amccomb

This thread is inspiring me, as I just bought a whole hog last month! Would it be possible to use this cut for pork confit?

I like to use some as a topping for pizza.

I've soaked, filled, and iced cakes and frozen them, no problem. I thaw in the fridge for a day. I wouldn't try the fondant, though. As for the whipped cream, I use the stabilized whipped cream in RLB's Cake Bible, and it freezes fine. What about pumpkin pie? Can that be frozen whole and baked from frozen?

I have to find out how to do the pork, suckling pig, and lamb neck! My mouth is watering.

I had issues with the mirror glaze I made. I think I misunderstood what it was for (just the top, apparently), and used it for the whole cake. Then, I didn't know the exact weight of my gelatin sheets, so I added too little, but then used powdered gelatin to correct my mistake and used too much! So instead of a glaze, it was more of an icing. Edited to add that the texture was very similar to pudding with the amount of gelatin I used. But it was very shiny! The taste was like hot cocoa with a floral note. I used a layer of ganache underneath to smooth out the surface before applying the glaze, and I'm glad I did because I prefer the flavor of the ganache and it tamed the floral note a bit. Here's the recipe I used (I multiplied it times 4): 1 cup cream 1 1/4 cups water 2/3 cup sugar 2/3 cup honey 1 1/2 cups cocoa powder (I used Valrhona, which has a nice dark color) 12 g leaf gelatin Bring cream, water, honey and sugar to a boil. Whisk in cocoa powder cook and about 2 more minutes, stirring the whole time. Pour into a bowl and cool 10-15 minutes. Soak leaf gelatin in cold water until soft. Stir gelatin into cocoa mixture. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Thank you! It tastes pretty darn good! But I am overly critical and I noticed a million things wrong with it. I probably won't do the mirror glaze again. I prefer straight ganache. My brother was thrilled with it and was going on and on about the groom's cake being the talk of the wedding, so I was totally floating. I hate to brag, but it tasted better than the wedding cake!

I made the groom's cake for my brother's wedding, and had both wedding cake and groom's cake for dessert! The cake was the Double Chocolate cake from the "best chocolate cake" thread and it was filled with peanut butter mousse AND peanut butter frosting (my brother's choice!) and iced with a ganache and then a mirror glaze. The decoration was peanut butter bark from epicurious.com. The cake: The inside (it's sideways and I can't figure out how to rotate it!): Next to bride's cake (for sense of scale - it was actually about the size of the bride's cake! It was about 15 inches across and 13 inches high.): Boy am I glad that's done! Too much pressure for me.

Unfortunately, I don't have any leaf gelatin left and there is nowhere in town that sells it. I have powdered. If I bloom the powdered gelatin, heat it up, and then let it cool to lukewarm, I can probably add that to the cold glaze mixture, right? Should I temper the gelatin misture? I just don't want to end up with chewy gelatin blobs in my smooth glaze!

It's very runny, but then, it's meant to be a mirror glaze. I thought it would be quite a bit thicker, though. I don't think it would coat the cake at this consistency - it's like hot chocolate.

Oh no! Well, I made the recipe (X4 - it's a big cake) last night and assumed 3g each. I am guessing it's not going to work....and I have no way to get more leaf gelatin before I need to have the cake done! Ack!!! I had really hoped to have this out of my hair by tonight - it's the last night I have left before the wedding. I wish I had somewhere local I could by the leaf gelatin...Could I possibly reheat the mixture and add powdered gelatin? Here's the recipe (I multiplied it times 4): 1 cup cream 1 1/4 cups water 2/3 cup sugar 2/3 cup honey 1 1/2 cups Cocoa Powder 12 g leaf gelatin Bring cream, water, honey and sugar to a boil. Whisk in cocoa powder cook 2 more minutes, stirring frequently. Pour into a bowl and cool 10-15 minutes. Soak leaf gelatin in cold water until soft. Stir gelatin into cocoa mixture. Refrigerate until ready to use.

It goes to 5 lbs - the gram marks are tiny, so it's hard to determine exactly where the needle is.

