alanamoana

i would think that it has something to do with corn syrup or invert sugar added to the recipe. but, we'd have to see the recipe. 10 minutes seems like an awfully long time. unless the ganache was broken and you were trying to bring it back together, you should just mix it (even with an immersion blender) until the entire batch is glossy and smooth...then stop.

if you have the professional pastry chef by bo friberg, just about every tart, individual pastry, cake...contains almond paste in some quantity. most european baking books do. it is a standard ingredient

some of the cheaper brands of scm have other ingredients besides milk and sugar. check the label. in the general food topics, a fellow eGulleteer donbert did a side by side tasting of scm and dulce de leche he made with 24 cans of various brands cooked to varying degrees of darkness. check out his food blog for results and an answer to your question as he gave results of a blind tasting as well. edited to add link to donbert's blog: here it is

the ingredients are listed in english as: "citron juice", but in japanese as "yuzu no sui" this could be a mistranslation as the japanese clearly says yuzu juice. citron is a different animal. however, based on flavor alone, i'm pretty confident it is yuzu juice. there are bottles that are sold that have salt added to them. i wouldn't buy that variety because i'm sure the salt is added as a preservative. based on the cost of the small bottles of juice that i do buy, i think it is actually yuzu juice. and relatively decent yuzu juice, at that. i use it to flavor desserts.

hey ling, what's the clear gelee next to the chocolate box from the gordon ramsay chocolate cremeux dessert?

my question is always "why didn't i think of that"...that is, if they are really making money. but my mind isn't that devious. i don't think i could ever try to pass off someone else's product as my own, nor would i want to!

well, i for one am exhausted by your trip! i don't think i have ever done that much in 66 hours in new york...when i lived there! but i guess that's the luxury (or demand, depending on how you look at it) of being a tourist. thanks henry and ling for a look into your great adventure! p.s. when are we going to see 66 hours in paris?!

AnnaN, i think your efforts are great. for a newbie, you've done a lot more experimentation than i have (as a professional) and it is great to see. it is also fun for me to see how much fun you are having. i guess it is helpful to have someone so skilled and giving with their time as kerry around to dispense advice and molds! lexy, you can also use cellophane which you can buy easily at craft stores. make them look like a big piece of candy by twisting the ends, or even tie the ends with ribbon after wrapping around the nougat.

hey ling, check out the chocolate bars when you open them. i bought several when i was there last and all of them had tons of bloom. also, i got an assortment of ganaches as well and most of them were sort of "eh". disappointing, considering the source. maybe this is what happens when one gets too big. from what i understand, all of the enrobed ganaches are made at the brooklyn shop. the manhattan shop makes all the "non-skilled" things like panned nuts, chocolate covered cheerios, etc. it is a pretty impressive shop though, isn't it (i mean the kitchen, not the store).

if you don't know anything about tempering chocolate, i might suggest using chocolate chips (the kind for cookies) so that you don't have to hassle with it. otherwise, you might want to look at the demo on tempering (milk) chocolate here. the only thing different is that with dark chocolate, you can take it a degree or two higher as your working temperature. good luck!

ling, i could not have said it better myself. this is how i felt the desserts were as well.

tammy, what great truffles. thanks for taking the time to post the recipes as well. i'm sure you're glad to have gotten those out of the way so you can enjoy a relaxing week of the eGullet pastry challenge! it just doesn't end, does it?!

obviously there is something deeply, psychologically wrong with you lancastermike! i looooooove cream cheese. every time i open it up to make cheesecake, i have to have a bite of it for myself. to each his/her own...more for me!

filipe, buttercream will probably be too soft and won't set up enough to use as glue. the standard "glue" is royal icing. powdered sugar, a few drops of lemon juice and egg whites. a couple of egg whites to a pound of powdered sugar. after it is mixed, either thin it out or thicken it with more egg whites or sugar. it needs to be pretty thick.

cool! i thought tien had gone back to cafe boulud after cafe gray...i know that david is his friend (probably worked at daniel/cafe boulud together). nice to see a familiar name! to be honest, on my most recent trip to nyc (in september) i was rather disappointed with desserts at wd-50. i ate every one on the menu at the time and they just didn't satisfy me in the way that i think desserts should satisfy. this is hard to describe because i don't want to discount the very modern approach that alex and wylie have with food. but to compare, the duck app that lorna and henry ate was one of the most delicious things! none of the desserts were as flavorful and exciting in the same way. lorna and henry, great report so far. can't wait to see the rest of your trip. i'm in awe of both of you with how much you accomplished in such a short time (and how much you ate!!!)

i agree with you lorna, i don't love joe's shanghai. i prefer "new green bo" for xiao long bao. very divey and in chinatown, but veeeerrry good! almost sticky broth (from the pork fat), always hot and fresh.

Klary! what a beautiful dessert. i'm so impressed with what you did with this challenge. maybe it will make you want to make more plated desserts in the future?! all of the different textures, temperatures, flavors on the plate, but all tied together with a unified theme. that is exactly what a plated dessert should be. you're a natural! congratulations on a job well done. now go walk off that sugar high!!!

it is much easier to decorate when the pieces are flat. let the icing set and then glue it all together. having said that, it depends on the house pattern you're using. just always keep in mind where your seams are and how you are going to glue it together once the candy is in place. you'll have fun! don't worry too much, half the fun is being with your daughter eating the candy!

i actually like the "crepe house". they have three locations: polk, gough and post. i used to live almost across the street from the polk location. very casual, but the food is tasty and reasonably priced.

Beautiful, Patrick! Minus the dates (or not), but with the dark chocolate, I bet this would be wonderful with pistachio paste, too. ← Thank you, Pontormo. Baklava is really one of my favorite things, and I'd love to try more variations on it. Now that you mention it I'm kinda curious how nut paste-based filings would turn out. ← hey patrick, i made a dessert that was the cigar style baklava (i'm sure it has another name, i just don't know it) and my filling was a combination of chopped gianduja, chopped hazelnuts and some other stuff. the soaking syrup was flavored with a bunch of stuff that i can't remember right now, but it was a very nice dessert. i'll check to see if i have the recipe somewhere.

i'm about 80% sure that hershey also bought joseph schmidt's chocolate enterprise around the same time as they purchased scharffenberger.

i ran out of steam and haven't bothered to finish my house (or doors!), or make a nice base ... it was my first gingerbread house and to me, the fun was in baking the pieces and gluing them together. i was amazed that it all, for the most part, fit together. and besides, i love the gingerbread dough and ate way too much of the stuff to bother with finishing i got the template from this website.

yes, but it only comes in 10 oz cans. edited to add: chefs' warehouse has large cans probably, if you look at links in threads about high quality chocolate, you'll find sources for almond paste as well.

i wish i had known that before i bought my second which is a "professional 5 plus" which just means that my older model five quart bowl lift bowls and attachments aren't compatible. but it came with a free extra bowl and was on sale cheap, so i had to get it . again, the "5 plus" doesn't seem to like the heavy work as much as my older model standard 5 quart bowl lift...darn it. it's good to know they updated the gears on the 600 Pros...maybe there will be one of those in my future!

hey sote23, i was just down there...i don't think there's too much going on, but i'll let the locals chime in. that's a bit of a spread from long beach down to laguna hills so there may be something i don't know about. i usually just go for good asian food!