chefcyn

How about a simple Ganache Torte made with a layer of Pierre Herme's Tart Lemon Cream chilled on the bottom of a nut crust and topped with a nice Dark Chocolate Ganache. The creamy lemon gives that break from the chcoolate's dense richness and brightens the whole thing up--and no baking except for the crust. A gingersnap crust would also add another interesting layer of flavor; it goes well with lemon and chocolate and makes the combination something wild! It can easily be made in individual tart shells, too, or in a ring sitting on a cookie or disc of dacquois.

I searched the Demarle sites with no luck. Can you provide a direct link? Cheers, ← Click here: wooden loaf pans, set of five $7.99 and scroll way down--there are plain paper ones, too. and another: panimold loaf pans and yet one more: baking baskets?

The recipes for Pate Sucree--Sweet Tart Crusts are more of a cookie dough than a pastry like you'd use for a flaky pie crust. Therefore, cutting the butter into the flour isn't mixing it enough, so it won't have any holding power. You need to mix the butter and sugar and egg or yolk in the recipe as if you were making cookies--cream till smooth and creamy but not too much air--not fluffy. Then mix in the flour and other dry ingredients. These are the ingredients I use: sift together and set aside: 1 1/2 cups (210 grams) all purpose flour 1/8 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon (125 grams) unsalted butter, just soft, not mushy 1/4 cup (50 grams) granulated white sugar 1 large egg, lightly beaten Cream the butter just till smooth, gradually blend in the sugar and beat until just smooth, add the egg and beat until just blended, then fold in the flour/salt and mix until it just makes a ball. The key is to be gentle and not overwork it, but incorporate everything smoothly. It's going to be sticky. Flatten dough into disk, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 20 minutes or until firm. I use two layers of wide plastic wrap to roll it out, rolling a little, then loosening the wrap flip it over and loosent he wrap on the other side(it gets stretched and rolls into the dough, preventing smooth rolling. Doing the loosening each time, helps, and it doesn't take very long to roll it out to size. Then remove the top layer of wrap, and flip the dough onto the tart pan, gently settling it into the pan and just easing it to fit. Don't press too hard or stretch it. Prick the bottom all over with a fork--this prevents large bubbles from distorting your shell as it bakes. Chill it hard and blind bake. I line the shell with parchment and fill it with dried beans or rice or pie weights, bake at 400 degF for 15-20 min to set it, then remove the weights and bake aother 10-12 minutes to lightly brown all evenly. Cool it on a rack and use as desired.

When I make big batches of cookie dough, I always wrap the part I'm not baking right then in double plastic wrap in squares about 3/4" thick and approx 8"x8". They store nicely in stacks in the freezer, and when I want some, I can let them sit for ten minutes on the counter while the oven heats up, or nuke it for about a minute, then cut them into little cubes. I never get a not-round cookie baked from a little cube, either. (not that they care what shape they're in!) The packet that size gives me about 2 dz, which is just what I want to make so they'll get eaten and not go stale (they only have to last a couple days, then I make them again.

Does anyone have an idea of when the first Red Velvet Cake recipe was published? or whatever it's called--how far back does it go in history? I have a vague idea about some reddish chocolate cake that got it's redness from the cocoa powder reacting with some other ingredient--something like non-alkalized cocoa being more "red" and either more acid added or something to make the cake redder than the usual chocolate cake. (Maybe I'm mixing it up with Devil's Food Cake?) Any thoughts?

Uh, guys and gals, this is French Buttercream, a very old classic recipe. Just so you know

Here's one that looks llike you could make it pretty firm, I have not tried it, but the ingredients look like they are definitely workable. Worth a try anyway.

I had good success with pretreating my chef jackets with Mr. Clean, straight out of the bottle. It works pretty well on grill grease( you know, that black-brown gunk from leaning up against the grill while cleaning it!). It worked on keeping the jackets more white, too, than bleach which tended to make them yellowish eventually (the ones with some amount of polyester in the fabric) And...throwing a half cup of plain old baking soda takes out that ever-present fried smell from jackets and pants, too. It even works on my husband's grungy outside work clothes after he's been burning brush and sweating all day! Yuck!