Hmmm....good idea! It's hard to tell. It's not a digital scale and it looks like the whole package of 12 weighs about 40 grams, so 3 grams each. 4 sheets seems like a lot, though! I'm used to the little powdered packets. And again, I'm not sure how accurate the scale is...

I have a recipe that says "12 g leaf gelatin". I have leaf gelatin, but no scale sensitive enough to weigh 12 g. My "leaves" are approximately 9inches by 3 inches. How many leaves do I need for this recipe? Thanks!!

In the book "Nourishing Traditions" it is stated that brown cane sugar is just regular cane sugar with molasses added back in for color and flavor. Sugar in the raw also has molasses added back in and is also processed. Now, whether it is processed with bone char is not addressed.

I love peanut butter and butter sandwiches, or peanut butter on toast with just about anything - jelly, honey, butter, or plain. I just love it when it gets all melty. The only time I like chunky PB is with apples. I also like s'mores with peanut butter added, or even just dipping good chunks of chocolate in pb with a sprinkle of salt on top. My husband's favorite is a homemade "blizzard" - vanilla ice cream, tons of pb, a little malt powder, and some crushed oreos. That, or the no-bake cookies mentioned above! We also have a weakness for anything with a peanut sauce - whether it's Thai or African or well, anything! I make a sweet potato/white potato/hot pepper/spinach stew with penaut butter that's a favorite, and a pasta salad that uses a Thai peanut sauce along with chunks of chicken or tofu, shredded cabbage and carrots, bean sprouts, basil, cilantro, and green onions.

chicken ala king? or beef stroganoff? I guess I'm in the mood for something creamy...

I must not be doing it right. I make tamales couple of times a year, and it doesn't seem like they take that long, except for the steaming part. I don't make HUGE batches, but maybe about 50 at a time? And I do them all by myself. I make the filling (normally a pork/chile/tomato/raisin/almond thing) the day before, whip up the masa and soak the husks, and then just do them one at a time - spread, fill, roll, tie. I don't have access to fresh masa, and I contemplated doing the whole thing from scratch last year using the dried corn and slaked calcium and a grain mill, but put that off for another year. Is that what I am missing? Or perhaps rendering my own lard?

I just made my first batch of kefir cheese yesterday and I am straining more today! I plan on mixing one batch with sea salt, garlic, and fresh herbs and the other with a pinch of salt, honey, and walnuts. I actually make kefir on a daily basis, and it's even easier than yogurt! All you need is kefir grains, milk, and a clean container. Put the grains and milk in the clean, covered container and let them sit until the milk is separated -about a day or two. I drain off the whey, but you don't have to. Then I use a colander and drain the kefir into another container, plop the kefir grains into a new clean glass jar, and top with milk and cover for another couple of days. I need to find more recipes to use up the kefir - I'm beginning to get an overflow - hence the cheese!

A word of warning - if the filling is too firm at room temp, don't nuke it to soften it up! I just used this filling in a wedding cake with chocolate cake, and right before filling the cake, I put it in the microwave for 30 seconds, and the whole thing separated. I drained as much of the butter as I could and whisked cold cubes of butter back into it and managed to save it. Whew! Turned out to be an incredible filling for a "turtle" cake. The wedding was today, and that cake was the second to go (behind the chocolate cake with white chocolate/creme de menthe filling).

