chefpeon

I'm going to try your recipe too. I like the fact that is has chocolate AND cocoa in it, as well as coffee and buttermilk. Love the pics!

I completely agree with that. In fact, if Abra hadn't shared her wonderful choux discovery with me, I'd still be making mediocre cream puffs. I offered my husband's ex the macaroon recipe she's been drooling over in exchange for the chocolate cake recipe, but no deal!

After I read this article, I was really surprised, as I had come to believe the "fact" that nothing tastes like real pure vanilla extract. I re-created the taste test with my staff at the cake shop, and no one there could tell the diff either. It convinced me. Call me blasphemous, but I have no problem using artificial vanilla, even if I can afford the more expensive "authentic" stuff. I agree with CanadianBakin' about the chocolate chips. The store brand in my town has a better ingredient list on it than the Nestle brand. I always buy the cheap chips. However, when I am making something where chocolate is the MAIN ingredient, I use the better quality stuff. Like for instance, in mousses and ganache....not to mention truffles. Also, like everyone else, I wouldn't use margarine. It's butter or nothin' for me!

I'm going to try the Sue B. cake. I tried the Woolley one and it didn't suit me much. As far as the perfect chocolate cake goes, I'm still searching. The other day, on a whim, I tried the sour cream chocolate cake recipe from Judy Rosenberg's "Rosie's Bakery All Butter Fresh Cream Sugar Packed No Holds Barred Baking Book". It ALMOST hit the mark for "best chocolate cake". It was moist, and had that perfect crumb I was looking for. But it didn't taste chocolatey enough! The problem I seem to have with chocolate cakes, is that I get two out of three.....either it's nice and chocolatey, but dry, or nice and moist, but not chocolatey, or moist and chocolatey, but with a weird crumb. I'm trying for the elusive triple crown! Moist, chocolatey, nice crumb! Actually. I have tasted the perfect chocolate cake. I'd kill for the recipe. In fact, that's probably what I'd have to resort to, because you know who makes it? My husband's ex-wife. Yep. Hey, we get along famously...it's all good.....but my husband told me point-blank that his ex isn't about to hand over her perfect chocolate cake recipe to his new wife the "hot shot pastry chef" (her words). She just LOVES the fact that she makes a better chocolate cake than I do. Talk about torture!!!! That recipe couldn't be farther from my reach if it was on the freakin' moon. Sigh!!!!

No, I'm sorry, you can't try it. JUST KIDDING! You'll love the technique....it's so freaking easy! I got the idea from Colette anyway....it was featured in "Colette's Wedding Cakes" (the Asian fan one). I see you did her "Chocolate Fantasia" Cake. I wish someone was willing to pay me to do the "Chapeau de Fleurs" cake......Man, I love that one. I love your "Bride and Groom" hearts! Making a heart cake look like a tux is a great idea!

I'm fairly sure that melted sugar or caramel would liquify in the presence of whatever filling was in the tart shell...I don't think it would make a good barrier at all. Jam too, does nothing to keep a tart shell crisp. I have brushed the insides of unbaked tart shells with egg whites, then baked, but also found it to be virtually ineffective in preventing sog as well. I have yet to find anything that works as well as white chocolate or dark chocolate.

You know, to be honest, one never knows. I've had brides who were chintzy with their serving numbers and had leftover cake. Then I've had brides that ordered 50 extra servings of cake and ran out. True. So many variables......what kind of crowd......have they had dinner? Are they drinking? Are they drinking a lot? Who's serving the cake? How are they serving it...tiny slices or big? How long is the reception lasting? Some receptions are over and done with in 2 hours, and some go on all night..... All you can do is make an educated guess.....and still, it's just a guess. The business of catering is a very very inexact science.

The puffs in my photo are bite sized....about the same sized puff you would make for a Croquembouche. Baking time is in the above recipe..... I only made half this recipe, since it was a test batch, and I came out with about 35 puffs.

Actually, you're both right. I have found that there are those guests who, once they find out there is more than one flavor, will help themselves to another piece of cake. Then, there are those that will choose between the two and have just one slice. To be on the safe side, I always warn the bride that the presence of more than one cake flavor can lead to cake shortages if guests choose to try all the flavors, so I recommend that she "up" the servings a bit if she has her heart set on multiple flavors.

