chefpeon

Shel is so lucky he has you! Man, I thought wheat-free, sugar-free, dairy-free, gluten-free, and fat-free were tough...... iodine-free? One isn't quite sure how much iodine can be so prevalent in common foods! Yipes. Double yipes! How's he doing? I hope you all are OK!!!

You mean Google couldn't read my mind this time? Shoot, I DID Google it first (always do!) but spelled it "brick" and all I came up with was a bunch of non-English gobbledygook. Oh sure, you can have Google translate, but have you ever read a translated page? Yipes. Translation software still has a ways to go! Funny too, is that Google usually will suggest an alternative if it detects a spelling error.....it will say "Did you mean......feuille de bric?" It didn't do that. So. I took your suggestion and Googled "feuille de bric" and came up with more results. Got more info than I did with my prior search, for sure. Much better. But I still wanna know about feuille de bric brik brick from all the horse's mouths.......those who've worked with it, and tips and tricks, and maybe some tried and true recipes. I want someone else's experience to benefit me, 'cause, well.......I'm lazy. Well, not really lazy...... just......well, I'm too impatient to f*&k up much these days. I wanna get it right....right away!

So I had an opportunity to purchase some Feuille de Brick at a huge discount from my supplier, so I figured, "Hey, why not?" It's time for me to play with something new. I've never worked with it, and not quite sure what it's applications are. My salesman did tell me it's used to make "purses", both sweet and savory. My questions to you all are: What do you use Feuille de Brick for? If you have a favorite recipe that you use it in, could you share ideas with me? What is it, exactly? A very thin puff pastry? Are there special handling tips? Use cold? Is it delicate, and/or hard to work with? Baking temps? Anything else? Any input is great appreciated!!!!

Oooooh.....I think your "string theory" really explains it well, Shal! I'm having a meat epiphany now.

Ok.......so like I was watching my co-worker struggle to mix all her ingredients for Sicilian Meatballs in a giant tub with her latex-gloved hands, and I thought........why doesn't she use the big mixer? I mean, after all, in all the other kitchens I've worked in, when we had to make meatloaf or meatballs, we dumped everything in the mixer and sloshed it around a bit. Easy. So I asked her......"why don't you use the mixer? It'll be so much easier." And she told me that if you put meat on the mixer with eggs and all the other stuff (like spices and bread cubes), that the action of the mixer toughens the meat. Well I'll be darned....I'd never heard this.....not even from the chef that instructed me in culinary arts 15 years ago. Even in the upscale places I've been, the meat went in the mixer.....I mean gosh, we had to make SO MUCH of it. Any other way (such as mixing by hand) would be insanity. So is this true? Any experiences with tough meatloaf or meatballs because you used the mixer? I'm on the pastry side, so I don't mix meat much. Just wonderin' if any of you hot siders can chime in on this!

Ok.....my final report. I split, filled, iced, and poured ganache over my baked Woolley/Robertson cake. Easy to work with (cold, of course)......it didn't fall apart on me.....it's all good. I really like this cake....but......compared to my "tried and true", it's much richer and a little more dense. Good in some applications.......not so in others. This recipe will take a spot in my "little black box", and I'll be using it when I want a rich chocolate cake. This was a fun experiment!

