chefpeon

Yeah.....ok, so, this is like my first contribution to this thread...can you believe it? I don't normally make dessert at home, since I do it so much at work. The family gets by on Twinkies or ice cream, and they know better than to ask me "what's for dessert?", because I will most surely give them the evil eye. However, since I'm on this new fancy pancy work schedule (3 days on, 4 days OFF-yeah BABY!!), I'm actually enjoying doing a little baking at home again. My husband, who takes Vytorin for high cholesterol, is convinced I'm trying to kill him. He calls me the Black Widow. Hey, I don't make him eat the stuff....it's just.....there. Got my new issue of Bon Appetit (the 50th Anniversary Issue), and a recipe for a chocolate cake made with Stout beer caught my eye. Now, I love beer.....especially stouts and porters, and as you all know, I love baking. So, when you combine beer and baking, I'm all there, baby! So I made this cake, (and a had a healthy slug o'beer), and I'll be damned....it's REALLY good. If anyone has that issue of Bon Appetit and a hankerin' for a great chocolate cake.....I say try it. In fact, I just might link back to this thread from the "best chocolate cake" thread, because I think it needs to be there. Now of course, while I'm baking this thing, I'm thinking how I'm going to finish it. I like to have the cake finish reflect what's in the cake, and I'm going, "beer...hmmmm.....how do I reflect beer?" THAT'S IT!!!!! Chocolate bottle caps!!!! Funky? Yes. But cool. I made the bottle caps out of white modeling chocolate using a real bottle cap as a mold. Then I painted them with edible gold powder made into a paint with a bit o'vodka. Yeah, ok, a bit over the top for a family dessert, but sometimes I can't help myself. Once a PC, always a PC.....................

Well, it certainly seem like everyone on here, and in the universe, has a copy of Rose Levy Beranbaum's "The Cake Bible". Except me. Tell me people, should I jump on the RLB bandwagon.....or....not?

I'm not K8....I just play her on TV. But I can tell you what colorflow is. Basically, it's royal icing in two different consistencies. You pipe the thicker consistency down as outlines for your image. Let it dry a bit. Then thin the rest down so that when you pipe it, it will "flow" and fill the outlines you have just created. Color as needed, and fill in your outlines. The two neat things about colorflow are that you don't have to worry about reversing your image; the part you see is the part that is supposed to show. And doing colorflow also gives your image a really nice "puffy" effect. There is some info on the Wilton website about colorflow here. But don't let Wilton fool you......"Colorflow Mix" is also known as "Meringue Powder" or just plain ol' egg whites.

Lorna As far as I know there isn't even a source in Seattle for leaf lard. (I don't consider a farmer's market a dependable source). I get mine from Dietrich's Meats in Pennsylvania. I've got 25 pounds of the stuff in my freezer right now. In fact, if you want some, I'll be glad to ship you some of mine. I could use a little more room in my freezer.....got a little overzealous in the ordering department! I could be the spokesmodel for leaf lard I love it so much....I can't say enough good things about it. In fact, last Sunday's Seattle Times pull-out magazine, "Pretentious Northwest", had a recipe for "LardSnaps". Did anyone see it? In the article, Dietrich's Meats was mentioned. Also, we tried making them at work on Wednesday......they're GREAT!!!!!! So, for anyone that wants the info on Dietrich's...... Their number is: 610-756-6344 Their address is: 660 Old 22, Lenhartsville, PA 19534 Their ordering process is rather old fashioned. You have to call and order. They give you the total, and you have to send them a check or money order for the amount. Make sure you include your order number on the check. Then they send you the lard. Maybe when they keep getting slammed for the lard everytime an article comes out on them, they will start accepting credit cards......God, I hope so.

For the record, I combine buttercream and cream cheese all the time. I refuse to do wedding cakes with cream cheese icing on the outside, but I do use cream cheese icing as the filling. The outside is buttercream (or whatever other acceptable finish the bride has chosen.) So as far as buttercream not being tasty with cream cheese icing.....I disagree......it tastes fine. So, that being said, you're fine with using a buttercream transfer on your cream cheese icing. However, if you still want to try a cream cheese icing transfer, I would do a test run for sure. I know the nature of cream cheese icing is to not be as "clean" and it's kind of "rubberier" for lack of a better word. Perhaps using a sheet of acetate, rather than parchment would work better, or maybe you could lightly spray the parchment with cooking spray, or put a very light coat of shortening or butter on it so the cream cheese would release easier.

Absolutely right, since I just read the package of my "Vital Wheat Gluten" and it says right on there that it is only 75-80% protein. That makes the math way too complicated for me! That's exactly what I say too. I have Vital Wheat Gluten for just those purposes....my 7 grain, and my rye. Yes, I do believe "Hot Snot" is probably full of "hot air", which is probably affecting his proofing times!! So......did that bread get away from you, boy????? Bwa-ha-ha!!!

