mkfradin

A successful restauranteur (currently a customer, potentially a great customer) came in and just asked me on pricing for dipped fruit (strawberries and grapes). While we do a very limited line of candy, we have not done fruit b/c it's too perishable. However, I'm inclined to do it for her and since tempering and dipping is pretty much a no brainer, I don't think it will be a big deal. Howver, I'm not sure what to charge. She is providing the fruit, and I'm supplying the chocolate. She has asked me to quote on a per pound basis. I'm using cacao berry couverture, so my cost for the chocolate is in the area of $5/lb. I am guessing that the chocolate to fruit ratio will be about 1:4 (I'm being conservative, b/c there will be some waste), and that it will probably take an hour of my time. We are in a very affluent area (outside Chicago), which factors into my pricing, due to our overhead. She wants a per pound price. Any suggestions? Marjorie P.S. As I read this over, it sounds like an SAT question. Sorry to bring back unpleasant memories, but I just hate giving too low of a quote and winding up kicking myself six hours later when I'm down to the wire.

Do you rotate your pans? We don't; maybe that is part of the problem. I forgot to mention that when I let the meringues sit before baking, the foot is not as pronounced or ruffly as when I pop them right in after piping. I love the ruffled foot so much that I don't know if I'm willing to give that up just for consistency. Maybe I can use the defective meringues as bottoms for the macaroons and sell them to unsuspecting customers!!!

Yep. Sorry I don't have proportions or weights to use. You'll just have to taste it! I use a buttercream recipe from Sugarcraft's message board called Charlotte's whipped buttercream; it's kind of like an Italian meringue buttercream but with shortening instead of butter. We add extra water to it to soften it up. But I'm sure the Nutella will bring out the best in just about any plain buttercream recipe. Marjorie

My previous pastry chef was also a flight attendant and told me about a Nutelleria in Frankfurt, germany (I think) where everything they served had Nutella in it. Nutella crepes for lunch, etc. While she was telling me about it, my pulse rate went up and I could feel my knees getting weak. I will definitely try the Nutella Cake. Marjorie

Can you share the recipe for the nutella cake? I'm OBSESSED with Nutella--use it in buttercream, filling for macaroons, make candy with it, eat it straight from the spoon--and if there's no flour, would it work for passover??? So to answer your question, yes, we have it in america, and although it might be a little pricier here, it's not a luxury in my book but a necessity. Marjorie

This thread inspired me to retry macaroons and for the first time, they actually look like they're supposed to!! Hooray! However, the tops are exceedingly thin and delicate some of the time, and they crack really easily. Although everyone reassures me that they taste wonderful, I will not be happy until they look perfect as well. Is there supposed to be a very thin top shell, with an air pocket, and then a flat piece of meringue that's close to the ganache? or should the meringue be relatively solid throughout? The formula I'm using is as follows (I forget who contributed this, but thank you, whoever you are): 4 oz. almond flour 5 oz. powdered sugar 3 egg whites 2 oz. granulated sugar. I'm not leaving the whites out overnight; fresher worked better for me. I get the fragile top both baking immediately after piping and letting them sit till firm before baking. When I bake immediately after piping, the last 1/3 or so of the batch have cracked or wrinkled tops, too. Any insights would be greatly appreciated!! thanks. Marjorie

So, mkfradin, are you going to share your magic baking settings? Pretty please with a crispy-chewy cookie on top. I

Instead of substituting margarine for butter, why not use a chocolate cake with oil as the shortening? I submitted my chocolate cake in the chocolate cake thread, and instead of buttermilk or buttermilk powder, just use a tablespoon of vinegar and enough water to make a cup per cup of buttermilk. Also, Hersheys has some recipes for cakes with oil and vinegar--go to their web site and see if they are posted. For your frosting, you can use a simple buttercream with shortening. If you want a chocolate frosting, use either cocoa powder dissolved in enough hot water to make a paste, or melted chocolate (unsweetened or bittersweet, depending on the sweetness of your buttercream). It won't taste as good as a butter-based frosting, but for people who can't eat dairy, it's a fine substitute. Marjorie

It is a very moist cake, but it shouldn't be "heavy" in texture like a brownie--maybe in flavor? We toast the crumbs and use them for biscotti and to edge our cakes, and mixing them in with ice cream wouldn't be bad either.

