasted an extra http:// into the address...
edited to add: it's a great technique! i didn't realize gourmet had these great videos. thanks for pointing them out.
Your Daily Sweets (2005-2012)
in Pastry & Baking
Posted
rob, what a great birthday present to yourself. your new chocolate skills are showing and the cake looks professional. i think the only way to get glaze smooth on the sides is to have a ton on hand and pour A LOT over the cake so that enough can stick to the sides. also, temperature is key so that it doesn't soften the mousse beneath it and drag it down the sides. i think the sides are always a little hard, that's why even the competition cakes have macarons or chocolate plaques all over the sides...decorate to hide mistakes...one of the best lessons i ever learned in culinary school!
how did you seal the spheres? when i was making easter eggs this year (my first time), i used an upside down sheet pan with a heating pad underneath...then i gently rubbed the edge of one egg over the warm sheetpan and quickly stuck it to the other half. it worked really well and the seam was barely visible.
at any rate, i just wanted to comment on how your skills are improving with every dessert you make!