I heard of the tradition of saving the top layer for the anniversary, and even though I saw several top tiers brought in for the anniversary dinners at the inn I used to work at, and they were yucky looking and tasting, the couples did take a bite and enjoyed the silliness and romantic notion of it all, so We're going to do the same thing in October with ours. It's been sitting quadruple wrapped in plastic in the back of my 0 degree freezer all this time, and we aren't expecting it to be fabulous, but the thought is what counts! and we are still together!

Basic info that won't change on the bag, and maybe a little tag/booklet attached at the twistie for the history and special notes about each bread.

Bakerboy, you're not alone! I have three "old fashioned" salt and ice type ice cream makers, all three are 2 qt, two electric and one hand-crank for when I used to have kids around to occupy! All three work just as well now as they have for the past 10 years, so how can I complain? I am kicking myself for selling the 5 qt one on Ebay last year. It would be so nice now! Sure it would be nice to have a Delonghi, but I bought these each for less than $8 at yard sales and have had many many happy returns! I make sorbets and ice creams and sherbets with no complaints and many raves. I also have no trouble with iciness, and have stored some sorbets for a month or more with very little loss of texture. They are best within the first two weeks--if they last that long! I used to make up a couple of gallons of suitable simple syrup which I kept in a refrigerator, then when I had the urge to make sorbet, or some particularly nice fruit came along, I was ready and twenty min. later I was spooning it out! There is the ice and salt issue, but I used kosher salt which I could buy bulk and it worked fine.

In pinch you can try a large funnel with a small bottom opening and a wooden spoon handle stuck in it. Pour your batter in, hold it over the pans and lift up the spoon to let some out--drop it back into the funnel to stop the flow. We used to make funnel cakes this way.

I'm not sure if these folks have exactly what you want, but they say they can source things for you if you call: http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/category...._Name=62&Page=1

Does anyone have any info/opinion on: Little Cafe Cakes by Julie Le Clerc

Hi, a few years ago I picked up a couple large (cheap) bags of little colorful zigzag thingies that said "Tapioca" on the label, but dodn't look like any tapioca I had ever seen. They were each about an inch long and came in many colors, clear, not opaque. Is this anything related to the tapioca that's being discussed here? I keep wondering what to do with it.

I like the oil crust better for pies that have a liquid filling that have to be baked. Like quiches, custards, pumpkin pie, pecan, etc.--it's excellent! For fruit pies and more dry fillings, or for blind baking I still prefer the pate brisee.

I find that if you roll out really soft doughs in between big sheets of plastic wrap, it makes is a little easier to handle, you have to lift up the plastic now and then to allow it to move without folding up in the wrap, but then when you're ready to put it in the pan, just take off the top sheet anf flip it gently over the pan, then peel off the plastic and adjust it.

Here's another recipe that's different: Halvah Makes about 1 1/2 pounds 1/2 cup untoasted sesame oil 2 cups all-purpose flour 1 cup tahini 3/4 cup honey 1. Warm the oil in a large heavy skilled over low heat. Add the flour and stir until the oil and flour are thoroughly combined. Continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until the mixture begins to turn pale brown. Add the tahini and stir until the mixture has a uniform color and consistency. Turn off the heat. 2. In a separate small saucepan, bring the honey to a boil over high heat. Boil for 1 minute. Immediately add the hot honey to the flour mixture. Stir until the honey is completely incorporated. 3. Spread the mixture into a small ungreased 5- by 9-inch loaf pan and pack the mixture down with the back of a spatula. Let the halvah cool at room temperature for at least 2 hours or until the pan feels cool. The halvah will shrink back slightly from the edges of the pan as it cools, and should therefore unmold easily when the pan is inverted. Wrap the halvah in plastic wrap and store it in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. 4. To serve, cut the halvah into thin slices.