Ok, as promised, here is my report. I used Neil's mixing method and followed the recipe closely except for four things: *I used only three eggs since mine were extra large and Neil's used 4 large eggs (besides, the original recipe only called for three) *I used cake flour *I added a teaspoon of Medaglia D'Oro espresso powder to the cocoa/hot water thingy *The cocoa I used was half dutched and half regular (I always use dutched, but I couldn't bring myself to pay $9.99 retail for an 8 ounce box of Droste, so I bought the Hershey's for $3.69) My wholesale price for dutched is so much better at work, but was too lazy to go there...the store was closer. I was able to bake 2 8 inch cakes and 2 6 inch cakes with this recipe. Each pan was filled about halfway full. Oven was at 300 (yes, I have a thermometer). Only took about 30 minutes for those puppies to bake (nowhere near an hour-but I figured as much, especially for the 6 inchers). When the cakes came out, they looked just like Wendy's pics earlier in this thread. A little domed and cracked, and a dullish surface. They didn't rise a whole lot, but that's ok by me. I will note, however, that even though I rotated my cakes halfway through baking time, the cakes that started out on the bottom shelf had less doming and cracking than the ones that started out on the top, where there's more heat in my oven. I would venture to say that anyone who is concerned with the doming thing to lower the oven temp even more (maybe to 275) and doming wouldn't be a problem. But here's how I see it. I never see doming as a problem, because I cut off the top part of my cakes anyway, whether they are domed or not. I do that to expose the crumb for better simple syrup soakage. So I have level cakes no matter what. After the cakes cooled a bit, I leveled off the tops with my serrated knife so I could have a look at the crumb and sample a bite. Very very tasty, not too sweet, fine crumb, and an earthy chocolatey fudgy flavor. It did seem a bit crumbly, and probably even more so, since I used cake flour. But it wasn't "fall apart" crumbly, at least not as far as I could tell. The layers are in the fridge now. I will be splitting and filling the 8 inch cakes for an order on Wednesday, and I'll know better then, how much I like this cake compared to my "tried and true". My follow up will come on Tuesday evening. I was going to include pictures with this little report, but I cannot find my digital camera!!! It's gone missing, and I'm pretty upset about it! The last time I used it, I was taking pics of my banana cake trial. It never left the house, I'm sure. I looked everywhere, even in my flour drawer.....and the fridge! Argh!

I'm resurrecting this thread a bit because I will be trying this cake this afternoon. I'll be using Neil's method because it makes more sense to me. I actually have a tried and true chocolate cake recipe that I use a lot that I'm quite happy with, but gosh, one always wonders if they can do better, you know? Actually this Woolley recipe is quite similar to my ol' tried and true, except that it has both butter and oil, whereas my cake has just oil. Also, my cake doesn't call for any boiling water either. One thing I really like about my tried and true is how easy it is to mix......first, you dump all your dry ingredients in the bowl, mix 'em around, add oil, vanilla and eggs, mix, then add buttermilk in four parts, scraping down bowl often.... then bake. I will be trying the Woolley/Robertson tweak and reporting back to you all tonight.

I have also found that whipping the cream til stiff BEFORE you add the white chocolate is too much whipping. I slightly underwhip it, because the action of folding in your white chocolate will break your cream if you've whipped it too much in the first place.

Ain't that the FREAKING truth!!!! Sometimes I think 5 days ain't enough to prepare for the weekend! My husband is a teacher and weekends are all he has, he knows my career requires weekends (and all summer), so he's not real happy about that. But, it's either that, or live in a box under the freeway.....gotta pay the man! Now that I'm a stepmom, I would say if I had to choose between having kids and and bakery with 7 employees, I'd take the bakery! Kids are harder.....and you can't fire them! Seth, I know what you mean....my husband is a teacher, so I know all the school policies that exist. We live in a much more paranoid world now, which is sad and unfortunate. These policies are meant to "protect" but wreak havoc in other ways. It's hard enough to make a living and support a family, and there you are, losing a day's pay, because your kid has a runny nose, or because he was sent home after being found with an aspirin bottle in his pocket.....the school has a "zero tolerance" policy on drugs.....and it includes aspirin. So they get suspended. Talk about taking stuff too far!

Like, I said, in cake decorating, it all depends on what you're doing. The equipment I need, may not be what somebody else needs. And Wendy made a good point.....a lot of the time, you'll go out and think you need a lot of specialty stuff and find you just never use it. I have so many specialty decorating tips that are just gathering dust! I personally have never run into "bad equipment"......well, wait, there's a couple of brands of pastry bags that have a tendency to split a lot, but that's about it. I think more of us are interested in finding stuff on the cheap, than paying more than we have to. In my opinion, I think a lot of cake decorating equipment is WAY overpriced in the first place! I use disposable parchment paper cones whenever possible, but there are times when I need the washable reusable bags because I need a lot of icing and you can get some pretty honkin' huge bags if you go that route. I hate refilling my bag more than I have to!

