chefpeon

Ha ha! PastryMama and I were responding at the same time! That's a great idea about using the cocoa powder for chocolate bundts.....I suppose you could use a cinnamon/flour mixture to prevent a "dusty" look on your gingerbread, but if you use the baker's grease you don't have to worry about "dust" at all.

Have you been using the same bundt pan for awhile? Non stick surfaces do wear out with time and use. Your solution may be as simple as this: Either: Grease AND flour your pan if you aren't already, or Make "baker's grease"......simply mix one part flour, one part shortening, and one part oil on the mixer. Whip til nice and fluffy. Store in a container in the fridge. When you need it, just dip a pastry brush in it and use that to thoroughly grease your pan. Or use your hands.....whichever you like. You KNOW your recipe is good, so I don't think you need to adjust it......you just need to make up for the aging of your pan.

Wendy..... I too hate almost any chef pants that are out there. Not that they're bad of course......it's just that my body doesn't wear them well. I always thought the baggies that tapered at the ankle were most comfortable, but they sure aren't "complimentary", if you know what I mean. I gave up on uniform pants. My preferred "bottom wear" at work is cotton/lycra leggings.....like what you'd wear to the gym. Ultra comfy......they move with you.....no binding....no having to pull them up when you bend down etc. A pair of black leggings under a chef's jacket and apron looks pretty smart too. Just a thought......

Don't overreact Chianti! aidensnd said: I would imagine your idea of incorporating a new batter into the old one IS a quick and easy fix. I think aidensnd is thinking more along the lines of maybe adding fruit to "fix it up", and then finding that the fruit didn't help much, and tossing out the batter, which ends up costing more time and money. I too, would not spend much time on a bad batter, unless I was ABSOLUTELY sure my solution would fix the problem. I think that's what aidensnd is saying.

Bri.....here's one for you! White Chocolate Ganache with Tahitian Vanilla Bean (or not) 7 ounces heavy whipping cream 1 ounce corn syrup 1 vanilla bean, split (you can also use extract of course, or leave it out altogether) 13 ounces white chocolate 1-1/2 ounces unsalted butter Combine the cream, corn syrup, and vanilla bean in pan, and bring to a boil. Chop white chocolate, if not already in small pieces. When liquid boils, pour over chopped white chocolate and mix to create a smooth ganache. Add the butter, remove vanilla bean if used, and allow to cool.

Hmmmm....maybe some other brands do.....my Scharffenberger doesn't though.....

I think I knew that at one time....but I totally forgot about it. It really is a shame though..... I see a lot of perfectly good food go in the trash for one reason or another and it just makes me ill....especially knowing there are hungry people in my town. Laws do exist for a reason though, the intention being to protect. But sometimes laws end up being more hurtful than helpful. Hee hee.....I'd try to do that too, but the staff and family around here are way fussier than my customers.....!

Boy, ain't that the truth. When I was green and fresh out of pastry school, and I discovered what rum balls "really" were, I never ate one again.

Myself, I have a tempering machine. But what I want to know is...... how do you figure the exact perfect temperature for each brand of chocolate being in temper? You have a general range between 87-91 degrees....but I have found that while 90 might be good for one brand of chocolate, it's not for another. I never know whether my ideal temperature should be up or down. Wouldn't it be nice if chocolate had the perfect temper degree written on their label?

Well, I wouldn't call him a moron.....he's a sweet guy. I kinda wish he weren't so sweet so I could give him a good tongue lashing. I believe that by deciding to pass off the substandard muffins to our customers, it's underhanded and dishonest. I understand that when you're in an ownership position, (and you're not a baker), that dollar signs mean a lot more than recipe measurements. He felt he made the right decision financially, I suppose. But I see the "fallout" as being more long term. Customers DEPEND on a consistent product. A bakery's reputation is extremely important....especially in a small town like mine! It may not be immediately visible, but you do lose sales on substandard product somewhere down the line. For instance, what if someone bought that muffin for the first time, having never tried it before, and it was one of the "bad" muffins? They would think to themselves, "Ewww...I'm never buying that again." And there's one sale lost. Next time they're in the store with a friend. The friend picks up the muffin, and the original purchaser says, "No, don't buy that muffin, they're terrible." There goes another sale. Then that friend tells another, and another......and there you go. Word of mouth is a double edged sword.....and you never want to end up on the bad edge!!!! That's how I see it.

