chefpeon

I think I see the seal of "Homer Simpson" on this! "MMMMMMMMMM Grilled Donuts......."

Well, it sorta depends on how many pies I'm making....but, if I'm at home and making a couple pies, or one pie, I do it all by hand. I even go to the lengths of pre-measuring all my ingredients and sticking 'em in the freezer for a half hour beforehand. I also use my precious precious leaf lard that makes the worlds best crusts! At work, when I have to make pie dough for eleventy million crusts, I use the big ol' Hobart mixer with the whisk first (to cut the fat in) then switch to the paddle when I add the ice water. Makes a pretty nice crust, but not as nice as I make at home. I've used a Cuisinart a few times.....it's ok.....I can see how you can easily "overdo" it since those blades are so fast and sharp.....just remember to use the "pulse" feature very sparingly. I've always figured though, if I'm going to use the Cuisinart, I might as well do it by hand, since I can't really make any more pie dough in the Cuiz, than I can by hand. Not only, that, but I'd have to wash out the Cuiz bowl. I'm lazy when it comes to dishes!

Since you're so new, I would recommend a baking book that would be your "bible" to get started with the basics. A really good one is from Cook's Illustrated, and it's called "Baking Illustrated". The instructions are extremely thorough and easy to follow. Also, if you get Food Network where you live, watch that occasionally......! You can learn some good stuff on there! It's also fun to watch. Any cooking show is, for that matter.

Here's an interesting one: Cream: 8 oz butter 15 cups powdered sugar Add: 2 cups cocoa 1/2 cup water Mix thoroughly. Add: 1 1/2 lbs cream cheese (preferably room temp) Whip to desired consistency. It's a really fudgy tangy icing/filling. Yum! I know this is a fairly large batch.......you can halve it or whatever......

The dessert was originally called, "Faclouti", as in "Fah-kloo-tee", but it caused too many problems in the restaurants. A typical exchange: Patron: Waiter, what is tonight's dessert special? Waiter: Faclouti Patron: I BEG your pardon? Waiter: FACLOUTI, sir. Patron: Don't "SIR" me! I know what you just said! I just asked for the dessert special! You don't have to swear at me! Ok. I made that up. I don't really know the answer.

I used to work in a place like that......couldn't just wash one thing....had to make a full load to run the dishwasher. Never was much of a problem though, because the sink was always full of stuff, so it was hard NOT to make a full load! Now it's a habit with me.....I never just run one thing through! I feel so......guilty if I do..... Sigh.....towels.....the PRECIOUS towels! I feel like Smeagol in the kitchen. Do not take MY PRECIOUS!!!!!!!! Over the years, I've learned to use just one towel per day. That is, if no one steals it. Generally I prevent that by keeping it submerged in my bleach bucket under my table. I used to wear a towel in my apron, but Mr. Health Dept. Guy told me that was a no-no. No shoulder towels either. Poo! One place I worked NEVER had any clean towels....so I just bought my own. I found 45 for $13 at Costco....pretty good deal. Of course, if I have a particularly chocolatey day, it's two towels at the minimum!

As a member of the "not so dainty club", my choice in pants is......leggings. No, not spandex, or pure spandex.....but just stretchy cotton leggings. There's no binding, you can move freely, and there's no big waistband to worry about. I used to wear the Chefwear baggies (chili pepper print!), but I didn't like the waistband either....it's quite wide and I always "felt" it. Not only that, but even if I bought them one size up, they wouldn't seem to shrink in width, but in length. After just a few washings, my Chefwears started to look more like capris, and I looked like a dork. Ok, maybe it wasn't the pants......