Having experienced problems with cake recipes in the past and doing everything short of calling the priest and the witch doctor in, I say, let's be realistic. After you've tried a recipe "X" amount of times, and it still doesn't work for you, why keep trying? If the recipe is that difficult to pull off, why would you want to have it in your repertoire? Let's say after all this, you finally get the cake to come out. Then you have to do it again just to make sure that wasn't a fluke. Then say, you get to the point in your career where you bake this cake in a larger amount, using a bigger mixer, a totally different oven and a multitude of different sized pans. Would you really want to use a recipe that you know is that volatile? I think not. The only reason I would ever use a recipe that is extremely difficult to pull off is if I knew the results were totally worth it, as in, "this cake is SO spectacular, people are beating my door down to have some." Do you think this cake is THAT great? C'mon now. Time is valuable. Time is money. Time is sacred. You need to have recipes that are hardy and that you can depend on. I say, "don't beat a dead horse." Oh, sure, I sort of understand the thinking where you say to yourself, "Hey, I'm a professional, and if anyone can bake this cake it's ME, and if I CAN'T bake this cake, then, dammit, I'm gonna figure it out until I CAN." Then you bake yourself to a frenzy, and enter what I will call, "The Ninth Circle of Hell" (the Eighth being the debate about sifting ) But then, you get to the point in your career, where I'm at right now, where "proving" yourself isn't such a priority anymore. You already know you know your stuff, and you also have been around long enough to know there's recipes that actually suck and there's nothing you can do to fix them, and there's also circumstances beyond your control, like subtle differences in ingredients, the equipment you're blessed (or not blessed with), and the climate you live in. Everyone's advice is scientifically sound and based on many experiences. But you are still having trouble despite this advice, correct? Is this thread actually helping, or just confusing things? That's when you have to say, "Hey, this is kinda crazy. There's better recipes out there. Sometimes, letting it go and moving on, is the best thing to do.

I have no idea. Actually.....there's this guy in town who recently bought one of the two bread bakeries here. Every once in a while he stops by my kitchen, and asks me bread questions. He knows I was a bread lead and production manager at a large Seattle bakery and I help him with problems he's having. Today, he asked me that bizarre question, and I said, "Dude, what the hell?" I've never gotten that technical with bread....I mean, c'mon. I'm totally into the science of it and all, but geez, those kinds of questions just take all the fun outta slappin' the dough around.....know what I mean? I bake a lot by "feel". I know what's right and I know what isn't. Apparently he hired this hot shot bread guy, but hot shot ain't doin' so hot. So he told the owner guy that his flour didn't have enough protein and he needed to add gluten....blah blah blah. So owner guy wasn't sure if hot shot was feedin' him B.S. or what. So I told him I couldn't answer the math question but I've never in my life had to do stuff like add gluten to my breads to get them to work for me, and I think that's all he needed to know. He didn't want to get any wool pulled over his eyes since he's not a baker himself. It's really flattering to know that he comes by and trusts me for the answers. I also know if I want a bread job again in the future, I can probably go over to his shop. Nice. So while we're on the subject, what's your opinion of the whole "added protein/gluten" thing? Ever had to do it? Ever tried it? Would there really be any viable reason to?

I suck at math. Even worse, I suck more at story problems. Here is a story problem maybe someone can help me solve. Question: Based on 100lb of white flour with an 11.7 protein level, how much additional gluten do I need to add to raise the flour 1 point to 12.7? Would the answer be 10%? I'm not sure.

I take it you can't order wholesale from a bakery supplier, right? If you can, most bakery suppliers (at least out here) carry the white satin ribbon. If not, you can use nearly any good quality white chocolate, just DON'T use white chocolate chips. They have additives to help maintain the chip shape and do not melt well at all.

Hmmmm....your website has a teaser for exactly that.....a literal floating island. But when I clicky, I just get a picture of........a bee?

I get my white satin ribbon from my supplier here which is Puratos. I kinda did a quick online search and didn't find anything....not even on the Guittard home page.

Well, lets say that it's "off white". Some brands of white chocolate are more yellowish than others. I love using Guittard White Satin Ribbon.....it's very white and tastes great and makes great modeling chocolate. I have also added white paste color to whiten modeling chocolate (you kind of have to add a lot though). If you apply white modeling chocolate to fondant, you automatically have "another tone of white", but, like I said, you can always add fondant to fondant.....it's easier than fondant on BC.

7:30?!?!?!? That's sleeping in for me!!!! Did anybody warn you 'bout them wacky "Baker's Hours"?????