Getting away from the fan issue, you might want to experiment with baking the cookies frozen, refrigerated, room temp., flattened, rounded, etc. We have a convection oven with fans that can't be adjusted or turned off, and by playing with the cookies this way, changing temperatures as we go, we've managed to get nearly all of them relatively chewy with crisp edges consistently (the sugar cookie is the exception, but everyone seems to like them anyway!). Play around and see what you can come up with. BTW, we bake all of our cookies between 325-375 degrees. 275 sounds really low; do your cookies spread at that temp.??

That's the one. I think one of the reasons it's so moist is because the bran is soaked in boiling water prior to adding it to the batter. I also use fig pellets (they don't look so nice--like animal turds--but once they're soaked and baked into the muffins, they taste great). I really, really like this muffin and it has a following in my store.

Here's my favorite: ½ lb. butter, softened but still firm 7 oz./ 200 g. sugar 3 ¾ oz./108 g. brown sugar Beat on 1 with paddle until pale yellow and light. 2 eggs 1 tsp. vanilla Add eggs one at a time and then vanilla. Beat on 2 till fluffy. 6 ½ oz./180 g. oatmeal Mix into batter. 6 ½ oz/180 g. pastry flour ½ tsp. baking soda ½ tsp. cinnamon ¼ tsp. allspice ¼ tsp. cloves Mix in separate bowl, then combine with batter. 1 c. raisins Stir into batter. Scoop out onto parchment covered sheet pan and freeze. Bake frozen at 350 until mostly brown (10-12 min.) We use a convection oven, so you might want to raise your oven temp a little if you want your cookies to be thick.

There's a recipe for Honey Bran Muffins on epicurious that's really good and very moist. Muffins are still moist three days out, and tasty from the butter used. If you can't find the recipe let me know, and I'll post my version (I think I tweaked it a little, but the basic recipe was great and doesn't call for weird ingredients!!!!)

I never use cake flour for this cake. The recipe calls for all purpose flour, and I use bleached in all my baking, so I'm guessing the protein content is much higher than what you are using. This is not a cake with a fine crumb at all. It's heavy, almost a little chewy, and is perceived as very moist. I've been playing with this cake quite a bit, and something that makes more of a difference than I thought initially is the beating time. The more you beat the batter, the finer the texture becomes, up to a point. Also, as you're beating the cake, start with half of the liquid ingredients, beat till smooth, then add the remaining liquid gradually, and the batter will be lump-free. While this is not my favorite chocolate cake, it is by far the best seller at my store; people just go crazy for it. Marjorie

I think the definition of "sick" may be a little generational. I have a wonderful counter girl, except she has called in sick 5-6 times since Sept. That seems like a lot to me, but she's really good when she gets here, and I put up with it because frankly, she does everything else right and no one else has come close to the job she does up front. She's very young, and I think this is one of her longest term jobs. When I worked for a (large) salary and got paid sick days, they didn't get taken unless I was falling down and only then if my work was done for the day. The work ALWAYS has to get down, regardless of who drank too much the night before or took the wrong medicine and has a stomach ache. A little bit of bakery humor--the counter girl burned herself on hot water today at the espresso machine. No, that's not funny, and we felt bad, but she's been moping around all day, and my chef and I are looking at each other like, "she's not even BLISTERING," and telling her to keep busy and the pain won't be so bad, and I know she's just DYING to ask me to go home, and I will never let her, b/c we've all gotten 2nd degree burns in the kitchen and we just grit our teeth and get through it and be careful with the hot water. Are we callous or what?? But in all seriousness, to be around food with something contagious is, like Wendy says, gross. Marjorie

I also use egg whites (I buy them in a big bucket, pasteurized). But I have noticed that meringue powder royal will always stay white, whereas royal from egg whites tends to splotch out after a few days. It doesn't happen all the time, but enough that if I want a pristine white frosting, I always use meringue.

Funny-as I was looking at these gorgeous pictures and thinking about all the work that goes into getting everything done and looking the way it does, the same thought went through my mind. Do you put stuff out fresh every day, or can it last for a day or two? It bugs me to toss a plain blueberry muffin, and tossing all of these pastries going into the garbage or a food bank after less than 24 hours would give me a heart attack. But most of all, I say WOW. Best of luck. Marjorie

THanks for the suggestions. Someone suggested halvah to me before I opened. I never thought anyone ever bought that stuff. It's like Israeli fruitcake, if you know what i mean. Anything with "health" in the name is always a big draw (regardless of how much butter or sugar it contains), so I will do some experimenting--after I taste the seeds, of course. Into the freezer they go. Marjorie