Whew! I worked on four of the cakes from about 7:00pm to 8:30 am with a short break to watch a taped episode of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations. I still have four more to go, plus the oblivion torte. This batch turned out MUCH better than the three I did Sunday, but still had issues. First, I had to create my own caramel/espresso buttercream because the recipe in The Cake Bible ended up being a dark tan/light brown color. My modified version is off white and still tasty, but it took me a few tries to get it right! The other problem with this cake is the caramel. It tastes great, but the cake layers kept sliding around on it, so I'm worried it will end up The Leaning Tower of Cake. Also, after I iced it, it sprung two small caramel leaks! Ah well, maybe put that one towards the back. The second one also had issues, and I am so mad at myself about it. I almost had to scrap the whole thing! It was the turtle cake. The problem was the caramel/pecan filling. It was pretty stiff at room temp, so I decided to warm it up a tiny bit in order to make it spreadable to fill the cake. When I warmed it up, it separated and the butter was really leaking out! I got out my hand mixer and beat it like crazy and threw in cubes of cold butter trying to fix it. It finally came together, and it still tasted good, so I think it's ok! Also, when I made the icing, I cooked the sugar too long, so there are some crunchy caramel bits in the icing, but they taste really good and add some crunch! The third one was perfect, and I was afraid I would drop the cake, since nothing else went wrong. That was the pear one, and I think it's my favorite. The icing is something I cobbled together from a few recipes, and it's sooo rich! It's browned butter caramel. It's so fragrant! The fourth one was the corn cake. It all worked out, too! My husband thought the corn custard was "weird, but good". I liked it. I added a splash of bourbon, which I think really brings out the corniness. I was only going to use it in the middle of the cake and have blueberry in between the other layers, but I ended up adding the corn in the blueberry layers, too. After all, it's an interesting cake with a focus on corn for the farmers, so might as well use it up! The buttermilk cornmeal cake was nice and moist - I was worried the cornmeal would make it too dry. I used a honey buttercream that is much lighter and fluffier than the other one on the peach cake! I think I'm going to use it to "fix" the peach cake. I was going to do the rest of the cakes tonight (cherry, mint, mocha, kiwi), but last night took so long, I think I am just going to make two tonight - the cherry and the kiwi. But I still plenty of time to finish the last two and fix the peach and the lime and make the oblivion torte. Thanks for the support, everyone!

So, what I have been doing is this... First, I baked all of the yellow/white/cornmeal cakes and froze them (easier to torte them that way!) and the next night the chocolate (they take longer to bake). Then I made all of the soaking syrups (espresso, ginger, creme de menthe, kahlua), the caramels for various things and four flavored ganache (eau de vie, cognac, creme de menthe, kahlua). Then I poached fruit and made other fruit fillings (peach, plum, pear, cherry, blueberry). Last night I was running out of room in the fridge, so I filled those three and did the buttercreams and froze those. Tonight I am making anything with a custard - the silk meringue espresso/caramel buttercream (from RLB), the pear bavarian (RLB), and the corn custard - and assembling and icing those and freezing. Tomorrow I am doing anything with a mousse - cheesecake mousse, kiwi mousse, and white chocolate mousse. Then Wednesday I can correct any mistakes, and if I have time, bake the oblivion tortes. Friday I'll take them all out of the freezer, clear my fridge and thaw them overnight in there. I'll fill and stack the oblivion torte and re-wrap. Saturday late morning I'll take them out one at a time and unwrap and use a hot spatula to smooth any cracks in the buttercream and box them up. I'll make the stabilized whipped cream and ice the oblivion torte, and box it up. Then I'll load up the trunk and back seat of my car and drive to the reception site - only about 15 minutes away. Whew!

Thanks for the encouragement. I am a perfectionist, and this is a wedding, which means I am even more critical! There will be one cake on each table, so I am worried that the folks at each table will have plenty of time to see the flaws. The bride understands that I am a home baker, and not a pro, and she even said she wants the cakes to look homemade, so I don't have to get the icing perfectly smooth, etc. Taste is what is important to her and they want people to try new things, and I'm sure a lot of these will be new to most folks! She decided she wanted me to do it because I am (in her words) "so passionate about baking". She was talking about white bakery icing made with shortening and powdered sugar and how she wishes there were other choices, and I started telling her about various other options, and she got so excited about them that she begged me to do the cakes. I always say I'll never do this against because of all of the stress, and yet I do it again and again. At least I am learning and experimenting every time! Normally I do a billion test runs until everyone at work is sick of cake, but this time I only had three weeks notice and only two weeks of knowing what flavors she wanted!

