chefpeon

You know you've started the Eighth Circle of Hell, now haven't you? Everybody's gonna have a different opinion on this thread and you'll be no better off than when you started. Don't say I didn't warn you. As a 16 year pastry professional, I'll share my experience with you. I have sifted, and not sifted, flours for small home batches of various baked goods. I have sifted, and not sifted, flours for large batches of commercial baked goods. I can honestly say, if there has been a darn bit of difference in either, it's just too small to detect. Since I have come to that personal conclusion, I now never bother to sift. Any place I can eliminate what I have deemed an unnecessary step and save some time, I do it. HOWEVER. I do sift for one reason. To get lumps out. Powdered sugar. Cocoa. Stuff like that. I never bother to sift ingredients together either. I just put 'em in a bowl and stir with my hand. Easy. Edited to add: Ok, yeah, I do sift into the bowl for genoise. It does make for easier incorporating.

The white cake I make on a regular basis is two stage with butter. I originally thought that using a hi ratio method with butter wouldn't work, but it does. I've never tried converting other recipes to two stage, but what the heck, I will experiment with it. Two stage mixing is a cinch!

Note that both recipes only use 1 egg. Not enough to make your bread heavy, just richer. An egg heavy bread, like Challah is a heavier bread, but it uses many eggs.

You might try this recipe here.

I have all sorts of thermometers. I have two digital instant reads, I have the kind with the alarm that goes off at a pre-determined temp, I have an infra-red, and I also have the regular old fashioned candy thermometer with the bulb that you clip on to the side of the pan. When cooking sugar syrups, I like the old fashioned one best. I can easily see how fast my sugar is coming up to temp without having to stick an instant read in the syrup all the time. Frequently I am doing other things and don't have my hands free, so just a quick glance at my glass thermometer gives me all the info I need. My second favorite is the one with the probe and the alarm, although I found I need to set the alarm to a few degrees BELOW the temp I want my syrup at, because I have found the alarm won't go off until AFTER it reaches the pre-determined temperature, not at, or before. As we all know, taking your sugar syrup off the heat AT the correct temperature can sometimes be too late, unless you know to shock the pan in an ice bath. Personally I take my syrup off heat at one or two degrees below the desired temp because the residual heat of the syrup will cook itself to the right temp even after it's off the fire.

A couple tips: Use a pinch of cream of tartar in your sugar syrup and it will help prevent crystallizing. When you pour your sugar syrup in, you need to have you beater moving at a good speed, but not so high that it whips the sugar syrup wildly back to the sides of the bowl, where it will harden and not mix in. Also be careful not to pour the syrup directly down the side of the bowl; add it between the bowl and the beater.

Or if you want to order more stuff from Squires..... this would be great for making the letters.......

Yes, I agree....Royal will be easier to handle than the buttercream would. Another idea: Make all your fondant squares, lay them out, and then make stencils of the "A" the "B" and the "C". You could make a "D" stencil, or maybe a simple Teddy Bear or Ducky. You can quickly airbrush the squares with the various stencils. They dry quickly, then you can apply to the blocks. Pipe some colored royal icing into the seams and you're done.

The "crust" is actually softer on the bottoms because when you peel the cookie off the parchment paper, a lot of it gets left behind. The only way the crust would ever "snap" on these cookies is if you overbaked them....a lot.

I think you misunderstood....she was saying she didn't think the Tassies were German...I don't think she was referring to your suggestions.

Using the Odense brand is just fine. So are the cans of almond paste. If you are confused as to how it will be used in your recipe, you might want to show us the recipe so we can advise.

From a time standpoint, it would almost be a wash between quickly cutting out a bunch of squares or carefully cutting a cross from a template. I think either way would be fine, but the cross may take a little more time, and also you wouldn't have a top seam to fill in. The seams would only be on the sides of the block. I think the seams are actually important, as filling them in, perhaps with a contrasting color buttercream, will create the baby block borders. You could just do the blocks in buttercream, but the finish just isn't as nice as with fondant, and also, you'd probably spend a lot more time trying to get buttercream blocks as smooth as fondant blocks. Cutting out individual squares will also enhance the sharp corners a block has. When you drape fondant over a square cake, it tends to round out the corners. Easier....I don't think so. It is really hard to pour glaze or pouring fondant over sharp square corners evenly. It's a pain in the butt actually. You can freeze the blocks and dip them, but it doesn't take long for the icing to get full of crumbs and melted buttercream. Another pain in the butt.

