alanamoana
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Posts posted by alanamoana
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i made my wedding cakes (two, because my husband wanted a groom's cake, so i made another tiered cake)...and i made a small dairy-free one for one of my sisters-in-law. that was only two years ago, so i can't attest to luck being good or bad, but i'm happy if that's any consolation.
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Kerry, love that mold. It would be great with something pomegranate or raspberry...those are the flavors I immediately thought of when I saw the top of the mold...
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trish, you can buy trader joe's puff and use it to make small danish shapes and mini turnovers with various fillings. not ideal, i know, but it might save you some time in making dough...and most people won't really know or notice the difference.
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those do look awesome. i love peanuts and pretzels...a great combination!
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tortagel is definitely a glaze. i've seen similar products in germany.
never boil gelatin as it will denature it and it won't set up properly.
this recipe is sort of poorly written. it asks for 6 cups whipped cream. i assume that means 6 cups by volume of cream already whipped? and the cream is not sweetened, so that should adjust for the sweetness in the meringue and pastry cream.
i hope you succeed in your next try, but i'm always very skeptical of recipes i find on the internet. usually, i try to find three or four of the same type of recipe and compare the ingredients and instructions...then i mix and match based on my knowledge of technique. it usually helps because most recipes aren't that well written!
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Italian Meringue question.
I want to make a celery simple syrup to be used to make a celery Italian meringue. I've juiced a bunch of fresh celery, and will boil it down to remove impurities. In the end, what ratio of liquid to sugar should I be going for...is it okay for me to treat it as if it were water. One recipe I found says 1 C. superfine sugar to 1/3 C. water. Sound right?
Geez, now I wonder if I can candy a celery stalk for garnish!
remember that the water in the sugar for italian meringue is only there to moisten the sugar enough so that it doesn't crystallize. by the time you cook it to soft ball, most of the moisture will have cooked out (not entirely as with caramel, but getting there). the flavor will likely concentrate too, so you'll have to contend with that. so, it doesn't really matter how much liquid you add to the sugar, in order for it to reach soft ball, it will have to cook until it reaches 240F or whatever the temp is.
i realize that doesn't really answer your question, but it may make you reconsider how it works in order to get the flavor that you're looking for.
eta: also don't know how it all works in high attitude...oops, i mean high altitude
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I see now. The problem? I have only one mould!!! I guess I will have to use Gap's suggestion until I get another! Too bad the guy in Mol D'Art didn't tell me!!! You live and learn!
if you only have one mold, i don't think the figures will be able to be stuck together unless they have the reverse included in the mold. if the shape is a sphere or egg, it works because the shape is the same. with the squirrels, you'll need a 'negative' to stick to itself...make sense? otherwise, i think these weren't made to be 3D and just meant to be backed flat.
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I finally bought this book for myself at Christmas. I have been using it nearly everyday. I have loved everything I have made except the French bread.
It was the strangest thing, it went into the oven looking great. It did not have any visible flour on the surface at all. It turned stark white in the oven. Eventually the bottom started to burn, the internal temp. was right, but the upper surface was still super white. It was almost like some kind of weird reaction. Any ideas? It seems I was so ashamed I didn't take a picture... I have never had it happen before.
I have been posting a few pictures and reviews on my blog if anyone is interested.
this usually happens when you don't steam or don't steam enough. the crust doesn't have enough moisture to color properly. sometimes it is because of lack of salt in a recipe as well.
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looks beautiful!
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I haven't seen anyone post about the prenatal vitamins. My sister advised me to eat something like a banana muffin or starchy snack and not to have them on an empty stomach. I found that that helped quite a bit as the vitamins were a bit hard to handle otherwise. I might not be remembering right but I think I was taking them at night because of my lacto-ovo diet and all the dairy I ate during the day ... something about iron absorption being affected by dairy.
jayne (with 10-year old identical twin girls)
iron absorption is affected by calcium so that makes sense. if you're anemic at all and need to take an iron supplement, just make sure to take it several hours apart from your standard vitamin and to avoid calcium.
i didn't take a special pre-natal vitamin. just centrum, and my doctor never said anything about it. i took a look at the labels and both kinds had the same amounts of folic acid (or at least what they recommend you have).
edited to add: also, i never threw up...i think having a little bit of food around all the time helped. but again, this is also very individual.
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I did the totally crunchy granola eating thing with my first pregnancy. Whole foods, organic, perfectly balanced, no caffiene or alcohol. She was breastfed and lovingly introduced to homemade baby foods, etc, etc. This child eats crap at every given opportunity. She has some food allergy issues. Milk gives her shiners and chocolate gives her hives.
In my second pregnancy, I did what I wanted, when I wanted. Onion rings dipped in chocolate shake, yup. Pizza with pineapple and onions, oh baby. Candied bacon on mashed potatos with cheddar and roasted garlic? Bring me more. Espresso? Maybe just one. This child eats nothing but veggies and protein, and she's so much cannier than the rest of us that it's a little scary. When she is hungry and I can't keep the veggies flowing, I am sometimes worried she will start eating the shrubbery, like a goat. She has an iron stomach and the spicier, the better.