Probably not. I was just going by infernoos initial description of her methodology. Assuming she had measured everything correctly, the only conclusion I could come to was in the creaming, since she mentioned she wasn't sure if she creamed it for too short or too long a time. She also described the creamed mixture as being "light and fluffy". In my experience, when you cream a melted butter/sugar mixture til it's "light and fluffy", then you are creaming it to the point where the butter has a chance to cool down and start being able to form air cells again. You'd have to be creaming the mixture for well over 10 minutes for that to start to happen. Maybe longer. She gave no time frame, so I honestly didn't know how long she creamed it. If you "cream" AB's recipe for like, say, less than 5 minutes, it's not really going to affect anything. As long as the butter is still in it's melted state, very little in the amount, of air cells form. In fact, I believe that "creaming" is probably the wrong word to use in this particular recipe. In order for true "creaming" to occur, you'd have to whip it for a heck of a long time. I believe the instructions should read: "Mix butter and sugars on medium speed until smooth, about 2 minutes." Leave the word "creaming" out! BUT.......since infernoo now believes she only used one cup of flour.....there you have it. Her results were consistent with too little flour. Very much so. Especially the softness of the dough out of the fridge. Yeah, AB's recipe does call for bread flour. I don't always have it, so when I use AP instead, I have to increase the amount of flour by about a 1/4 cup or so. Infernoo is right about the gluten forming to make a chewier cookie. It's not tough at all. In fact, when I do use bread flour, I mix it just a tad longer than regular cookie dough to develop the gluten just a bit more. Makes for less spread too.

Is there such a thing as a caffeine free coffee bean? I didn't know that. I love Ling's ideas too. I make a cranberry orange cheesecake during the holidays that is a big seller. I just take a standard plain cheesecake recipe, add some orange zest and a little juice, soak some dried cranberries for a bit, drain the cranberries, and mix it all together and bake on a gingersnap crust. It's pretty good.

In my 15 years as a pastry chef, you know what I've discovered? That no recipe is fool-proof or mistake proof. Whether it's written by Alton Brown, Pierre Herme, Rose Levy Berenbaum, Sherry Yard, Jacques Torres, Betty Crocker, or whomever.......there are so many variables in methodology, ingredients, altitudes, temperatures, measurements, that someone is bound to have trouble with what many claim to be the "best" recipe for anything. I would say 90% of the time the error lies with the baker. 10% can be just plain crappy recipes, or misprints. When I have shared recipes with friends, and written them as concisely and clearly as I thought possible, there have been times when they've still had trouble. In reviewing the processes followed, I invariably find out that: A) there was something I had left out, ASSUMING that people know what I know, or B) something they did that they didn't think was worth mentioning at first (like for instance, "I used cake flour in my pate choux....that wouldn't have made a difference would it?). Don't always blame the recipe because you had trouble the first time.....it may not be the recipe.

John DePaula said what I said.....although mine was in much simpler terms. I had probably not heard that melting the tempered chocolate at a working temperature would keep the chocolate tempered because it's so impractical, for the reasons John stated above.

As *I* understand it, once you melt your tempered chocolate, you bring it out of temper. Once you melt it, no matter how you do it; micro, bain marie, whatever, you STILL need to re-temper. In all I know about tempering, I don't recall that anyone ever told me if you melted tempered chocolate correctly is would still stay in temper. I've always been told, once melted, re=temper. I've always found the easiest way to temper chocolate (if you don't have a fancy machine) is the seeding method. Not real complicated. Just: -melt your chocolate with desired method. -chop up some of your tempered chocolate (small small chunks) -add it to your melted chocolate (off heat, of course) -stir it around, monitor the temp with a thermometer, and when your melted chocolate reaches 90 degrees (thereabouts), remove any remaining seed chunks and you're good to go!

