alanamoana

Thanks so much for the great demo Pam. Beautiful sufganiyot! I will add though that I've never heard of that particular piping tip called a Kaiser tip before. Could that be the brand? I've always heard of it as a "Bismarck" tip. That might help when looking it up on-line. More 2 cents...when you fry doughnuts (sufganiyot ) already filled, there is a tendency for the dough around the filling to not cook completely...particularly if the filling is cool. This happened where I worked because we would fry them to order and they had to be kept in a refrigerator after the final proofing. The filling would get too cold in the fridge. This obviously didn't happen with yours, but just a warning...you might have to fry filled ones a bit longer.

check out the wok shop.

Sorry for not getting back to you sooner, it been a long day, the gellified brulee is made with a mixture of curd, pastry cream, and gelatine (sheets) it actually is not hot when poured over (vegaline sprayed) bubble wrap and allowed to set freeze or refrig.), it's pretty easy. hot fresh curd and pastry cream would probably melt the plastic, if not pop the bubbles, it would be a mess. make your components before hand, let them cool, bloom your gelatine sheets, heat, temper and add all ingredients together. hope this helps... BTW, although I was instructed not to do this, a gellie of champagne or white wine in the bubble impression would work very nicely, Filipe - hint/hint... Michael Robert Porru ← champagne gelee would have been too easy michael! you know it. your dessert it 100x better, without a champagne gelee...not that there's anything wrong with a champagne gelee...just wanted to see something different. you definitely delivered.

think "nuts, seeds and beans"...all in paste form...sweetened lightly with sugar (possibly palm or chinese "brown" sugar). use the above pastes filled into flaky pastry or chewy glutinous rice type outer wrappers. there are also versions of scallion pancakes replacing scallions and salt with brown sugar...very delicious. also, candied fruits...like the white sticks you see in chinatown that are candied melon otherwise, fresh tropical fruits.

slice up, soak in custard base and make bread pudding or french toast

Kerry, what about the "gelee" recipe from Torreblanca's book that i sent along to you? that might be the right vehicle for a light tea flavored thing without too much sugar or heat.

Michael, I knew you were up to (and way beyond) this challenge. Thanks again for taking this on during a totally hectic week. What a beautiful and I'm sure flavorful dessert!!! Great work! edited to add: i also love that it seems like a very "light" dessert. something that someone would order even if they didn't want dessert because it seems like a salad. the dish also has great visual appeal without seeming too busy on the plate.

they do have a separate line for some stuff. don't know if shakes are part of the "short line". but it doesn't seem to work because people can't be bothered to read...

what about surface tension and the ability to "overfill" a dry measure with liquid, particularly viscous liquids?

Michael, we completely understand with the timing, etc. I had wanted to postpone the challenge a week, but not everyone shared my view ...we are, after all, an international website. At any rate, I personally can't wait to see your creation because I know it will be phenomenal. Have a great turkey day.

I guess I don't want to change a thing about the gelee : it tastes fine, easily set up, nice colour... my question now is about assembling combinations to use it, as it has a really strong champagne flavour - easily goes with savory food, but not that easy with sweet/pastry items ← wait for dejaq's finished product...i'm sure he'll find a good blend of champagne with citrus that will give you some hints on how to use it for pastry/sweet preparations.

thanks everyone! my husband really likes the gingerbready fruitcake with the eggnog cream. i think that is what i'll be bringing along with me for thanksgiving dinner with family. i will post the recipes, but remember, i fiddled with good recipes and doesn't mean they are better now. i will have to ask for permission to put up the original recipes, but mine are so different i should be safe posting those.

Anna, trust me on this one: you'll always find defects on your stuff (we are our own harshest critics, right?) but...i went to one demo by jean-pierre wybauw and his stuff didn't all come out perfectly. even in books (like jpw's and by other famous pastry chefs), you'll see bubbles, some streaking, etc. your chocolates are lovely. as long as they come out of the molds, you're doing something right. and when you're making them for a hobby, enjoy the act of making the chocolates and the sight of your family and friends devouring them. those are the fun things!

marzipan has more sugar than almond paste up to around 50% my favorite method is to call up my local purveyor and order some! it is very difficult to get the fine texture of commercial paste using the tools that most of us have. if you don't mind it being a bit rustic, you can do it in a food processor.