Hey Mel, me too. It's why I don't have any kids of my own. Cats will have to do! I hear you about the whiners. There are definitely people out there who will grasp at any excuse to call in sick. The habitual offenders.....the only thing you can depend on them for is their bi-weekly phone call. Bi-weekly if you're lucky, anyway. This may sound cold hearted, but I always sort of have a problem with the "my kid is sick" excuse. Once in a while, ok, but geez, I've had parents of elementary school kids stay home for every sniffle, and this happens a LOT. It seems to me kids are sicker these days. When I was little I maybe had to stay home once a year. My stepson stayed home probably 10 different times last year.....I thought that was a little weird, but my husband lets him stay home if he says "I'm sick." If I told my parents I was sick, they always put a thermometer in my mouth. If it read normal, off to school I went. Of course I wasn't devious enough to hold hot water in my mouth to make it read high or anything. Anyway, I'm rambling.......! Glad I could make you chuckle! Sometimes, all you can do is laugh at this crazy world!

Ah, I remember those days. I used to be able to pull crazy stuff like that too. Mr. Young-un, I want you to clip and save what you just said up above there. Tuck it away in a safe place. Then say, 20 years from now, take it out and read it. Bet you'll say, "How did I DO that? And why can't I do it now?" That's where I'm at. You "gotta work through-its" will find out one day there really isn't much reward for martyring yourself. You know what you get when you work your fingers to the bone? Bony fingers. Coming to work when you're really sick sets a bad precedent. It doesn't help you and it doesn't help your co-workers. You're more likely to make mistakes. You can spread your sickness to others in your kitchen.....and snot dripping out of your nose does not make for tasty filling in your brioche. Now I'm not talking about the occasional sniffle......that's nothing. I'm talking about drop-down fever, puking your guts out, feel-like-ya-wanna-die kind of sick. To come to work like that is just stupid.....and unfair to your co-workers. Now, if you decide that you want to party all weekend with the buds, and had no sleep for 48 hours.......I expect you to "work through it".......I don't expect any excuses for bad decisions! I know being an owner is different. There's a lot more at stake. If you decide that you need to work and they haven't even closed the casket yet, then go right ahead.....I just hope you don't hold your employees to the same standard, because it's unrealistic and unhealthy. For the record, I RARELY report out......especially because if I do, the baking doesn't get done. I'm the only baker. It's only if I'm deliriously sick that I call in sick, and I do so with an enormously guilty conscience. In other jobs, it has always meant that one of my pals has been saddled with extra work and most likely, overtime. Staying home sick is NOT FUN.....since you know when you go back, there's a lot of fixin' to be done for just being gone. You KNOW you'll be in the weeds.....so you just lie there......trying to enjoy "Jerry Springer" and all those ads in between aimed at people that SHOULD be trying to get a job.......but arent. It's pure mental and physical torture, I tell ya. Just a couple of months ago, shortly before I had to leave for work, my cat got attacked by a coyote. He was actually carrying her off in his mouth, but my husband chased him down and actually managed to get the coyote to drop her. She was in bad shape.....bleeding from the nose and mouth, but it was WAY early in the morning, and there was no vet in town open yet. I took my cat in to work with me (in her carrier, in the office), and while I'm baking the morning pastries, I've got the cordless phone cradled on my shoulder, desperately trying to find emergency vet help........ I'd say I'm a pretty good employee, all-in-all.

What kind of "stuff" are you talking about? Pastry bags? Tips? Spatulas? Turntables? Buying cake decorating supplies isn't exactly like buying a good set of knives, where quality and sharpness count. For cake equipment, it's more a matter of personal preference, and what you intend on doing. My personal preference is price. For instance, if I'm going to go buy a pastry tip, and I have a choice between a tip from Wilton that costs $1.00 or a tip from Acme Tip Co. for 49 cents, I'm going for Acme's. Because after all, I'll probably lose the tip in the commercial dishwasher and I'd rather be out 49 cents than a dollar. Everybody has their favorite tools for the job, and some tools we love aren't even marketed as cake decorating equipment. In fact, my favorite icing smoother is something you find at the paint and hardware store......not the bakery supply shop. If you're just starting out, you probably need a good turntable (Ateco does make some nice turntables and they're only about $30), a couple of different size pastry bags, an offset spatula, a a straight spatula, some basic pastry tips (straight tips, rose tips, leaf tips, star tips), a few couplers so you can change tips easily, an icing comb, a long serrated knife........but again, it all depends on what you're doing. If you intend on studying gumpaste work, for instance, there's a whole lot MORE stuff you can buy just to do that. I'd suggest asking your instructor to inform you what kind of tools you will need for the curriculum he/she intends on teaching, and you can purchase those things. Then if you decide you want to pursue decorating further, you can go buy other things that you'll know you'll need. I mean, it would be a shame to go out and buy a bunch of sugarpaste tools and find out later you really hate working with sugarpaste. Wait and see how it goes......THEN spend the money if you need to.

