alanamoana

also, you can make the mango with sticky rice that is mentioned on another thread...coconut milk, rice, mango(e?)s... as a matter of fact, you can probably make something with an asian flair that this little girl can eat. red bean filled deep fried mochi anyone?! hehehe do you think this girl is allergic or are her parents being a bit controlling? okay, i'll shut up now. with the rice pudding, you can use the coconut milk and add a little zing with kaffir lime leaves, orange zest, vanilla bean, etc. to give it a little more than one dimension. make a tropical fruit compote instead of just one fruit. or even fry little fritters of fruit (using rice flour or something like that to make a coating)...cool rice pudding with warm fruit fritters would be deelish... or how about tapioca? bubble drinks and their ilk are very popular nowadays...you can make the large tapioca balls (they come in white, multicolored and the standard black ones which sometimes scare caucasians...if they haven't seen 'em before). you can make the tapioca similar to the rice pudding with coconut milk and it works as the same basic background for fruit or whatever.

it is summertime...what temperature are you serving your cake? it could just be too warm for the filling.

Truffle Guy, I don't know if there's anyone here on eGullet who runs a business like the one you're interested in starting. Most of the professionals are working out of their homes (at least that's the impression I get). This doesn't mean that they don't have answers for you, but speaking for myself, it seems like you know what the hell you're dealing with better than anyone else . "...took some time off and now I'm ready to start to think about beginning to plan to maybe proceed to open a restaurant" This quote came from another thread on eGullet and although I was laughing really hard at the many ways the person was backpedaling in ONE sentence...I feel that it perfectly describes my attitude toward opening a business. You're used to the long hours and hard work, but right now, you're the boss of 100 people. In the food business, you're going to want to control things more and everything comes down to YOU, you can't just delegate it away. You aren't going to be able to hire as many people as you'd like and stay profitable, so again, it comes down to YOU. I can't speak for your location, but even in New York, finding qualified employees is beyond difficult. I'm not telling you anything you don't know. I wish you good luck and success! Oh, and I do have some answers regarding shipping chocolates and stuff, so remind me to answer you on that when I have a chance!

I think the "chocolates with that showroom finish" is the thread that started the discussion. norman love is mentioned in that. the "g" series chocolates are chocolates that norman love did/does for godiva but only seasonally. i think he does them like once a year. don't know if he still does them. special flavors, special looks, etc.

dejaq is right. in new york as well, they can't sell the concentrates anymore. one of our purveyors still had them in stock but couldn't sell any to us due to the law. which stinks! i feel like albert uster carried some...but i just looked on their website and it isn't listed.

RonC, are you located in nyc? i know a group of chefs who ride (not personally, just from hearing about it). it's funny 'cause i was cooking in nyc for a while and i probably ride a bigger bike than most of the young guys...and i'm a girl! i hope you have a great breakfast. don't be intimidated, bring your gift, it will be appreciated...and ride safely!

i was going to ask the same question!

funny this thread was at the top as i just returned from a trip to ranch99 and bought two bags of roasted peanuts chinese style...on the bag it says: "using ancient secret recipe on young supreme peanut, we make this famous traditional snack: nam yue peanut" they taste like doufu-lu which is a fermented form of tofu that comes in jars...very salty and delicious. i'll probably eat the whole damned bag

gutter alert... does the masculine salad have nuts in it?!

you mean mesclun, don't you?

Maybe it is laziness, or maybe just a lack of patience on my part...but I don't tend to experiment too much with technique with regard to creating desserts. I think working within the confines of existing technique and flavor combinations to be enough of a challenge without introducing "molecular gastronomy" into the equation. This doesn't mean that I look down on the creativity expressed by pastry chefs attempting new and exciting methods. On the contrary, I look to them for inspiration and education. However, I do feel that there should be, as Ted mentions, a "connection" to desserts. I take this to mean that, as a dessert, a dish shouln't be so intellectualized that you don't even realize you're eating a dessert. But I feel this way with all food. I think there is something vital, call it soul if you like, about eating food that negates a need for intellectualization (is that a word?). Ultimately, I guess this makes me a traditionalist. But I'm sure that once certain techniques make it into the mainstream, I'll be eating my words (I do have some sodium alginate floating around the house somewhere...I'm a late bloomer ). Even that technique isn't too far fetched in my opinion. It is when you're eating ice cream crumbs or cake dust or something so strongly flavored that it becomes unpalatable that I question the goal. Can you really achieve the same sense of joy in eating crumbs of ice cream as opposed to biting into a delicious scoop of ice cream in a freshly made waffle cone? I understand the need to push the envelope of creativity, there's no reason to have molten chocolate cake and vanilla creme brulee on every menu...BUT can we also take it too far?

i second fedex...i think fedex usually ends up cheaper too. i recently sent some chocolates cross country and they did fine on the overnight. three boxes at thirty pounds a piece ended up being about $370...i hope your brother is paying you for shipping at least! that's still a huge savings on buying a wedding cake from an anonymous baker.

i would call papermart. their customer service people should have an answer for you. there are other packaging companies that list their tissue paper as food safe, so you might want to check other options. most of the companies out there can customize.