Hee hee....yeah, I guess I do remember the days when I was a newbie and I couldn't fall asleep easily because I was nervous and worried about what I would do the next day, how much I could get done, or worry that I wasn't up to par. I remember being amazed that everybody seemed to work so fast except me. I thought for sure I'd get fired. And, if I happened to screw up that day, I'd be reviewing all the details of my screw up (beating myself up) and making mental notes so that I'D NEVER SCREW UP AGAIN. Yeah, right! But now, since I've been at it so long, I've learned to keep my work worries at work. Mostly, I don't have much to worry about since I've learned the importance of staying on top of things, and being "one step ahead". My general rule is I don't leave work until I have nothing to worry about. Sometimes that means a long day, but mostly not. You know what? I'd say if you have good time management skills, you can really be a kickass PC (provided you have the other necessary skills too.) I usually have such a full day, I'm pretty darn near my pull-date by 6pm. By 7pm I'm so tired, that any thoughts or worries I may have are overridden by physical exhaustion. At that point, it's "Brain? What brain?"

Yep, I just piped 'em on! Just like piping a swiss dot, except the dots are a LOT bigger!

I'm pretty sure that the baking911 recipe and the AB recipe are one in the same. A while ago I compared them, and I think that's the conclusion I made. Before I switched to AB, my favorite recipe was from Nancy Baggett's International Cookie Book. It used processed oatmeal too. I loved the texture of them. They are still top of my list, but I found those particular cookies seemed to taste stale quicker, which is why AB is my fav.

Well, your browning problem was definitely due to your buttermilk. It reacted with the soda big time! Use regular milk and you won't have the browning problem! Whenever I give people the AB recipe, I always tell them to follow the instructions EXACTLY. No tweaking! No substituting! I think, that as is, it's quite spectacular.

Here's another link to custom wedding toppers: Right Brain Creations I do custom cake toppers too. I use modeling chocolate if the bride and groom want an edible topper, or I use Super Sculpey if they want a keepsake topper. I've thought about abandoning cakes to make toppers too, but I like doing cakes too much to give that part up. I did a topper a couple of months ago of bride and groom kitties with their tails together forming a heart. The cake was covered with purple pawprints.......cute! Silly me.....here's a pic.....

I love the Alton Brown recipe too. Hands down the best chocolate chip cookie recipe I've made. What I do, is when the dough comes off the mixer, I scoop it out and let the little balls get nice and cold in the fridge. Then all I have to do is pull them out, flatten a little, and bake.

Not boring! I love to read this stuff......especially when I think MY job is hard, then I read that you have to traipse up and down stairs (with heavy loads) every day. Gosh, maybe I don't have it so bad after all......! I hear you about the back thing. I'm tall too......it still aches some days....especially when I decorate cookies! The stairs will give you shapely legs! Just remember that as you're climbing them every day. You'll have LOVELY calves. Brioche in flexis with custard poured over them! That's cool! Do you sell those to the restaurants in your company? So all the line cooks have to do is re-heat them? I've read the giganto cannele thread here, but what do you think? Are canneles, like, really great? I really want to try one. I'll bet when you fall into bed at night, you have no trouble falling asleep? One thing that has NEVER changed for me is the utter exhaustion I have at the end of the day. Ever since pastry school it's been that way. David Letterman used to have this little phrase he'd say...."I'm tired, but it's a good kind of tired." I always think that. That's how it is. I fall into bed, and I feel like I've accomplished something, and I've worked my body to the max, and I just melt into this blissful wonderful sleep. Of course, I've never quite gotten used to getting up at 3:30....it ALWAYS seems too early! Even when I go to bed at 7.....which I rarely do.....usually it's 8:30 or 9.....just 'cause I wanna spend a LITTLE time with the husband..... I'm so sorry about your kitty! I have four kitties myself, and I love 'em to death. They are my freaking children (people just don't get it, but hey, I don't have any kids), and I pamper them ridiculously. I lost my very favorite friend and companion to a coyote last September....I'm still grieving over that. I miss him. Will your kitty be able to be treated? I hope so. You are lucky to have landed where you did after school.......sounds like a great place to start!

All biscotti I have ever made cracks at the top at least a little bit during the first bake. I've never really thought that this was a big deal....... There are biscotti pans out there, and I've tried them, but I don't like the results I get with them. If you really like your biscotti recipe, and don't want to change it, the best thing I can suggest is to experiment with tiny amounts of your dough. Work one log more than the other.....see if it makes a difference in texture, and the way it bakes. You might also want to experiment with oven temp. Maybe try to bake it at 25 degrees lower on your first bake, and perhaps it won't crack......