Yeah, especially when you find out that in commercially made foods, there is an "allowable" percentage of insect parts that you may be munching on......

Banana extract or emulsion is good.....and you know how I make my icing tan? I make cinnamon roll icing once a week and I add quite a bit o' vanilla. Just the color of the vanilla gives you a nice tannish hue. I also don't see a problem with using fresh banana, but you would need to be wary of "soupyness" in that case. I honestly think the best icing for that banana cake would have a little cream cheese in it. You need that tang to offset that huge banana sweetness in my opinion....otherwise it's major overkill.

So I did a bit o'Googlin' and discovered that certain varieties of hazelnuts do not blanch well because of their low oil content. Of course, one of the varieties that I use a lot (Hazelnuts from Oregon) are one of those low-oil types. Never found the solid reason for baking soda (I love the science, man!), but the theory that viva mentioned about the alkalinity sounds pretty reasonable to me. Then I found a recipe for making Hazelnut Kisses, and their process goes like this: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bring large pot of water to the boil and add 2 tsp. baking soda. Drop in the hazelnuts, bring back to a boil, and blanch 10 seconds. Drain hazelnuts in a colander, then spread out on a baking sheet in a single layer. Place in oven and roast 8 to 10 minutes until light brown. Remove from oven, place a kitchen towel over the pan, and allow to cool completely. Rub cooled hazelnuts between your palms; the skins should slip right off. Set aside 50 whole hazelnuts. Grind the rest very fine in a food processor fitted with the metal blade and set aside. Note that you blanch then roast immediately, THEN skin.....you don't blanch, skin, and roast. I'm going to try that next time! Or maybe you're up for it, Turtlemeng! Whomever gets to it first must report back!

It only takes two to three minutes to blanch almonds. And hoo-boy, the skin definitely slips right off! Be careful, because it's really easy to pinch those suckers and shoot em across the room! This is particularly fun if you like to annoy your co-workers. I still wanna know what's up with the baking soda thing when blanching hazelnuts. The next time I need to skin a batch, I'm going to blanch with no soda and see what happens. Usually I dry roast mine and rub them in my tamis while still warm to get most of the skins off, but it's blanchorama next time!

I've blanched almonds to peel them, but never used baking soda. What does the soda do, exactly? Do you need it for hazelnuts but not almonds?

Note that the cake recipe rooftop Googled uses the methodology of folding the whites in at the end. This will give a you lighter fluffier crumb. I'm sure you can do the same with Wendy's recipe. Since you're looking to imitate Sara Lee, go with the recipe that claims to be just like it. Give your client a sample......see if she likes it.....

Ok.....here are my banana cakes (courtesy of Wendy) fresh out of the oven. As she mentioned, they aren't big risers, so I filled my cake pans nearly full. They probably rose about a half inch or so. Observation number one: made the house smell GREAT! As you can see I sliced the top off one of them to expose the crumb. Not super fine and fluffy, but not banana bread densy either. Observation number two: my taste from the sliced off top was DEEE-LISH! Nice and moist.....this cakey is a keeper for moi!!! I followed Wendy's recipe to the "T", except: *I used fat free sour cream because I didn't have the regular stuff around (I'm going to Weight Watchers....I gotta cut points where possible.) *I did a bonehead kind of thing.....my overripe bananas were frozen, so I microwaved them a bit then stuck 'em in the Cuiz to puree. They were still partially frozen when I pureed them, so were very very cold when I added them to my creamed butter/sugar mixture. This then made my butter/sugar mixture kinda lumpy, which then probably created some micro-butter pockets in my batter and I probably didn't get as good of a crumb as I could have. Remember kids, don't be like Annie.....and make sure all your ingredients are close to room temp when you add them! I know better, I really do, but something about baking at home makes me kind of a dumbass. *I used cake flour instead of all purpose. Final observation: Best banana cake I've ever made, dumbass stuff and all. I'm sure when I do it right next time it'll be even better. I also believe you could probably make it fluffier by separating the eggs and folding the whites in at the end. I might try that next time. This time however, I will be waiting for it to cool, slicing it in layers (about 3 or 4 I guess) and filling it with an espresso-Kahlua ganache, then icing it up in coffee buttercream and pouring it with more ganache. Then I'll serve it to my cranky husband. That'll make him feel better!