Vanessa, those chocolates are really beautiful! great job what brand of air brush did you end up buying? i don't see any holes or bubbles in the photos...are they very small?

taco mesa in costa mesa. is it still there? really good pork al pastor burritos. but it is a divey place.

escry, if it isn't too much of an imposition, can you post a picture of your set-up? i'm certainly not in the market for a melter/holder at the moment as the cost is prohibitive, but i'd love to see what your creativity has come up with. for dipping, i set up my bowl with a wire wrapped around the outer rim. i made two loops in the wire on opposite sides of the bowl. then i take another piece of wire and thread it through the loops. that way, i tap and scrape the bottom of my chocolate on the wire as opposed to the edge of the bowl. there's a lot less buildup on the wire and 99% of the chocolate just falls back down into the bowl.

ice packs...i ordered are these. the shipping on them is less because they are so light. you can cut them down to size, soak them in water and then i put them in a ziploc bag. i then wrapped them in paper to cut down on moisture. seemed to work okay. also, the company has a ton of different products and their prices seem pretty fair. i checked on amazon.com and they carry some of the same ice packs marked up by different retailers for much higher prices.

Vanessa, thanks for posting this question. After you all saw the production I did for my friend's wedding, the same thoughts ran through my head. How can I make this work as a business? Do I want to make this work as a business? Am I CRAZY?! With any business, you have to really, REALLY take into consideration the amount of time you spend. Your labor is probably the one most important factor people probably forget about because it is intangible. Don't just focus on the food cost. Because of custom wafers for my friend's project, just the cost of goods/food/packaging/shipping was about $1200 !! But if she had bought those from any retailer (high or low end), it would probably have been closer to $3,000. And I got an employee discount (even more than wholesale) on the bulk purchase of chocolates and feuilletine via a connection. So, she really got a deal. Vanessa, just go to any and all chocolate web sites you can find and start to compare. Look at what they're producing, compare, contrast, etc. Then look at your market and as Kerry says, it is difficult to raise prices, so even though you are doing "market research" it will be skewed because you're charging at cost right now. Christopher Elbow Norman Love Chocolat Moderne LA Burdick Michael Recchiuti Christopher Norman Thse are just a few aside from the many sites among eGulleteers, and commercial chocolatiers like Godiva and stuff. It is great to get as much information as you can.

i need a good technical book. i'm trying not to use invert sugar, changes the flavor of my ganaches completly. do you think invert sugar is absolutly necesarry? this is a silly question, where is the french pastry school? ← The French Pastry School is located in Chicago. I thought invert sugar was inherently sort of flavorless. But I guess adding any kind of mass to your ganache would upset the balance you've achieved with your formula.

it could be if the ambient room temperature is very cool. but i think overall it is a function of what crystalline formation you have in your chocolate. it might just be at the right point where all the crystals just go nuts and congeal! i use the heating pad in a bowl method and it isn't ideal either. i think one of the keys is to stir pretty frequently while dipping in order to bring some of the warmer chocolate which is nearer to the heat source up to the surface. stirring is good for chocolate!

kouign aman, i bet you give points to whoever can pronounce your screen name! i just read about this dessert in an issue of pastry's best magazine. i just thought you were from the middle east somewhere...hehehe

just add a little bit at a time until you get the flavor you want. i've been able to add quite a bit but it also depends on the texture of your praline paste. i was using macadamia nut paste and it was quite thin, so when i added a lot, it made for softer buttercream. still delicious, just a little more difficult to deal with on a cake. as a filling, it wouldn't have made too much of a difference.

it is a great book as it discusses a lot of the technical stuff regarding water activity and preservation techniques with chocolate. of the ingredients in the recipes, you'll need to have invert sugar on hand. he does really good demos as well. i think he's doing a class at the french pastry school in december(?) this year.

mette, those look great! and delicious...

also at stationers and ikea (i think) are little metal cubes with a wire sticking out of the top with a clip on the end...they are cute and inexpensive as well as functional. can't find a link right now, but i'll check. edited to add: duh, your link didn't work right away, when i went back to check they have them on your site. but, hubert.com does seem a little more expensive than i remember seeing these things. you can check at restaurant supply houses.