Your mileage may vary.
I love your response. So many people think everything is cut and dry and will apply across the board to every person. Just goes to show how individual we are! I sure hope my junk food loving/craving self produces a healthy baby who will eat veggies. I love the veggies too, just too lazy to cook lately. Besides, she's at least four days overdue right now! With the rain and power outages in the Bay Area (California), I'm hoping I won't go into labor this weekend as my hospital was without power as of this afternoon... 
. One more meal at In-n-Out Burger won't kill me or the baby, right?All that being said, I did avoid sashimi/sushi and didn't do caffeine daily. Once in a while a soda, but mostly water. I did eat bleu cheese and medium rare steak. I don't think I was hyper conscious of everything. I wish I had eaten more fish, but I did take a fish oil supplement...and I wish I had eaten more veggies.
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that's one of the reasons i hate silicon. i know how convenient it is, but it just doesn't give the right coloring to baked goods. little metal tartlette pans work very well, but end up being expensive when you have to buy tons of them. oh well.
i'm not sure if taking them out and baking would work. sometimes, with certain fillings and things it softens up too much and you lose the shape you were looking for or even worse, it falls apart.
sorry, it's just me being nitpicky!
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i think your shells look great rob. nice and consistent. my only comment would be to bake a little longer and get a touch more color on the dough...color is flavor. maybe it is me, but i always feel that people don't bake stuff enough.
of course, it could just be the color from the camera?
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if you want a spreadable ganache, the ratio of liquid to chocolate should be closer to 1:1, shouldn't it?
were they spreading the ganache on the dough to roll up and bake like a cinnamon roll or something? i would worry about the ganache burning during the baking process unless it was completely insulated by the dough.
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I enjoy dining at places where the Chef knows what he or she is doing.
I also however believe for Chef's to grow within this field that they should continue learning, trying and researching cuisines outside their comfort zone. How can they continue to keep us coming back for more if it always the same? Sometimes to get better they need to keep pushing their talents and taking chances. Otherwise I believe folks become stale and average.
That's all well and good, but they shouldn't be doing their learning on my dime. In other words, in their spare time, learn the new cuisine or technique or new ingredient and when it is perfected, by all means charge me a fair price for the meal.
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it is available at jb prince a little cheaper than at c.h.i.p.s. books. take a look.
i don't have an opinion on the book itself. i always want to buy all these books and have to force myself to NOT buy them!
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i've actually worked my way down from a 12" standard western style chef's knife to japanese-style petty knives!
i'm 5'7" and have large hands, but i find that the smaller japanese knives are easier to handle. i also like that they don't have a bulky heel like the german knives do.
i think my favorite knife is a suisen 8.2" yo-deba, which they consider "western" style. because the knife is lighter than german knives and doesn't have the heel, it seems smaller than it is.
this might be a good compromise and i don't think there's a task you can't tackle with an 8" blade.
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...if one reads the reviews with some level of skepticism, it is possible to discover a reliable and generally "good" version of a recipe.
i agree with you completely. sometimes, the comments/ratings are so ridiculous, like "wasn't salty enough"...you couldn't taste it while you were making it and add more salt than the recipe called for?
that being said, i love google. maybe there's a way to send them feedback on their search methods?
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alanamoana - You are quickly becoming my cooking fairy godmother .. or something like that. Thank you for your patience and wealth of information. I didn't know about the temperature thing. Now I will use my thermometer to guide me. I did leave the anglaise (thanks, I forgot the word) overnight. And honestly, the texture is not that bad. There aren't any crystals or anything. The only con is perhaps it froze too hard so when you are scooping it, it's not a nice smooth curl like you see in the commercials.
I did not use any vanilla, bean or extract. I used fresh mint for the flavor. I did strain into an ice bath and stirred while cooling. Looks like I did everything mostly right except for the anglaise. I will try again soon once this batch runs out.
sorry about the flavoring...i forgot that i read that you used mint. thanks for the thanks! i'm actually a beginning teacher, so this gives me practice and reminds me of how much i don't know!
oh, if your ice cream freezes too hard (eliminating your freezer temperature as a factor) you can do several things:
1) sugar doesn't freeze, so you can up the quantity of sugar
2) if you don't want your ice cream too sweet, you can use some of the additives mentioned that don't have the perceived sweetness of sugar but act the same way in raising the freezing temp of the base: glucose, corn syrup, etc
3) alcohol doesn't freeze either, so you can add a complementary alcohol. we used to always use a little vodka in our vanilla because it is relatively neutral
4) after perfecting your anglaise technique, you can start using the other additives to adjust texture. to be honest, in working in fine dining, we never used anything but sugar and alcohol in our ice cream bases. not that there's anything wrong with stabilizers and such, but we would just melt and respin ice creams every day for service so there was never a worry about shelf-life. after one re-spin we'd toss any leftovers and start fresh.
edited to add: oh, you did mention
that must be where i got confused.However, it smells very eggy. Like I am drinking eggnog or something. This is not necessarily a bad thing but I'd like my ice cream to smell like the flavor or vanilla, not like eggs. -
Does anyone have a better source for fruit puree besides L'Epicerie? They require a min order of 4 containers and they only last a week. I'd have to make enough pate de fruits for a busy candy store to need that much.