I know exactly what went wrong. I make AB's Cookies all the time. The reason you melt the butter is because you DON'T want to incorporate air into this particular batter. Incorporating air into a butter/sugar mixture is one of the big factors that cookies spread. Your error was trying to cream the melted butter/sugar. All you have to do is combine it. Creaming is not necessary. After two hours in the fridge, your dough should be pretty darn hard. If you did have too much butter in it, then it would have been harder still. I don't really think your butter measure was much off, to be honest. It also helps to mix the dough, then scoop it into balls right off the mixer. It's easier to scoop, and the dough chills down much faster. BTW: a stick of US butter is 4 ounces, which converts to 113 grams.

I think baking them all off and giving them to a shelter is a great idea too! The muffins were totally "edible".....but to me, just not enjoyable. And like ladyyoung said, when customers buy something for a while, the definitely NOTICE if their favorite muffin is different. I know I would. I personally am of the same thinking as a lot of you......if I were the boss, NO WAY would I give my customers those muffins! I take pride in my work too much. It's everything to me.

Well, the muffin IS a classic Morning Glory Muffin.....it just has a few tweaks. Instead of nuts, like pecans or walnuts, we use sunflower seeds. And right before baking, I stick two granny smith apple slices in the middles of each one. It's like a nice moist apple surprise in the center....sort of like the chocolate part in a Tootsie Pop.... If I were to change the name however, I'd probably do something like "Glorious Morning Muffins" or wait! Maybe "I Don't Do Mornings" Muffin? He had successfully made one batch of muffin batter the previous week. It sure surprised me that he screwed up the SECOND time......the FIRST time I can understand! From looking at and tasting the muffin, my best guesses were that either A) didn't put enough brown sugar in the batter, or B) used white flour instead of whole wheat. When I quizzed him, he of course said he didn't know what he could have done wrong, and he was sure he used the right flour. So that didn't help me much.... That could be a good idea, but it could backfire on me too. Adding more ingredients to it would increase the food cost, and I'd have to put it back on the mixer. If I put it back on the mixer, and there IS white flour in it, I would be working the gluten in the flour even more, resulting in an even rubberier muffin. BOING! So if I ended up with a rubberier muffin, with say, added raspberries in it in my attempt to make it more palatable, then throwing it away would be even costlier..... Those are great solutions if you're baking at home. When you have clients that buy a product based on what it already IS, then when you give them something that looks in any way different, they will question it, and most likely complain. Even if what you did to it is an "improvement", they may not feel that way. Also, if I stuck cream cheese or a pecan half on it this time, and they actually liked it, they may come to expect it. They'll say, "Why no pecans this time?" Hard to explain (without telling the truth). I'm honest to a fault. I'd say trying to make a bad muffin look pretty.....is like.....puttin' lipstick on a pig...... Hey wow.....I never thought of that. Given the condition of the batter and the muffin, it would have been easily hidden had I incorporated it into a good batch. I'll keep that in mind next time! As "luck" would have it, we flew through that mutant batch in one day.....if it had hung around longer, I could have done that! I just felt "sick" baking up all those pale weird muffins for all our big accounts last Friday. I could hardly bear to look at them as they were coming out of the oven. I was waiting all day for phone calls from clients....."What the hell is this piece of rubber you just delivered??!!!" Ugh. Luckily, I never got a phone call. After Mr. Boss Man got back from deliveries, he did say the customers questioned the look of the muffins, but accepted them anyway. He told me he lied to them and said we were experimenting with a lower baking temperature....... Argh.

If I were in retail, that would be an excellent idea! But unfortunately, it's wholesale, so I don't have that option.......