K8.... I used to have a 4 deck Blodgett at one of my jobs too. I baked everything in it also. My cakes baked fine in there.....no rubbery bottoms. I also use part of the sugar that goes into the yolk part of the batter, and add it to the whites to stabilize them. I wonder why the recipe isn't written that way? The eggs don't deflate as easily when they are whipped with sugar, and I use this trick all the time. Good to know you do too Sarah. Don't mean to throw a screw into the works, but when I had my rubbery bottom problem, my cake recipe wasn't the kind of recipe where you fold the whites in at the end. It was just the basic creaming method (Cream butter and sugars, add eggs, add flour, soda, salt and buttermilk alternately). Don't expect I'll ever figure out what happened to that bloody recipe. I figure God only allotted me a certain amount of times to bake that cake beautifully and I went over my allotment, and for some reason he didn't renew my subscription to that recipe. That's my explanation. What science won't explain, religion will! When I fold in egg whites, by the way, I'm all about using my hands (arms) and sometimes a bowl scraper. I like to fan my hand out to really get some good incorporation going with as little motion of the batter as possible. I don't like using spatulas, because when I can't "feel" my batter, I feel.....out of touch. I'm one of those people that bakes by "feel" a lot of the time.

Yes, you can apply fondant strips to buttercream.....they won't slide off. Just don't roll the fondant too thick so that the strips are overly heavy. HOWEVER. The problem with applying fondant strips to buttercream: Fondant tends to stretch out of shape fairly easily. Also, once you get the strip on the cake you will probably have to straighten it out, and that can be a real pain, especially once your buttercream gets slightly warm. If your cake depends on the look of straight strips (as opposed to wavy, or zig zagish), it's really hard to get perfectly straight strips with fondant on buttercream. I would either go fondant on fondant (a lot easier to get them straight and/or straighten them out on fondant) OR I would use modeling chocolate to make the strips. Modeling chocolate is MUCH more friendly for strip making, because they don't stretch like fondant does (as long as the chocolate is cool of course).

And after you've done ALL that, plus called the local witch doctor and the priest.......THEN what? My choices were: A) Jump off a cliff, or B) use a different recipe I chose "B". It was easier to reach for another formula than to drive to the nearest cliff. Good thing I'm lazy. I will follow this thread very closely! I can't rest until I can solve the problem I could never solve.

I had this happen to me with a cake I'd mixed a ZILLION times before. I made the cake as usual, and it had this heavy dense totally horrible unappealing rubbery part to the bottom of it. I figured I must have mis-scaled something and mixed the cake and baked it again (being ultra careful the second time). It STILL came out with a rubbery bottom. I tried a third time. Rubbery bottom. I was SURE I'd scaled everything correctly, mixed it like I did a zillion times before and I could not get that recipe to come out, no matter what. It totally stumped and upset me, because I'd never had a problem before. I just finally could not figure it out, and I've never used that recipe again. To this day, I still can't tell you what went wrong. When I check cake troubleshooting guides, some possible causes are too much liquid, too much eggs, or not enough mixing. That would be all well and good except for the fact that my cake was fine the zillion other times I made it.....why not now? It totally goes against all scientific explanation or logic. It still bugs me!!! I wish I could help you. Maybe someone can help us.

Is it this kind of style that the bride wants? It always helps if you can link to a picture or something. If I know exactly what you're after, I know how to go about it. If, by chance the above pic is what you're trying to emulate, I saw Chef Duff do a cake nearly EXACTLY like that on the show "Ace of Cakes" on Food Network. He had the figure on top (it was a semi nude woman) and the lines of her cape or whatever it was flowed down the tiers of the cake. The way Duff did it was just to paint the lines on fondant. I just happened to be at my Mom's the day it aired and saw it. I'm not privy to Food Network otherwise!

When I started pastry school at 28, I was not the youngest nor the oldest in my class. In fact, my class ran the gamut from 18 to 60.....not everybody will be a youngster in yours, I'll betcha. Besides, at 40, you shouldn't be nervous.....you're already a leg up on the young 'uns with some life experience under your belt.

Hmmmm.....then one might deduce that lightning is acidic.....

Yes, when I used Fluid Flex (fond memories ), I used the two stage method. I generally try to stay away from weird-ass commercial shortenings because I happen to live in a town of organic hippie freaks, but man, that stuff was magic.

The milk went bad because the power went out and the cooler went down and the milk spoiled, or the milk curdled and the coolers never lost power?

Just "think acid". Anything acidic will curdle milk. Fruit, dried or not, is acidic. Some more than others.

Eighth Circle of Hell! Bwa-ha-ha! What'd I tell ya? How true, none of this would be an issue if ALL recipes were written by weight. Which, by the way, is how I bake 95% of the time.