beacheschef

With the demerrara sugar on the exterior and either lemon oil or lemon zest in the cookie dough - you should have a great cookie taste without the sticky problem of icing on the top. I include really finely grated lemon zest in my cookies - you'll have to play with the amount of zest to add to taste it through the ginger flavor. The idea of a ginger cookie with a lemon cream filling (samdwich cookie) has me craving that taste right now! Keep us posted!

Aren't you eating any? I will post Toba Garret's Decorator's Buttercream recipe. It's that retro-y fluffy filling that you're looking for. ← Wish I was eating them, but all I can do is try to remember them from visits to my grandparent's house in Philly (many, many years ago...) I appreciate the Toba Garret retro recipe, as well as the picture from Steve.

Here's a recipe for Tulipe Paste from culinary school: 7 oz butter, softened 7 oz confectioners sugar, sifted 7 oz egg whites, room temp. 5.25 oz all purpose flour, sifted 1 teaspoon vanilla Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Alternate adding egg whites and dry ingredients, scraping bowl after each addition. Add vanilla and mix until combined. If you want the cookie to be browned all over, bake at 350 degrees. If you only want the edges browned, bake at 425 degrees. Cut a template for the cookie from thin plastic. Only form 2-3 cookies per sheetpan, so that you can shape them once they're out of the oven. Spread cookie batter onto sheetpan lined with Silpat or parchment paper. Use an offset spatula to spread batter evenly. Bake cookies until they're done - only a few minutes - depending on how hot your oven is. As soon as you can lift a cookie, pick it up and drape it over your form (cup, rolling pin, etc...) You need to form each cookie before they cool off and harden. If the cookies are too firm to form, put them back in the oven for a few seconds to reheat. To make the batter chocolate - replace the 5.25 oz. flour with: 4 oz all purpose flour 1.25 oz cocoa powder Sift these dry ingredients together before using. If you want, tint a small amount of batter with food coloring and pipe it onto formed cookie before baking. The first couple of times I make these, I end up messing up at least half of them, before I get my timing down. The cookies firm up pretty quickly - it's a balance between burning your fingers on hot cookies and having them cool off too fast.

I'm counting on you - eat 2 packs for me and then log on and describe them! She's talking about the chocolate cupcakes with vanilla cream filling.

A bride just hired me to make cupcakes for her wedding in November. Her fiance's favorite cupcake is the chocolate TastyKake cupcake with the white icing through the middle of it. Of course, I promised her I could recreate them ... Isn't the cupcake a devil's food recipe with chocolate ganache on top? What is the filling like? Can you eat a few and describe them to me, please? Thanks - Mary

I use luster dusts often on cakes and cookies. When the dust is brushed onto a molded chocolate, it catches a little light. The look is pretty subtle and light. If the dust is painted into a mold, I like to back it with cocoa butter or white chocolate, just as we learned (from the EGullet conference) to add white chocolate behind any color we airbrushed into a mold. For subtle color - Super Pearl is one of my favorites. It adds a pearlescence without a lot of additional color. Let's see some photos when you've started experimenting! Mary

Hey Erica: Cut the brownie into a rectangle, then into triangles from there. Plate each half upturned on edge - it gives the dessert an interesting look. I've got a tuille recipe from culinary school I can send to you - just pm me. You can color some of the batter a raspberry shade and pipe it onto the tuille before baking. We used to create chocolate disks out of white and dark tempered chocolate - and decorate the plate with them. Spread tempered white chocolate onto acetate and pipe a design on it with a contrasting color (add some oil-based pink to white chocolate or use dark chocolate for this step). Before the chocolate firms up, use a cutter or knife to create individual disks. It sounds like you're doing this dessert for a friend, and this is a way to personalize it for them (initials on the chocoalte piece?) If you liked the idea of adding caramelized sugar to the plate - I second Lisa and CanadianBakin's idea of spiked nuts. They are easy to do and have that "cool factor". Just don't do them too far in advance if there's ANY humidity in the air. Mary

Here in Florida it's so humid that the air conditioning is running constantly! I've just found that I can't do chocolate work in the restaurant kitchen when everyone else is working (ovens, steamers and burners running full blast). I either have to work early in the day, or find someplace else to go. Usually, I go elsewhere. After filling my molds with chocolate I pop them into the refrigerator for a few minutes - which helps set the chocolate. I pull them out of the fridge and place the molds on a speed rack in front of an oscillating fan. This one-two combination has worked beautifully. I learned this technique when visiting Tomric last spring with the EGullet conference, and from John DePaula, who uses a small fan in his refrigerator. I don't put my rolled truffles in the refrigerator, because I don't want the shell cracking on them, but I do put the trays in front of the fan for a quicker drying time. I'd love to hear what other people do - as heat and humidity are a constant battle for me. Mary

We do something somilar in my house, but instead of placing the dough on a heated stone in the oven, it goes on a heated grill for a couple of minutes. The dough is pulled off, flipped over and toppings are placed on. Then, the dough goes back on the grill for a few minutes - just to cook the underside. My dough recipe has little yeast in it, so it doesn't rise much. Toppings are flavorful, and are used sparingly.