^^^ Hey gfron1, great notice in your paper!

Here's a link to Iron Baker Round 9: dejaq.

And now for Round 9!!! I'm challenging dejaq, a.k.a. Michael Robert Porru, and I'm very excited about it. When he first started posting I wasn't sure where he was coming from...his avatar was at one point Neo from "The Matrix"...now I know what he's all about: GREAT DESSERTS, ALL THE TIME!!!! As a professional in the field and it coming up on a holiday, I know he's going to be very busy this week however he graciously accepted the challenge, so here it is: In keeping with the holiday theme and even though it is a bit early, I'd like for you to create a dessert that helps to ring in the New Year! When I think of celebrating the New Year, the first thing that comes to mind is CHAMPAGNE. In winter we have CITRUS FRUIT and not much else, it can be tough on a menu. Please use CHAMPAGNE, at least three different types of CITRUS FRUIT and just for kicks AGAR AGAR in a dessert. However, don't make the expected champagne gelee (that's why I chose agar because you have to boil your mixture and that won't taste as good). I know we were both responding to a post by Filipe about champagne and gelatin so this might sound familiar! Good luck, I know I can't wait to see the results! Here's a list of our previous challenges: Round 1 (Kerry Beal challenges Ling in Vancouver BC)- Take pineapple upside down cake and bring it into this century Round 2 (Ling Challenges Gfron1 in Silver City NM) - Make a dessert containing an animal ingredient or product other than lard or bacon Round 3 (Gronf1 challenges Mette in Copenhagen Denmark)- Create a deconstructed beer dessert Round 4 (Mette Challenges Shalmanese in Seattle WA) - Create a dessert tapas plate consisting of 7 items in 7 days, using local and seasonal flavours Round 5 (Shalmanese challenges Chiantiglace in West Palm Beach FL) - create a dessert involving smoke that evokes Autumn Round 6 (Chiantiglace challenges K8Memphis in Memphis, TN) - create a dessert using Southern Sweet Tea Round 7 (K8Memphis challenges SweetSide in rural CT) - create a desset using 5 kernels of corn representing the 5 blessing of the Pilgrims Round 8 (SweetSide challenges alanamoana in the Silicon Valley, CA) - take fruitcake out of the land of the misfits and show us the beauty that lies within

Yes, the sugar tower was thin enough to shatter and be eaten. Of course it is dependent on whether you live in a dry environment or not. There isn't any flavor to it, but I bet you could incorporate something (citrus salt or something like that). I'm not huge on using too much sugar when I know it doesn't add much to the dish, but I did this more for eGullet so you could see inside the dessert. I would probably make a container out of a nice thin buttery tuile dentelle or something like that if it was for a restaurant. Thanks everyone, this was really fun. You can get the rum at most high end liquor stores. It is about $30USD a bottle (more or less). And trust me, you don't need much to add flavor. I didn't really use recipes, so if anyone wants one pm me and I'll try to put them together.

dammit, the secret is out. it's not called procrastination when you're watching the entire boxed set back to back with extended versions and extra features is it?! just kidding, didn't even cross my mind, but now that you point it out...

I am completely agog!!!! Rachel blogging only days (okay, maybe weeks) after learning how to post images?! This is amazing, incredible, stupendous...alright, I know Rachel has many more and better words which convey her sunny outlook on just about every subject here on eGullet. I look forward to this week with you and can only imagine what a wonderful feast you'll have for us on Thursday.