Hi, I had a similar challenge working for an Inn in NH. I had to come up with 2 soups (creamy and not creamy and one a vegetarian soup) 2 apps (sometimes one seafood, almost always one vegetarian), 3 entrees, meat(pork, beef, venison, lamb, etc), bird, and seafood, and sometimes a vegetarian entree for one or two people, specially ordered ahead), and 3 desserts(always one chocolate, one fruit and one "other"). I could duplicate only if there were no repeat guests from night to night(which hardly ever happened) and there were some favorites that people asked for, and that the owners asked for. I managed to accumulate a year and a half of 5 nights a week unique menus. It was fun, but did burn me out in the end--I found I was devoting time and energy to work 11 hours a day between researching menu items, shopping and commuting to work, and back. I only actually spent about 6 hours a day in the kitchen! ...and now I'm working in a much slower environment (private chef for 5 priests in a monastery doing breakfast lunch and dinner M-F) My current job is bordering on boring me to death because they actually prefer boring food! Nothing interesting at all, unless company comes a couple of times a year. *sigh* I miss the Inn!! I do a lot of volunteer baking for friends and family, just to get to cook!

Here's an Italian Cheesecake I have made and if you puree the ricotta before you mix it in, it has a smoother texture. You can leave out the citron, but it's a traditional ingredient. 10" deep pie pan Crust: 2 c ap flour 1/4 tsp salt 1/2 c cold butter 2 Tbs brandy or complimaentary flavored liqueur 4 Tbs water Work the cold butter into the flour and salt, (pulse in the food processor) then add the liquids and work until a dough forms. Don't overwork. Press into a flat disk and wrap in plastic wrap and chill for at least 30 min. Remove from the wrap and roll out to fit the 10" pie pan, bring up enough over the edge to make a fluted edge treatment about 1/2" above the edge. (I used the large pyrex glass pan and it worked fine) Bake at 450degF for 7-8 min, remove and cool on a rack while you make the filling. Filling: 4 eggs 1 c sugar 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract 1 1/2 lb rocotta cheese 3 Tbs toasted Pine nuts 2 Tbs chopped blanched toasted almonds 2 Tbs chopped citron 1 Tbs ap flour Beat the eggs until light and lemon colored. Gradually add the sugar and vanilla, blend, then add in the cheese and blend well until just smooth. Combine the nuts and citron with the flour to coat, then fold them into the batter. Pour the filling into the piecrust and bake at 375deg for about 40-45 min. It should be set but just a little jiggly in the center. Cool at room temp, then keep in the refirgerator, covered.

hmmm...butter you get in fancy restaurants? One place I worked in took generic Sysco unsalted butter pound-blocks and whipped it almost 50:50 with heavy cream to make a "fancy" butter for the tables. We piped it into little ramekins and kept it in the fridge until the servers needed to reset the tables. I have no idea if this was a money-saving exercise at one point, or just something they liked the taste of. They'd done it forever.

← It's pretty simple to do shrimp this way. It's basically just sauteeing the garlic in the oil until just soft, them toss in the shrimp and toss over high heat until they are barely cooked, then finish off to taste with everything else, keep the heat high to quickly reduce the wine and liquids a little bit and to meld the flavors together, slide them onto your plate and eat! If you serve it with pasta, you can just add the pasta at the end to heat and coat with the pan stuff, and slide it all onto your serving dish. It's quick and tasty! As for quantities--for a half-pound of shrimp, I'd use a couple tbs oil(or clarified butter), a couple or three cloves of minced garlic, half a lime squeezed, a small knob of butter and ~1/4 c wine, S&P to taste.

I make one similar to the layer cake version, spiltting a 9" round layer, but I spread good flavored seedless preserves on the split sides of the layers before filling with the ice cream. Our favorite around here is Blackberry, or Boysenberry, but apricot, raspberry, or any favorite goes well--match it with the flavor of the cake--chocolate cake and raspberry preserves are great, with vanilla ice cream, or something decadent like Raspberry Sorbet and Vanilla in layers! Yum! Because I cook only for adults, I can also make the addition af a generous sprinkling of matching sweet cordial or brandy on the layers before the preserves. Very wonderful! I frost them with soft buttercream before freezing and never had any trouble.--I only frost the top of the cake though, leaving the sides clean.

I agree completely, your version is beautiful, too! Here's a suggestion for the future--take a cardboard box or piece of styrofoam the size and shape of your cake and make a paper template, folding a large piece of paper as if it were the fondant/choc plastic. Then you can see where the folds can be removed by cutting before you drape it, you can cut out the pattern and place it directly on the cake with no lumps! Better yet, if you make the same size cake all the time, you can reuse the template over and over by tracing it onto a piece of acetate, sheet vinyl (clear tablecloth material, etc) or some other reuseable material.