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Made the sticky buns this morning A lot of work, and very time consuming Coming out of the oven Unfortunately, even with the conservative time estimate, turned out to be a bit too long This one looks OK... But the pan as a whole is a tad overdone on the caramel side :-/

It's over. My feet and back were realllly sore after bending over the crepe pan for a good 2 hours. Went off pretty well. Must have made and served at least 100 crepes. Had to scale back plans, ended up just making brioche. Someone else made tartes aux sucres, someone made chocolate cheesecake, someone made a ganache cake... I had a slideshow running of nightscotsman's patisserie and baking school pictures (with his permission of course). Ended up grossing $75 before they stopped charging for food.

Thanks for the link- I have to write a rpeort on brioche and this will be most helpful

re: Brioche pics - bravo. I've been working a lot with brioche recently (pictures) but they don't come out quite so picturesque as yours. I'm intrigued by the difference in technique though - it seems a better idea to do it the way you mentioned, mixing all the other ingredients before incorporating the sponge, rather than adding each ingredient separately to the sponge like my recipe dictated. I think this would yield a smoother dough, with fewer lumps. Hmm. How did you work with such a wet dough when shaping them?

The recipe is from Sherri Yard's Secrets of Baking, the "Master Brioche" recipe (or 'middle class' according to the lean/middle/rich dough classifications) I would post it if not for copyright concerns. edit: I adapted the technique from the Bread Baker's Apprentice. It's a bit of a combination of the two now. Particularly, I adapted the method of shaping the top knots (I odn't really have any good pictures of that part). Basically, you roll a portion of dough into a rope, but leave one end fat. Picture a snake with a big head I guess. Take the big part and make a hole with your thumb. Tuck the other end through the hole and make a bulb out of it (obviously my technique still needs some work as they're not evne close to uniform..) I do add quite a bit of flour in all, probably a half cup to a cup - without it I find I can't work with the dought. It's fine if you're going to make a loaf out of it but It's too messy and wet to make the brioches a tets without the extra flour, IMO.

Mise en place Sponge Adding eggs, flour, salt to sponge Mmmm butter - the recipe I used called for 2 sticks Scraped into oiled bowl, covered with plastic wrap After first rise Refrigerating overnight Fresh out of fridge Kneading a little more flour in Divide into 3 sections Refrigerate 2/3 Divide one third in half Divide half in thirds Shaping Place in pans before plastic wrap covering, final rise Eggwash after rise 425 for 10, 350 for 15 Really wish I had more than 6 pans..

Getting to be crunch time. I guess my teacher scaled back her vision a bit; she only wants us to bring in 1 thing (I'm bringing brioche and profiteroles (If I can get the damn pate a choux to work this time) and she's buying the rest (croissants and not sure what else) And she's charging people for the food (to recoup the cost of the ingredients I guess) We'll see.

I made the brioche recipe again, and I can't understand why it's not rising much at all. The finished product is still excellent but it's not doing what's described in the recipe during the times it's at room temperature - never is it doubling in volume. Made a coffeecake out of half the dough and a loaf out of the other. Maybe it's my yeast..

I have to say, this is an enlightening thread. I never really gave much thought to how much work goes into cutting the cake and making sure there are enough servings for everyone. Hmm

Je pensais de le faire mais je crois que je cuisinerai pour mon passe-temps plutôt que mon travail I should mention that this class isn't really about cooking - It's just a french class whose teacher really enjoys food (I sent her the link to this board and she spent the whole class showing us pictures of the newly opened patisserie of nightscotman (forget the name). So yah.