The "Earlene" site has good info on cake cutting.....I agree. All I'll say is that you should always always ask the cake artist for cutting instructions. They know what their serving sizes should be...... they have to. Any reputable cake person really appreciates being asked by the people serving their cakes about how they should be handled, because mis-handling can make THEM look bad, as well as the caterer. I always provide detailed cake cutting guides to the caterers, either as I'm delivering the cake, or by meeting with the servers beforehand and training them myself. This serves two purposes. One, when caterers get to know you, they are more likely to refer you to future brides, and two, you are more assured your cake gets handled correctly so you look good, the caterer looks good, and the bride is happy.

No I wouldn't say the texture is different. It's just a nice delicate crispy pate choux with a wonderful flavor!

Recently, my friend, Abra, asked me for a good pate choux recipe. I supplied her with my favorite choux recipe, but it didn't turn out for her. She decided to try another one since she was making the puffs for a Vietnamese dinner party, and she tried Pichet Ong's. She loved the results and shared the recipe with me. I tried it too, and I'm converted! My old recipe is now crumpled up in a little ball in the trash. This one definitely goes in the "best of" recipe box! Check 'em out! They look great, taste great, and are beautifully hollow. Just love it. Here's the recipe: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. *1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp. water *1/2 cup whole milk *4 ounces butter (1 stick) cut into pieces *2 Tbsp. sweetened condensed milk *1/2 tsp. salt Put all above ingredients into saucepan and bring to a full rolling boil. *1 cup AP flour Add the flour all at once to the boiling mixture. Stir with wooden spoon or heatproof spatula until a smooth mass forms. Keep cooking and stirring it around over moderate heat to dry out the dough as much as possible, about 4-5 minutes. Transfer dough to mixing bowl. With the paddle attachment, beat at medium speed to release steam and cool a bit for one minute. *4 large eggs *1 large egg yolk At low speed, beat in the eggs, one at a time, beating until incorporated between additions. The dough should look smooth and glossy. When you lift up some of the dough with a spatula it should take 5-7 seconds to fall back into the bowl. If it doesn't fall back into the bowl at all, you need more eggs. I found that I needed 2 more when I did this recipe. Eggs, in pate choux are ALWAYS variable. The above is only a guide. When I need to add additional eggs, I add the yolk first and check the dough. If I still need more, I add the white, and so forth. Sometimes one whole egg can be too much. The amount of eggs to add, is usually the trickiest part to pate choux. When your dough is ready, fill a pastry bag with a plain tip and pipe out as desired. Beat one egg yolk with 2 Tbsp. water to make an egg wash. Egg wash the choux, and sprinkle with a little coarse salt if desired. Put in pre-heated 400 degree oven for 10 minutes, then turn oven down to 350 to continue baking for about 20 minutes more. When done, the puffs will be deep golden brown, and nearly weightless. Do not remove from oven too soon, or they will collapse! A lot of people have the tendency to do this.

I decided to do the freezing thing last night, since I wanted my "boys" to come home to a plate full of hot chocolate chip cookies after the football game (as it turned out, we lost 48-0), so if there was any time they needed cookies, it was then! My observations: Before I froze them, I flattened them a bit, knowing it would be hard to do so once frozen. I baked them at 375, straight out of the freezer. They turned out nice and round and thick, which was nice, and as I sort of expected, they hardly spread at all. The color was a bit splotchy, and I didn't get that nice attractive "crackle" appearance like I do when I bake from the refrigerator. They had a nice texture. I think if I bake from the freezer next time, I will flatten them a lot more, and may turn the oven up a notch.

I don't know what I would do without a stand mixer....but then, I bake for a living. If you think about it, there's a lot you can do with a stand mixer, especially a KitchenAid. It does make bread making quite easy.....it kneads the dough for you! You can also buy attachments for it! Like the meat grinder, the pasta maker, the juicer......

Ok here's the "Micro Batch": 8 oz butter (2 sticks) 3 oz sugar (that's about 7 Tbsp) 1 tsp salt Mix til smooth and creamy but NOT light and fluffy! 2 large eggs Add eggs, scrape down bowl, mix til uniformish 12 oz ap flour (that's a little over 2 1/2 cups) Add and incorporate, don't overmix Chill, then roll and use as needed.