Ok, here comes the recipe, a la Baking Illustrated, and paraphrased by me. Black and Whites Cream together: 1 3/4 cups granulated sugar 2 sticks (8 oz) unsalted butter (softened but still cool) 1/2 tsp salt 1/2 tsp baking powder Cream til light and fluffy, about 3 minutes or so. (Yes, I cream my salt and baking powder with my butter and sugars instead of mixing it with the flour and setting it aside. Why? Because it's easier, less messy, and the leavening gets more uniformly mixed into the dough without having to overwork the flour later. That's a trick I figured out by mixing 60 qt. batches of cookie dough at my day job.) Then add: 2 large eggs (preferably room temp, but it's sort of not a big deal if they aren't) 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract 1/4 tsp. lemon extract (ok, so I did a little tweak...I added a half tsp. of lemon extract) Scrape down bowl. Then mix until fluffy and uniform. Then add: 4 cups cake flour (yes, you must use cake flour. All purpose just doesn't produce a tender enough cookie) 1 cup milk Beginning and ending with the flour, add it alternately with the milk until the mixture is just combined. Dough will be pretty darn soft. Using an ice cream scoop is the the best way to go, but you can drop the dough onto cookie sheets (greased well), or parchment lined, with a couple of spoons. Moisten your fingers and gently press the dough globs into disks about 2 1/2 inches wide by 3/8" thick. Bake at 375 anywhere from 12 to 20 minutes. The cookies don't brown, nor do you want them to. They are done when you see the tiniest tinge of gold around the bottom edge. I baked my cookies one sheet at a time. After 8 minutes I spun the pan around and then they went for 6 minutes more. Icings: Bring to boil: 1/4 cup light corn syrup 1/3 cup water It's easy to do this in the micro, in a large plastic bowl. Then add: 5 cups powdered sugar 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract Mix til smooth. Now, dip your cooled cookies halfway into your icing. Tilt the bowl so you can dip your cookie sufficiently. Let the excess icing drip off a bit, and scrape the bottom of the cookie on the edge of the bowl. I don't know why most of the recipes say to ice the cookies with a spatula. It's stupid...it's messy, and you don't get a perfect "halfway line". Dipping is the way to go. These cookies don't give off any crumbs...my icing was perfect start to finish. Place your halfway dipped cookies on to racks so the icing can drip off without creating "feet" at the bottom of the cookies. Let them set. Now melt: 2 ounces unsweetened chocolate (chopped fine) Easy to do in the micro! Add it to the remainder of your icing. If you feel you don't have enough icing to do the other half, just add more water, a little corn syrup, maybe more powdered sugar to stretch it out. You may also want to heat it up in the micro a little bit, because the chocolate sort of stiffens it up. Now dip your other halves. Set on racks to drip. They set in about an hour, and you're good to go!

Black and Whites, Day 2 Ok, so I took the freshy fresh Black and Whites to my dinner party last night. And wouldn't you know it, one of the dinner guests was a native New Yorker! I walked in the front door with my platter, and as he spied them, he said "Hey! Black and Whites!" How perfect....he could tell me how close I got to "authenticity". He ate one after dinner and said: He seemed to enjoy it. I'll take his remark as a compliment. My hostess (and chef extraordinaire) Abra said: My host, Abra's husband Shel (a wonderful storyteller) said: I'll take that as a compliment too. Others at the dinner party concurred that they weren't too bad. Favorable response overall I'd say. In my defense, I will say that the recipe in "Baking OverExplained", uh, er, I mean "Baking Illustrated" said nothing about which side the cookies should be iced on. I guess that's what separates the Easties from the Westies, eh? I didn't ice the wrong sides....I iced them "West Coast Style". I will also note that my Native New York Critic never said anything like, "Hey! You iced the wrong side!" And yeah baby.....I had lemon in there, you betcha!!!! Now for the amusing part. I told my husband this morning about the dinner party, and everyone's response to the Black and Whites. He then admitted to me, that he ate another one after I had left for the party. I had them all out on racks because they hadn't all quite set. Then he ate another one, and another one. His final opinion is that they grew on him and he finds them "strangely compelling". I must agree as I ate three of them for breakfast this morning. They are.......kind of......good. Does this explain why perhaps I am craving a Pastrami on Rye for lunch???