There are a lot of things I'd do differently. I think this is a good basic concept for a fall/winter dessert. I had initially wanted to do ice cream as well. That's for another time, I guess. The great thing about the challenge is that it made me think beyond just fruitcake. It has started a chain reaction of ideas in my head. All of the things that I didn't make are still floating around in my noggin and might make their way out sometime soon. Please get ready for the next challenge. I will post it tomorrow morning. I do think that I was too easy on myself for this. I'm amazed at the amount of effort that everyone else has put into the challenges. It is so fun and what a great forum for everyone to post ideas and suggestions. The multi component desserts that everyone has come up with are amazing and humbling. I apologize if I didn't do enough. Maybe there's some extra credit I can work on after school? There's more, but I don't want to get mushy during an already sentimental time of year Thanks everyone. I'll post a link to the new challenge as soon as I put it up in the AM. Best, Alana

ooooookay... so here's the dessert - and another view, a bit blurry - The method behind the madness: I cooked some sugar with corn syrup to hard crack stage, avoiding any color. I poured a small amount on a silpat, warmed it up and rolled it paper thin. I trimmed off the excess and formed it around a square shaped object to make a clear tower. Most pros will recognize the style of Oriol Balageur (a Spanish pastry chef extraordinaire) in this. I layered the gingerbread version of fruitcake with an eggnog cream made in an isi whipped cream canister. The cream is made with this- I learned about Stroh Rum from my previous boss. I think the story is, his mother-in-law is Eastern European and uses this in every dessert she makes. It has a butterscotch-y aroma and as the label says...it is 80% alcohol!!! Strong stuff. Off to the side of the tower is the boozy fruit poundcake. I punched it out, panko-ed it and deep fried it. It is resting on a small bed of boozy fruit and is surrounded by a pulled sugar ring (I just used the extra sugar that I used for the tower and heated it up to give it some color so that when I pulled it, it would be golden). The sauce is just plain old chocolate sauce.

Thanks everyone for their patience with my lameness So, the challenge was to: "...take FRUITCAKE out of the land of misfits! Take it apart, turn it around, deconstruct it, reconstruct it, but remove the stigma and show us the beauty that lies within..." Let's see what I did: I used two different kinds of fruitcake. Both of which aren't necessarily fruitcake...but they are cake with fruit in them! Here's a picture of the two different cakes - The cake on the left is a pretty dense, not too sweet pound cake type cake. There's buttermilk in it, eggs, sugar, butter and flour. The original recipe might have been better than what I ended up with, but my husband likes it so it must be decent. I got the base recipe from a co-worker who got it from a local (San Francisco) cooking school called Tante Marie. It is supposed to be a Brandied Cherry Chocolate Fruitcake. My version is a bit different (more due to using what I had on hand than anything else). I used a bunch of dried fruit and toasted nuts (see earlier post with photo of Trader Joe's expedition) as well as some 61% E. Guittard pistoles. The dried fruit, I plumped up in hot water and after draining, covered with brandy and a touch of vanilla extract. The cake on the right is a basic gingerbread that I studded with the same boozy fruit with the addition of tons of candied ginger to compensate for the fact that I didn't have any dried ground ginger .

I realized only now that it is Saturday night at 9:33 without anything much prepared for the dessert that my procrastination is getting the best of me in my dotage. I'll have something for you tomorrow evening at the latest...however, I completely forgot to tag another challengee...duh!!! Seeing as how the coming week is Thanksgiving, I hope my fellow eGulleteers won't mind if we take a one week break and I tag the next person to start their challenge on Monday, the 27th of November to present their dessert on Sunday, the 3rd of December. If anyone has objections, please let me know. See you all tomorrow with fruitcake!

I scoured that website yesterday and managed to miss it. I went back just now knowing that it was there and managed to locate it. I think what we used was a circle at 25mm and an oval at 30mm. The closest they have is 29mm circular and 39mm oval, but that is probably close enough. I'm pretty sure they all were 1mm thick. ← i think they can custom make them to your specifications. may cost a bit more. but, a millimeter here or there isn't too big a deal. you're just piping ganache on them and dipping anyway!