Yes, please tell us, yvegeny, you can't really mean you want a cookie that is a foot thick?!?

If you go to this thread, you will find a picture of me using the paint masker thingy to smooth buttercream.......

If you like the results of painting with the powders, but you think the petal is too flat, and the luster too shimmery, why not mix a little of one into the other? I do that all the time.

Yikes.....if I had to temper my chocolate for cookies, I'd never get them done. I've never tempered chocolate for cookies and I'm not about to start! I really really wouldn't worry about that. Basically, the chocolate I use to dip cookies is a bit thinner than the chocolate I use to pipe the decorations. If I used the same chocolate to pipe with as I did to dip with, then the chocolate would flow out of the bag too fast.

Hmmmmmmm.....the fact that you asked that question leads me to believe that maybe your dipping chocolate wasn't thin enough. When I dip cookies, all I do is hold them by the edges, dip the top surface in the chocolate, then let the excess chocolate run off (I might give it a little shake or two), and place it on a parchment lined sheet pan. After the cookies are set up, I lift them off the parchment, and run my hand around the edges to smooth off the "feet" if there are any. Then I proceed to decorate. I've never had to use a spatula or anything to smooth the surface.....too much work!

Here's my take on it. I used to be able to get a nice heavy cream from a dairy in Vancouver, WA (Andersen's) that was at 40 percent butterfat. Whipped up nice. Tasted good. No weird-ass additives. I'd buy that in a heartbeat if I could. But, I'm at the whim of my suppliers, and I can't get that up here. I can't get any "natural" cream from my suppliers that has that high percentage of butterfat. So I hopped on the Carageenan Carousel because I can't get anything else. In my heart, I know it's got "stuff" in it, and that kinda bugs me in a small way, but you know, it works, I can depend on it, it really DOESN'T taste bad (on the contrary!), it holds well, doesn't break easily......those are all pluses in my book. So yeah, I just kinda sucked it in and got over it.......

I agree with that. But I will say, that the ultra pasteurized stuff Neil was talking about that he uses for whipping, is something Mary HomeBaker won't be able to find in the grocery store. I love that ultra pasteurized stuff.....I've never had to use a stabilizer in it...I'm lucky I can get it from my supplier at work. Once, I was in a bind and ran to Safeway for their heavy whipping cream.....ha....the stuff seemed like milk compared to my UP stuff! It didn't hold well at all. I think anyone who uses the stuff that grocery stores term "heavy whipping cream" would probably need to consider a stabilizer. What Wendy said about the fat content....yeah......nothing under 40% butterfat for me!

Um, yeah, everything everybody else said......plus.... I use only one color at a time. Say I have a tray of cookies.....already dipped. Ready to decorate. The details will have three colors on them.....let's say, red, yellow and blue. I melt my blue, fill up a parchment bag, cut off the tip (I don't use metal tips for piping chocolate either), and pipe all my blue details on each cookie. The warmth of my hand has always kept the piping cone warm enough so that the chocolate never sets up on me. You're not using a giganto cone, are you? Then I'll melt my yellow.....do all the yellow details.......and so forth. I use Guittard White Satin Ribbon a lot. It DOES set fast. I add a good amount of oil or paramount crystals to get it fluid enough.....but you don't want it TOO fluid, otherwise it sort of comes out of the bag uncontrollably when you go to pipe it. Actually, my favorite white chocolate for cookie decorating purposes is Felchlin White Chocolate Rondo. It sets well, and I don't have to add any oil or anything to it to make it fluid enough. It's great as-is. I get it from my supplier, who, out here in the Puget Sound area is Peterson's.

If you get impatient like me, you can squeeze it through cheesecloth. Sort of less work then running it through the strainer or sieve and moving the spatula around.

Ok, so I gotta ask, what is it for, and why do you want it so bad?