I made the invert sugar recipe tonight - it turned brown and bubbled when I added the baking soda solution. Is it supposed to turn color? For the citric acid I'm using "Fruit Fresh" - a fruit preservative. Is this OK? I've never heard of "sour salt". ← I may be mistaken but I think Fruit Fresh is ascorbic acid. If you look in the kosher section of the grocery store you should find sour salt. The invert sugar usually ends up a golden colour. ← I made the PDF with the Banyuls, substituting citric acid and water for tartaric acid solution. The taste is great! "...Mix the 75 grams sugar with pectin. Cook together pear puree for 2 minutes. Add the remaining sugar and glucose and cook to 112ºC. Add 250 grams wine and take to 107º C. Add tartaric solution and 10 grams wine. Pour into a 12 X 12 inch frame." Once I added the banyuls to the mixture I had a hard time getting the mixture to combine - it appeared to gel into some lumps. I whisked it unitl it reached 107C, then added the citric acid solution and wine. At this point, it became much more lumpy and I couldn't whisk the lumps out. I used a stick blender and got rid of some lumps, then strained the pdf into my frame. What caused the lumps to form? I was stirring the mixture continuously. Thanks for the help. ← Did you pre-warm the wine? If your mixture falls below a certain point (like by adding a bunch of room-temperature wine), the pectin will begin to set and then you've had it. As cmflick says, the slow-setting pectin may help. There are also some thermo-reversible ones out there. ← As John and cmflick have said the PDF tends to set up pretty quickly once you add the tartaric acid. I have my frames ready to go before I start the PDF and as soon as I add the acid - it goes immediately into the frame. I tend not to add the pot scrapings either as they form lumps on the top of the of the jelly. ← Thanks for the help, everyone. I'm really pleased with the pdf. Today I'll make the ganache for the top layer.

That's it! I didn't know to warm the wine, but it makes complete sense. Thanks, John!

I made the invert sugar recipe tonight - it turned brown and bubbled when I added the baking soda solution. Is it supposed to turn color? For the citric acid I'm using "Fruit Fresh" - a fruit preservative. Is this OK? I've never heard of "sour salt". ← I may be mistaken but I think Fruit Fresh is ascorbic acid. If you look in the kosher section of the grocery store you should find sour salt. The invert sugar usually ends up a golden colour. ← I made the PDF with the Banyuls, substituting citric acid and water for tartaric acid solution. The taste is great! "...Mix the 75 grams sugar with pectin. Cook together pear puree for 2 minutes. Add the remaining sugar and glucose and cook to 112ºC. Add 250 grams wine and take to 107º C. Add tartaric solution and 10 grams wine. Pour into a 12 X 12 inch frame." Once I added the banyuls to the mixture I had a hard time getting the mixture to combine - it appeared to gel into some lumps. I whisked it unitl it reached 107C, then added the citric acid solution and wine. At this point, it became much more lumpy and I couldn't whisk the lumps out. I used a stick blender and got rid of some lumps, then strained the pdf into my frame. What caused the lumps to form? I was stirring the mixture continuously. Thanks for the help.

I made the invert sugar recipe tonight - it turned brown and bubbled when I added the baking soda solution. Is it supposed to turn color? For the citric acid I'm using "Fruit Fresh" - a fruit preservative. Is this OK? I've never heard of "sour salt".

Karen - wow - great thoughts. I am spending quite a bit of time planning this weekend, scaling recipes and creating ingredient lists for the restaurant to purchase for me. This assignment is a challenge to my organization skills - I can't count on the restaurant to have tools for me, internet access to quickly check...