As a professional, I'm a bit different. I already know the "why's".....when I search out a recipe, I just want the "what's"! Generally, I just want ingredients, general proportions, and method. My favorite format for recipes is this: ingredient ingredient ingredient Do this with ingredients. ingredient ingredient Add these to above ingredients ingredient ingredient ingredient' Saute. Combine all ingredients.... Sorta like that. Often I will re-write recipes out of cookbooks for work-use. It's really hard to weed through all the "too much info" instructions to get to the jist of the thing. Time is of the essence at the job, so basically I just need a "flash card" to get me going. 'Course, my basic recipe scribbles can backfire on me. I just recently got a new assistant. Gave him one of the recipes I had written down, so he could make what we needed that afternoon. He's no foodie....just a dude off the street basically, and because I didn't have all those tiny steps that I take for granted written down verbatim, he had no idea to do them. He didn't know he had to scrape down the mixer bowl. So I come in the next morning to one WEIRD lookin' cookie dough!!!!

That's just super! I'm so glad I could help!

Oh man........don't get me started on those DANGBLASTED cages!!!!! Yeah yah.....I know, safety is important...blah blah blah.....but really, talk about making it HARD to get the job done! It just takes a few bozos sticking their hands in a running mixer to make it difficult for the rest of us!!! So far, on every mixer I've used that has a cage, I've been able to bypass the function where the mixer won't run unless the cage is in position, either with a cleverly placed magnet or some such thing.....I have a very handy husband that's very good at figuring those things out. But a cage on a KITCHENAID?!?!? Come on, now! Up here in WA, our health inspector dude is just a food safety guy.....he doesn't have anything to do with or say about our equipment. Must be different in California.....

I have successfully used soy flour as a substitute for wheat flour in some things. I think it would work ok in the cornbread. Why wouldn't you be able to get buttermilk in France? If that's true, then all you have to do is make "sour milk" as a substitute. Simply add a little lemon juice or vinegar to regular milk, and Voila! you have a great buttermilk substitute. The ratio is about 1 tablespoon lemon juice or vinegar to one cup of milk. I KNOW France has the same types of leavenings we do.....they just call it by a different name....

I gotta know......why in the world would it NOT be ok, to use a KitchenAid mixer in a commercial establishment? Up here in Washington, I've used a KA in every place I've worked......not one regulatory-type agency has a problem with it.... What's the reasoning?

I was going to answer that question, but realized that when I bake these cookies, they never last 3 or 4 days.....they get eaten up before then! So, uh, I don't know.......they definitely are great for 2 days.....I know that. As far as "mailability" goes, they're just as mailable as any other cookie I would guess. When I mail cookies, I always layer them carefully between parchment or waxed paper, and make sure they cannot move around inside the box. I always prefer to put a box in a box when I'm mailing food items.

I have found a lot of tart dough formulas need to be blind baked, or the sides will "wilt" or some such thing......I hate blind baking though, because it is a time consuming pain in the a$$!! Luckily I found a pretty good recipe for tart dough that bakes off really nice and doesn't need the ol' rice or beans or pie weights...... This dough shrinks a LITTLE bit when baking, but just a little. Big Honkin' Batch: 4 lb butter 1 lb 8 oz sugar 1/2 oz salt Mix til smooth and creamy, but NOT light and fluffy! 1 lb 2 oz whole eggs Add eggs, scrape down bowl, mix til uniformish 6 lbs pastry flour (AP is ok too) Add and incorporate, don't overmix. Roll out and use as needed. Edited to add: Oh yeah, chill the dough first. Almost forgot that. Makes it a lot easier to roll out.

Uh, that would be weight......but even if you measure out fluid ounces by volume with the cream and corn syrup, you'll still be in the same ballpark.....

Well, you'd REALLY have to grease a pan that isn't non-stick......I always say, "Hey, if ya got the non-stick, use it.....it makes life easier, even if you still have to grease it....."

With this stuff, it kinda doesn't matter. Whatever you feel like. When I have a scale, I weigh, when I only have volume measures I do it that way. I found I get the same result either way. Mostly I use volume, because a lot of places I have worked don't use scales......