Ok, so here they are, as baked and iced by me, a West Coast pastry chef: here's the inside: Ok, New Yorkers......do they look as they should? Here's my personal opinion (no offense). Not anything I will make again. They do look pretty cool, but pretty disappointing in taste I must say. I made the cookies exactly as the recipe was written out of Baking Illustrated (no tweaks). I wanted to make the "traditional" Black and White. They were cakey, yes, but kind of dryish. I definitely didn't overbake them. The cookie by itself was quite bland....definitely needed icing. But once the icing was on, it didn't do much to improve them. I mean, they're OK, but just OK. To me, the best part of the cookie was the resistance the set icing gave as I sunk my teeth into it. I love that part. My husband's opinion, and I quote: I don't think he was too hot on it either. And now, I'm off to a dinner party. Taking some of the Black and Whites with me, for more opinions!

Ok, from what you describe, it sounds like that cookie was half chocolate dough and half white dough in addition to the contrasting icings. All the recipes I have found (5 to be exact), just call for the cookie to be one flavor (white) and the only "black" part is the icing. Maybe thats why the one you had "hit the bell" eh? I happen to have a copy of Baking Illustrated. I'm going to try that recipe first, since I trust most stuff I get from the "Cook's" people. Then, my taste testers will be my family, who, like me are East Coast Unenlightened, and have never had a Black and White. We'll get a whole "West Coast Point o' View" on this.

Since I'm not from the East Coast and have never even been CLOSE to the East Coast, this whole black and white thing is fascinating and foreign to me. Never heard of one, and have never seen one here on the West Coast. I wonder, does the West Coast have something here that the East Coast doesn't have? All can think of is something we have up here in the Pacific Northwest called a "Pink Cookie". Even then, I'm not all that sure it's as popular or as enduring as the Black and White. You see "Pink Cookies" at a lot of espresso carts. They are monstrous shortbread cookies covered in a neon pink almond flavored cream cheese icing. They can be pretty good, but they're monsters. You can't finish one unless you're crazy hungry. From what I've read about the Black and White, and reviewing all the recipes that have been submitted, I can definitely see why a lot of them WOULD suck. Cakey cookies don't have a good shelf life, and I'll bet a lot of people who sell them probably sell them WAY past the recommended shelf life. Just by looking at the recipes, I personally wouldn't sell them past two days. But I'm saying this without having made them. I could be wrong. But when it comes to cookies, I'm usually not. I will probably end up making a batch of these things to satisfy my West Coast curiosity. So this may be a loaded question, but what exactly makes a GOOD Black and White? Be descriptive.

I've had to make a lot of metallic cakes. From personal experience I have found that it actually doesn't matter if you color the fondant prior to airbrushing the copper (or whatever metallic luster dust) on. The dust is opaque enough that it really doesn't need the undertoning of the colored fondant at all. I found this out by accident. I had always colored my fondant before (gray for silver, brown-yellow for gold, brown-orange for copper, etc), but one time, I was in such a hurry to get a cake out, that I didn't bother coloring the fondant first. It was then I found that the white behaved just the same as the pre-colored. So, since I am a graduate of the school called, "Work Smart, Not Hard", I eliminated the pre coloring step. It saves me time, and saves on food color too.

When I was a kid, my mom always made bread every Saturday. There wasn't enough room in the oven for all the bread, so she'd stick a few loaves in both bathrooms and close the door. The bright heat lamp and the steam from our recent showers made great "proofing boxes"! We couldn't wait for the bread to rise. Not because we wanted some, but because we had to pee so bad......

Well, maybe! You could be on to something there. I love caramel dipped choux as much as Jeanne does, and if I can figure out a good make-ahead plan....there'd be more excuses to make it! I think next time I do it, I will put some empty caramel dipped puffs in a container with dessicant and see what happens!

Don't forget, Patrick, that there is volatile pastry cream in the choux puffs too. That's why you need to fill, dip, and serve within a specific time period. Oh, no wait.... I see what you're saying......make the choux, dip in caramel, then store in the sealed container with dessicant, until you're ready to fill. I do believe that could totally work. The only drawback is that the choux would definitely lose it's "crispityness" and might be somewhat leathery. Wouldn't be quite as good as the a la minute method, but might be marginally suitable......

From my personal experience, it sort of depends on how humid the day is. When I dip my choux in caramel (usually to make Croquembouche) they NEVER go back in the walk-in. The walk-in is certain death for the caramel. It'll get sticky and melty in a matter of hour(s). Choux dipped in caramel has always been an a la minute sort of thing. Not something that can be stored.

It always helps if we all know what recipe you are referring to or using. Is it something similar to this?

That would only be if you are thawing it at room temperature my dear! It is always recommended you thaw in the fridge and there's no danger of it ever being in the "danger zone".

Hey no problem. Remember, if you have extra cream there's lots of things you can do with it besides making ganache! My favorite.....either a fruit trifle or an ice cream base.