Yes, I ordered 25# of cookie crumbs and got sesame seeds instead. I didn't catch the error in time to reject, b/c the vendor pasted the right label on the wrong box, and hasn't been by since Sept. to pick up. So I'm stuck with a ton of sesame seeds that I basically forgot about until yesterday. Are they still good? What can I do with them? I'm guessing that someone somewhere has a sesame seed cookie/muffin/ scone/ something recipe that tastes good. Our area is also very health conscious and I get a lot of yoga people in talking about spelt flour and rice syrup. Is there something I can do with these seeds to appeal to them? Or am I better off taking them home and making hummous (or just throwing them out). BTW, the vendor hasn't gotten any business from me since then. Thanks for your suggestions. Marjorie

Yes, I remember eating it in the 70s and it looked like a frosted Cake with a hole in the middle. If you filled up the middle with all that goo--shudder--I think you'd probably go into insulin shock. It's the definition of too much of a good thing. Marjorie Nostalgic aside: my parents took my sixth grade friends and me to the commissary for my birthday dinner, and afterwards we had to go to McDonalds to get something to eat (this was after seeing Rocky or Star Wars, I forget which). How times change!!

scott clark wooley's book, Cakes By Design (I think) is the best. I think a new edition came out in paperback about a year ago. It's the most thorough in terms of how to get the flower to look realistic, but it's not comprehensive in terms of the flowers it covers. Look at Colette's books too. There are different methods for flowers than in Scott's books, and you can pick and choose. Finally, I used Wilton's book that came with the gum paste cutter set. It's a great intro to teaching yourself. I think I would have been intimidated had I started straight from another, more glossy book. But as always, the best way to learn is to watch someone and keep practicing hands on till you find what works for you. Try to go to some demos in your area or ask a local designer if you can observe for a few hours. Ask as many questions as you can. And keep posting here. You'll be on your way in no time. Marjorie

Pretty! We made chocolate with espresso buttercream for one cake and used yellow cake with raspberry buttercream and a chocolate raspberry frosting for the other. The espresso one was a really poor seller, believe it or not. I'm not the biggest fan of the chocolate/raspberry combination, but I guess I'll have to get over it for next year. BTW, we used Annie's method of carving sheet cakes to look like the log rather than rolling a sponge, and it made my life a million times easier. i'll try to post a picture sometime. Marjorie

I stick a pot of boiling water in my electric oven on the bottom shelf and put the stuff needing to be proofed on the top shelf. Makes a moist, warm environment and works well for me!

Well, my problem is solved. After reading through the comments the other day, I set about making three batches of dough. I began pressing out onto the parchment, as usual, and then remembered the suggestion of using a silpat. Since I don't have one at my store, I just removed the parchment and the cookies stuck to the sheet! I guess the parchment didn't offer enough purchase for the cookie dough to stick, while my pan did. I baked some with spray and some without and didn't notice a difference. No problem at all removing them from the sheets after they were baked. All of the recipes yielded cookies that were superior to any version I have made in the past. But the group favorite is a new incarnation of a cookie we already make here, using different flavorings. It's made with half vanilla and half almond, and I will post the recipe in case anyone wants to try it. Thanks again for everyone's help. It is so great to arrive at such a definitive solution to a problem. Marjorie Buttery Spritz Cookies 9 oz./ 250 g. AP flour 1 tsp. baking powder 1 c. butter (I use salted; if using fresh, add 1/2 tsp. salt) 5 ¼ oz./ 150 g. sugar 1 yolk 1/2 tsp. almond extract 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract 350 degree oven. Mix dry ingredients. Cream butter and sugar till light. Add yolk and flavor. Fold in dry ingredients. Mix only to combine. Press out, and bake till bottoms are very lightly browned (8-10 min).

I love it! I was seriously thinking about naming my bakery (only sweets) "Happy Endings," but my husband discouraged me, telling me that I'd get unwanted attention! I think that people who get it would be amused, and people who don't would be clueless. If you want to convey a kind of hip edginess and irreverence, a name like that would be great. We actually used "Happy Endings" as a subheading on our menu and the girls from the shoe store down the street huddled and giggled in front of it till one came in and said, "you know, it has another meaning....." Duh. If you're in Champaign, I think the population would be a little more receptive to a name like this than if you were thirty more miles downstate. Marjorie P.S. My favorite name was Bake O Rama. It evoked that revolving display case of desserts that was at the entrance of every restaurant I went to with my grandparents in the early seventies. I wanted my store to have that feel of everything wonderful being within one's reach. But it didn't fly.