I've never had a Sara Lee thing in my life. One, because my mom wouldn't buy that stuff at the store....not 'cause she was worried about sugar in those days, but because it was expensive. And two, because people who know me know not to buy Sara Lee, since I'd rather make it myself. So, I don't know how to compare. But, I do have cakes in the oven as we speak, and I will report back on fluffiness, flavor, texture and all that. Gotta check 'em......!

GOD DAMMIT ABRA!!! Sorry.....I.....couldn't resist yelling at you. Here's Wendy's recipe.....seems it has some rave reviews. As a matter of fact, I'm going to try it today because I have overripe bananas and a cranky husband.

That is so true. One must make allowances for that. For instance, if a bride says they want to feed 100 people, I always round up the servings, since my cake sizes and serving counts sort of force me to do that anyway. And what you say about the lower paid help......yep......they ARE the ones doing it, no doubt about that. Not only true in the Southwest.....just as prevalent up here. I would also suggest that anyone thinking about going into the restaurant biz to take a Spanish course....you're gonna need it! Every establishment I do business with (hotels, event halls, etc), goes through my wedding cake course......they love it, since they don't have to train the personnel, and I do it as a courtesy. I feel it's something I must do, because if anyone handling my cakes messes up, I'm the one that hears about it and I'm the one taking responsibility! Again, for the non-english speaking folk, my grid stencil thing comes in handy once again, since I can explain visually what needs to happen. Popular or not, you demonstrate that there's two schools of thought here, and I'll just leave it at that. I will say that after 15 years of doing wedding cakes almost exclusively, that I'm always looking for better ways to do things. I refuse to believe that there's problems that can't be solved. That's why I came up with my little grid stencil......it really really works for me. I'll probably even tweak that as I see fit. I'm always listening to people and keeping my eyes and ears open to opinions and observations. When I do wedding shows I can overhear people's comments to each other as they are browsing the cake booths.....and boy, that will educate you if nothing else! I've discovered how much people DON'T know about wedding cakes, and I always make sure I take notes to address the misconceptions when I do my consultations. People also really appreciate it when you are upfront with them. You say "this is how it is, these are my serving sizes, this is what I do to assure cake disasters don't happen if you do business with me, here are my references, etc". People like it when show you know your stuff, don't make any apologies, and assure them the only person "sweating out the wedding cake" is you. They can just relax.....if that's possible. Sometimes I feel like I could do a whole thread about "bride psychology!"

So am I, and I've never experienced the problems that you mention in your above post. You're right, cake IS cheap, but my labor isn't. I spend a LOT of time doing the cakes I do. I'm not charging for cake, I'm charging for my labor. In fact, when all is said and done, I end up putting more of my sweat into each cake I do than I originally estimate. I never think my clients are getting "ripped off" in any way, and they never have thought so either. I get more business from word of mouth than any other way. That's why I take time to educate the bride, the caterer, the waitstaff, and the wedding planners. Everyone knows me and they know exactly what to do with my cakes. Initially, the education part is quite an effort, but the effort pays off. The more time you spend with people who come in contact with your product the better it makes you look, and they look better too. I use my grid stencil to "educate" the servers, and they "get it" and they do it right for me. It's all about establishing relationships......it's served me well. Sure, you can't educate everyone, and you run into your occasional bonehead, but for the most part everything works out. Spending a little extra time with people in your business really really pays off in warm relationships, more referrals, and great word of mouth. The off-cuts don't count as servings. I only count all the full cuts as servings. All little extra pieces are bonus....woo hoo! By the way, if you lay a 1 inch by 2 inch by 4 inch piece of cake on a plate, that's a nice serving size for most people.....I don't believe it's "chintzy" at all. Not only that, but I've never had a comment that people have run out of cake.....in fact, most comments are that they have plenty left over and are not sure what to do with the rest!