My wedding cake business is much smaller, not the main focus of my work, so I handle tastings in a different way. I don't have my own shop, so I meet my customers at their house (or the bride's parent's house). I'll meet with the customers - usually the Mother and bride-to-be - to discuss what they want the wedding cake to look like and taste like. This is more of a first meeting / brainstorming session. During that time I narrow down flavors that the bride and groom really like and talk about ways I can incorporate their flavors into wedding cake. We sketch cake designs and narrow down what the cake will look like. Sometimes they'll reserve me for their wedding at this meeting with an estimated 50% deposit. I do let them know that their date isn't reserved until they pay the deposit. At this point we often schedule a tasting in the near future. I'll take their suggested flavors and describe cakes I would make from these ideas, using cake, syrups, fillings, ganaches, etc..... The customer lets me know if this sounds good and we pick a date for the tasting. I'll take my notes from the meeting, type up a contract with as much detail as I have, including proposed cake flavors and other details, sketches (I'll often do a sketch in color, scan it and send it with the e-mail). I e-mail it to the customer. Via e-mail we can narrow down cake flavor choices and cake exterior if we didn't do it earlier. Delivery info, contact phone numbers, cake stand choices, etc. are obtained at the meeting and added to the contract. At the tasting I'll have 2-3 small cake samples with fillings, syrup, etc. We talk as they taste and finalize flavors. If I haven't gotten the downpayment yet, this is the time to get it. This method takes much more time, but by the time I get to the tasting the customer is pretty qualified. I'm planning to start charging a fee for the tastings, which is applied to the cost of the wedding cake if I get the business. Feedback from customers has been really positive - because the bride and groom really get a "custom" wedding cake - they choose all of the components and feel that this cake is their own creation. (Yeah - I help that thought process along!) They really like the ability to choose - that alone has gotten me quite a number of referrals.

I made the Grewling caramel slab (recipe using sweetened condensed milk) a few days ago and found my caramels "stick to your teeth" chewy. I cut the slab on a rainy night (I THink that was part of my problem, although the house is air conditioned) and dipped the caramels that evening. Would I want to cook the caramel a few degrees further to avoid the "stick to teeth" texture? ← I think that the 'stickjaw' problem is helped more by fat in the recipe. ← Going back to using cream and sugar, instead of sweetened condensed milk? Hmmm...didn't think of that. I'll change recipes and see what happens. Thanks - M

Kerry - How long do you want to infuse the tobacco in the cream? This will be my first time making pate de fruits - so I have a couple of questions about the ingredients. Can I use cream of tartar as my tartaric acid? Can I make invert sugar? I seem to remember seeing a recipe about a week ago, and now it's lost. Or - is this an ingredient I need to order? I bought the Banyuls this afternoon. Looking forward to experimenting with this! Thanks

I made the Grewling caramel slab (recipe using sweetened condensed milk) a few days ago and found my caramels "stick to your teeth" chewy. I cut the slab on a rainy night (I THink that was part of my problem, although the house is air conditioned) and dipped the caramels that evening. Would I want to cook the caramel a few degrees further to avoid the "stick to teeth" texture?

I won't be able to work at this restaurant more than one day a week, as I have a full-time job elsewhere. I think the restaurant owners and exec. chef are looking for a couple of signature desserts to compliment what they're already serving. I'm glad to hear others think an hourly pay scale is the way to go - that's what I thought would be best. I do work with purveyers in the area already. Any ingredients the restaurant can get for me will come through them and I'll have to find out how to order the more unique ingredients - whether they'll reimburse me or have me order them through the restaurant.

Will Albert Uster provide you with samples so you can test the purees? ← don't know if they'll provide a sample to a micro customer like me. I'll hopefully get a chance to talk to their corporate chef in the next week or 2. ← Let them know you'll review the product on EGullet - thus promoting these purees to a huge audience. You can also tell AU that you'll be a reference account for them. (I guess I did learn something from those years at IBM!)

A local upscale restaurant wants to hire me to bake in their kitchen on Saturday mornings making desserts for the week. According to health department codes, I'm not supposed to bring any food in that's come from an open container, so all of the ingredients have to be ordered by the restaurant. I've never set up this kind of relationship before and am not certain how to be conpensated for my work. I'm thinking that payment on an hourly basis would be better than by the piece made, as some desserts are quick and easy, but some have multiple components. Please share your thoughts. Thanks - Mary

Will Albert Uster provide you with samples so you can test the purees?

The rice krispies and pop rocks won't dissolve in the chocolate / nutella/ flavor component? They still stay crisp? Will they have a pretty short shelf life?

Count me in - I'll be happy to help from FL.

Steve: Yes I'll be there, even if it's a last minute reservation I had a great time meeting everyone and learning. Brian (from Tomric) and Kerry were so helpful by talking about AND demonstrating techniques I've read about, but never seen done in person. Then, we were able to try these newly learned techniques - which is where I really understood them. There's no substitute for hands-on learning. Additionally, thanks to Steve, John DePaula, David J, Erica (and the rest of you who answered questions or let me look over your shoulder) for demonstrating and helping me with dipping techniques, splatter effect on chocolate molds, using caramel bars and a guitar (I absolutely want one now that I've used it!). To the group who made the raspberry - black pepper chocolates (Erica and Beth), you have my husband's undying love and affection. Kerry - ditto - with the port/cigar combination. He'd like to have these on his pillow tonight! Do you have a recipe for the port layer, as it wasn't in the info packet. I think this combination will be very successful with a local business or two. I can't wait to look through the pictures -