Ok gang.....here's a hypothetical question for you all....well, not really hypothetical because it happened (and happens everywhere), but I want to know all of your views and opinions on this. I have my own view, but I'd really like to hear others. Ok, so the situation is: You make a signature product that is really popular and one of your best selling items. In my case, it's a wholesome muffin called a "Morning Glory". I make huge batches of the batter and bake off to order. The batter doesn't last long since we sell so many of them....I make it about twice a week. Sales have skyrocketed and I finally get an assistant to help me since I got so buried. Of course the assistant my boss hired isn't really a baker. Yay! Well, he is, but he's only done bagels and bread. He's as new to what I do as someone from off the street. I walk him through the Morning Glory procedure 'cause it's pretty hard to mess up a muffin batter. You just throw stuff in the bowl and mix, more or less. Well, wouldn't you know, he messed up the batter. The muffins I threw in the oven the next morning baked up really pale and weird. I cut one up and bit into it. Kind rubbery-ish and not as sweet as normal. I figured that he mismeasured the sugar, or perhaps used white flour instead of whole wheat. Anyway, the muffin wasn't up to my standards, and I felt we shouldn't sell it. It was edible, but not really enjoyable to me. Dry rubbery-ish muffins are just no fun. I showed my boss (who is also not a baker) the mutant muffin. He tried it too. Then he tried a muffin I had baked off from the rest of the good batter. He agreed that the mutant muffin wasn't as good as the regular muffin, but you could only tell the difference if you tasted them side-by-side....that was his opinion of course. I felt that the mutant muffin was unsellable crap. But I admit, I have anal-retentive perfectionist standards. But, since he IS the boss, it was his call. He chose to use the mutant muffin batter and hope that our wholesale customers didn't complain. He just didn't want to have to throw all that batter away......after all, it's like throwing money down the drain. But. I personally think that since our customers buy our stuff based on how it's supposed to be, we shouldn't be palming off substandard product to them. What if they complain and pull their account from us? That costs money too.......much more than throwing away an expensive batter. If I were the owner, I would have thrown the batter away and made a new batch. I feel I owe it to my clients. What would you do?

Ok.....here's the clincher.....are you ready? Both of the women ARE the "executive" chefs......and co-owners......!

This is the funniest thing I've heard today!!! Thanks for asking Keith, 'cause I was gonna ask too. I'm uh......assuming this syndrome only occurs with hairy arses, hence the shaving? It's not a female problem, I take it...... Actually I love banter too....really makes the time go by. I've worked in kitchens where the banter was so great my stomach hurt from laughing so much. But where I work now, it's very very different. It's not conversational banter......it's more like listening to fingernails on a chalkboard. Imagine.....two women, very HYPER women.....talking so fast you don't know what they're saying, repeating themselves, talking over each other, talking excessively loudly, NON STOP. It's bizarre, I tell you. In fact, I just got an assistant (thank God) a few weeks ago, and the first day I had him in for training, the first comment he made was about THEM. He goes, "Do they do this every day?" I looked at him very forlornly and said, "Yes.....every stinking day......" And finally, I never thought I'd have to resort to hiding towels and valuable equipment, but I'm finally admitting defeat and am going to find a good place for my "stash". One must do what one must do to preserve sanity.......

This is what I was going to say also. When you don't have pastry flour....make your own. You know pastry flour is in the middle (protein-wise) of AP flour and cake, so you just mix the two. Just like when you're out of half and half.....mix milk and cream. Or when you don't have any whole milk, mix cream with water. Or when you're out of brown sugar, mix granulated with molasses.......

Hey! You must work in my kitchen too! At least, in a parallel universe! Like K8 said too, everybody thinks I'm sort of standoffish and moody because I'm not participating in the incessant chatting of my co-workers. It's everything I can do to tune them out and focus. I've gotten pretty good at it, but boy, I sure like my "morning time" before everyone else rolls in at 8. I value that peace and quiet VERY MUCH. AND YOU WOULDN'T BELIEVE HOW MUCH MY HOT SIDE CO-WORKERS TALK. They don't even take a breath. They talk over each other. It's loud. It's tiresome. It stresses me the f**k out!!!!! They use my table. They use my reach-in. They take my freaking towels....the towels that I take home and wash MYSELF!!! They have a linen service provide their towels! But they use them up and then TAKE MINE!!!!! All I'm trying to do is focus and get the job done......is that SO WRONG??? (Yeah, ok, I had a really bad day today ) I guess it's sort of comforting to know, I'm not the only with with this particular problem. Yep, yep, and yep! That's why I can't distract myself from the task at hand. That's why I'm not Chatty Cathy. I actually care about the work I do, and I also don't want to have to do it over, so I'm very careful not to mess up the first time!

Exactly! Attitude is half (or maybe 3/4?) the battle!!