Well I bought some brioche pans from williams & sonomo this weekend. Tried them out last night Will have to work on my presentation but the taste is absolutely amazing - I must have eaten half the loaf and 2 of the brioche a tete. Recipe was from Sherri Yard's secrets of baking I was worried it wouldn't work at all because I accidently exposed the sponge to a lot more heat than called for but it came through in the end

I've successfully made cream puffs before, but I recently tried making eclairs and they failed miserably - they didn't rise AT all. I have pictures of the whole debacle but they're on the other computer. I was VERY frustrated after that, especially considering how much time and effort i spent on them. I used the recipe from Sherri Yard's Secrets of Baking book, following it to the T. Not sure what to do differently but I suppose I can start from these replies

I sent this link to my french teacher and we spent half of a period just gawking over the pictures, and the link to Neil's pastry school adventures damn if we weren't hungry at 8 in the morning

Thanks for that tip; I hadn't read anything about the actual serving of a croquembouche before. It's something to think about at least. I'm going to have to do some shopping though; I lost one half of my coupler for my pastry bag which makes it just about completely worthless, and I don't have half the ingredients some of the recipes I've seen call for (cake flour in particular..)

I am absolutely amazed at those desserts. Incredible

I used this recipe- http://cake.allrecipes.com/AZ/MiniChsCks.asp but changed the crust to graham cracker crumb crust. I admit it took a lot of time insofar as I had to bake about 3 or 4 batches - the mini muffin tins I have only hold 6 each.

OK I was just messing around with the caramel recipe, making spun sugar and assembling some frozen, unfilled pate a choux dough. My question is, how in the heck would one break off a piece cleanly? With the unfilled ones, it took quite a bit of effort to break one off, and instead of breaking off, it was more like ripping away the dough and leaving behind most of the caramel. Which is ok when there's nothing inside the balls, but that would be one HUGE mess if they were filled with pastry cream. The taste of the dough and the caramel together is amazing though - Maybe I'll go for individual cream puffs dipped in caramel rather than the entire croquembouche... hm

I don't know if this is appropriate in a restaurant environment, but I have made them in muffin tins - actually I made them in mini muffin tins with petit fours-sized liners, but I imagine you'd want something a bit more substantial for a dessert. If you spray the liner with some sort of nonstick spray or grease it or what have you, you can take it off after baking and the graham cracker crust should stay in one piece. Shrug. Here are the pictures - (sorry for the poor quality, I'm a better cook than photographer)

Sorry, I should have been more clear. I'm a senior in high school, not college. I'm looking to feed quite a few people; last year I made three large loaves of bread and ran out about half way through the night - there are probably at least 150 people there, if not more. Whether or not they all eat from my little place is a different story. I bake a lot of things, but certainly am comfortable with multistep things made from scratch. I've made the commisary carrot cake for instance, and a buche de noel. Cheesecakes are my specialty. The grading is really just a voting thing from the community - vote for your favorite project. Actually, that doesn't directly impact the grade but it can't hurt it. The grading really comes from the oral presentation that happens at a different time - most of the people at the night aren't french so I wouldn't be speaking French to them there.

Hello all. It's almost that time again for my school's annual "World Language Night". As a senior and member of French 5, I have first choice as to what sort of project I want to do for the night. Last year a friend and I did a project on French breads; this year I want to expand that into all manner of desserts, a patisserie as it were. I'm looking for some ideas. The recipes don't necessarily have to be French, but a French influence should be apparent. So far I'm thinking of making a Croquembouche (per Sherri Yard's Secrets of Baking), and another pate a choux creation, maybe eclairs or a paris brest. Restraints - I would prefer if the foods were very lenient in the temperature department - I do have access to a refrigerator during the day and an oven right before the event begins, but if possible I'd prefer the food to be excellent at room temperature. I think food that you can eat without utensils (or possibly even plates) would be the best choice, but if need be, I could furnish utensils etc. Thanks in advance

Is it possible to make this without the kahlua? EDIT: I see now that it's a sort of glaze- can you think of anything to substitute for that?

I've got both rounds made, going to be making the icing later and chilling it before use tomorrow. Going to omit the pecan filling, but I did add back in the raisins and chopped pecans.

I made half of the Commisary Carrot Cake in an 8" round. Frosted with the frosting (with 1/2 cup less powdered sugar) and it's EXCELLENT. Omitted the raisins and nuts but will put them back in for the final product.

It's a layer cake, John. ← "Carrot Cake: Preheat oven to 350°F. Have ready a greased and floured 10" tube cake pan" I think this is where the "hole" question is coming from

The only one of these I see as acceptable is looking at eggs, but I don't think anyone would argue that this is a bad thing..