Well...most are just plain white, yellow, or chocolate cakes with a variety of fillings. Three are completely done, and frankly, I'm disappointed in them. The bride picked the flavor combos, and I think I just wasn't familiar enough with them to make it work. Here are the flavors: -turtle - chocolate cake with caramel and pecan filling, chocolate ganache, and caramel buttercream -peach and honey - yellow cake (soaked with poaching liquid) filled with champagne poached peaches and royal honey buttercream -bourbon and tart cherry - chocolate cake soaked with kirsch filled with stabilized bourbon whipped and shaved chocolate and tart bourbon cherry pie filling with white chocolate buttercream -chocolate and pear - yellow cake (soaked with eau de vie poaching liquid) filled with thin layer of ganache, pear bavarian, and iced with browned butter caramel buttercream -fig and plum - yellow cake (soaked with poaching liquid) filled with fig jam, plums poached in port with orange zest, cinnamon, clove, and iced with marscapone icing -kiwi and ginger - white cake soaked with ginger syrup, filled with kiwi mousse, iced with ginger buttercream with candied ginger nibs -chocolate and key lime - chocolate cake filled with lime curd and iced with key lime buttercream -chocolate and cream cheese with kalhua - chocolate cake soaked with kalhua syrup, filled with chocolate ganache and cheesecake mousse with cocoa nibs iced with mocha buttercream -chocolate and mint - chocolate cake soaked with creme de menthe syrup and filled with ganache and peppermint white chocolate mousse and iced with peppermint buttercream -espresso and caramel - yellow cake soaked with espresso syrup, filled with caramel, and iced with caramel coffee buttercream -corn and blueberries - cornmeal cake filled with corn custard and blueberry pie filling and iced with honey buttercream The ones that are finished so far I'm not happy with. One is the fig/spiced plum/mascarpone. The mascarpone icing isn't very sweet, so I bet some folks wouldn't like it. I was going to add a spiced pastry cream, but I just didn't have the energy so I ended up just layering with fig jam and poached plums. I guess it will be ok. The lime and chocolate is just strange. The lime icing and lime curd filling is sooo tart! I gues it's ok with the kind of bitter dark chocolate fudge cake. There was barely enough icing to cover, so you can see a bit of the cake here and there. I'm thinking of whipping up a batch of white chocolate buttercream and going over it with that, to both add some sweet to the tart, and the completely cover the cake. The honey peach is such a disappointment. The champagne poached peaches taste like canned peaches, and the royal honey buttercream (from RLB) tastes like that whipped honey butter you can buy to put on toast and stuff. Plus, it was really runny and just dripped off that cake, and is a dark yellow color instead of off white. So, if I have time, I am going to scrape off a bunch of the icing and make a new honey icing of my own invention and try to cover it all up. I am thinking if I get everything else done, I might go ahead and try three 1/2 tall oblivion tortes and just keep them in the fridge, as a couple of you guys suggested. Since I'm already doing her bourbon/tart cherry thing, I need to think of something else to cut the chocolate overload. I think I'll ice it with stabilized vanilla whipped cream to cut it a bit. Any ideas for filling? Raspberry seems overdone, but at least it's easy and people will recognize it. I know a lot of people like orange and chocolate, so I could do an orange curd, but I don't particularly like it.

Oh, that would be much appreciated!! And it can be frozen with no ill effects? Thanks so much!

The RLB cake would be room temp when served - I would thaw it the day before in the fridge and then let it sit out until room temp before the big event. I was planning to do two or three thin layers - basically doing 1 1/2 times the recipe and baking it in three separate pans so the layers would only be about 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch thick. Also, it would be a satellite cake so it wouldn't be sitting on or supporting anything. Can you tell me more about the Mocha Fudge Cake? Is it that same mousse/truffle consistency as the RLB recipe appears to be? There are four other chocolate cakes that I am doing (11 cakes in all - all with different fillings and icings!) - 2 each of the Double Chocolate and Fudge Brownie (woolley) cakes from the best chocolate cake recipe thread. I was hoping for just one over the top truffle-like cake, and since in The Cake Bible, she mentions pairing the cake with whipped cream and brandied cherries, and those are specific flavors the bride requested, I thought to do something similar. I could always ice with the stabilized whipped cream, too, if an IBM would be too much, since each cake has it's own unique icing. Maybe I should buy some Ghiradelli and do an experiment. I can halve the recipe, since I was only going to put half in each pan for a shorter cake, anyway. Thanks for the feedback!