Try a local grocery store. Even if they don't sell the purees to the general public, they might be willing to sell you a single container if one of their suppliers carry it. At twice the price, of course...
Thanks for the tip. I will try one of the nicer stores in town like Gelson's. Is there any minimum requirement of ratios I should look for? Like 10% sugar, 5% pectin, etc.
depending on where you live, there are some wholesale purveyors who might be willing to sell to you if you are willing to pick up your order rather than have it delivered. often they have minimums, so a willingness to drive to them would work. here in the san francisco bay area (as well as eastern canada), we can order from qzina.
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if i'm correct in my assumption, you won't know until after the pastry cream has cooled down. that's why the general guideline is to cook the starch for approximately two minutes at a boil. if you're concerned, stop stirring for a second to make sure that your pastry cream is bubbling contentedly and then continue whisking for a total of approximately two to three minutes and then cool your pastry cream. that should be fine. you will have activated the starch and cooked off the raw taste. at that length of time, i don't think you'll denature your starch. however, i do think that ten minutes is too long.
edited to add: i'm pretty sure that i've seen it where the pastry cream thickens up and then after too long on the heat, it sort of slumps and thins out again...but i could be wrong.
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check out boiron puree recipes. this will lead you to a link for a pdf on basic recipes using boiron purees to make pate de fruit. very useful.
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Well, since I hadn't made ice cream in a number of years, I wanted to just try the recipe without alterations. When I was heating the mixture for it to thicken, I guess I looked away for too long because the next thing I knew, there were chunks in it! I turned off the heat and starting whisking rapidly which dissolved most of it. I strained the rest and some chunks remained. The end texture is very good and has a slight hint of mint (tastes very fresh but I will use more mint next time). However, it smells very eggy. Like I am drinking eggnog or something. This is not necessarily a bad thing but I'd like my ice cream to smell like the flavor or vanilla, not like eggs.
sounds like you overcooked your anglaise. this will affect texture. not unlike the pastry cream thread you started, there is a delicate balance of cooking the egg protein enough to thicken but not to break down. when egg protein overcooks, the strands of protein shrink and squeeze out moisture so you'll see eggy bits in a watery mess. yes, whisking while cooling or blending with an immersion blender etc. can 'fix' the appearance, but it will never thicken to the same extent that a correctly made anglaise will. unlike with pastry cream, there is an exact temperature you can use as a guide: 180F-185F. it should then be strained immediately into an ice bath and be stirred occasionally while cooling.
edited to add: custard bases benefit from at least overnight aging to allow the egg protein to absorb additional moisture from the mix and thicken further. this will reduce iciness in your ice cream along with other factors like how much sugar you have in your recipe, etc.
i'm pretty sure this is also why you get an eggy flavor. i've never really tasted egginess when the anglaise is properly made, but it could be subjective (see the thread on creme brulee experimentation). are you using vanilla bean or extract? if using extract, when are you adding it to the mix? extract should be used at the end so as not to cook off all the flavor while vanilla beans (split, scraped, seeds and pods added) should be started in the liquid to infuse as long as possible.
oh, never leave an anglaise (don't look away). you should be stirring gently but constantly with either a wooden spoon or rubber spatula so that you can be in constant contact with the bottom of the pot. you'll feel the subtle change in consistency there at the bottom first and will notice the thickening quickly after that. of course, you can also use a thermometer, but that doesn't preclude you from stirring constantly.
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Thanks for your responses everyone. So what have we learned here?
1. Use alot less corn startch.
2. Constantly whisk.
3. Did we agree on a scale (length or visual indicator) for how long to cook?
long enough to thicken (should be boiling, like hot lava), but not long enough to break down the starch.
remember also that pastry cream is really only good for about 2-3 days, after that it will break down and start to weep.
Buttercream Frosting/Icing: The Topic
in Pastry & Baking
Posted
Buttercream can really take a licking and keep on ticking...
you can 'reconstitute' it cold or at room temp. the point is not to give up on it when it looks like a lost cause. if you start paddling it from cold, it will break, but keep on going and it will come back together. you can hit it with some heat during the paddling (warm towel wrapped around the bowl, hair dryer, torch, whatever) and that will help it come back together. you will lose some volume, but you'll still end up with a silky smooth buttercream in the end.
especially because it is winter, room temp might not be warm enough to reconstitute by hand. if you leave it out, you'll need to stir it a bit to bring it back to the right consistency. if the room is too cold, you can again hit it with a little heat to very slightly melt the edges and stir that into the rest of the mass until it becomes working consistency again.
obviously, the more you reconstitute, the less volume you have, but it should be fine at least twice or three times.