K8memphis

Here's a thought for the freedom and autumn beauty. If you were using any changing leaf designs, the leaf has to die or begin dying to become even more beautiful. Like dying to your own dreams and serving country, like Civil War times or any conflict...over a half million men died in the Civil War. (When you love someone you die to self too to some degree) The leaf could be made out of a cookie, or icing leaves thickened with cornstarch, could be an accent. I've made changing leaves out of fondant with cornstarch added. Would be a nice puller together type accent, changing leaves. But I think like a cake decorator so don't mind me

Oh thanks! I never knew about brown jasmine, I'm really excited about it.

Shouldnt you have completed that post with "Bwah hah hah hah hah!" ? (Sounds yummy). ←

Last but not least the recipes. Nothing very complicated. The tea jelly recipe plus I added Southern Comfort to taste--approx one quarter cup. The linzer cookie recipe -- I used it exactly as written with the toasted pecans. I used store white flour bought phyllo. Did you know whole wheat phyllo is available? I buttered the leaves, cut them with a star cutter and placed them criss cross in a minimuffin pan to bake. The cornucopia-ish one lying down I baked over a heating core. For the pecan pie filling, I had leftover Piere Herme's lemon cream formula from "Desserts by Pierre Herme" Pierre Herme and Dorie Greenspan page 31 and added instant unsweetened tea to taste. I think that one could add horseradish or sour kraut, head cheese or wasabi to PH lemon cream and it be a beautiful thing. That stuff is pure magic. I used this fabulous sugar icicle recipe You MUST click here!! If poured sugar is daunting to you, the thermometers, and the danger and the what am I doing here mentality. This formula is so nice for the pro who wants to conserve on how much attention they need to give to this accent item and for the the baker who wants a fool proof user friendly method. Oh the cakes, I used Regan Daley's angel food recipe from "In the Sweet Kitchen" page 390. I made it with tea flavor & didn't care for it. I used the instant tea for that. Then I made it with rose water. And I made a small pan of it tinted green and the pan was lined with fresh mint leaves because I was concerned about the oil in the leaves breaking down the meringue. It was weird but it worked with the caviar. And the lavender pound cake is in recipegullet. That formula is dedicated to two wonderful online cake-buddies, our own Beanie who turned me on to lavendar and Chanlette from SDBT who makes the best pound cake on the planet. So sorry I never posted in the best pound cake thread--I was fixin' to just any minute

Lavender Pound Cake Chanlette's Yummy Pound Cake with Beanie's Lavender Do not preheat oven! : ) Whirl 3 teaspoons lavender with 1/3 cup sugar in blender add that to: 2 2/3 c. sugar 2 sticks (1 cup) soft butter ^^^cream together ^^^ 2 teaspoons vanilla ^^^add ^^^ 6 eggs ^^^add one at a time & combine each well ^^^ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To the above mixture, add alternately: 3 cups cake flour 1 cup whipping cream ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ That means add 1 cup of cake flour to your mixture, combine well, then add one half cup of whipping cream, combine well, then add 1 cup of cake flour to your mixture, combine well, then add the remaining 1/2 c. whipping cream, combine well, then add the last cup of cake flour to your mixture, combine well. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Use a couple loaf pans or a bundt type pan. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ****Place in a COLD OVEN. Turn to 350 degrees, bake for 70 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool 20 mins remove from pan. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Just way delicious! Gives a mild lavendar glow in the throat. Keywords: Easy, Cake ( RG1862 )

Bwah haha!! The river of ideas will freaking sweep you under the current!! By the way, don't miss the one I gave you just above your last post

Yeah, I used to bake cookies in those corn on the cob shaped corn bread iron bake pans. Then I sandwiched them together with caramel and I had, (drum roll, please) "caramel corn"

Ok wait, when you have the gum (sodium alginate) mixed into whatever substance you have chosen, and the ph balance is correct (I guessed) which is why I added sodium citrate then when that is all combined and you drop that mixture into the calcium chloride water bath then the dropped mixture forms a little 'skin' around it. If you drop a drop, it makes a sphere. If you drop a snake, a long continuous drop of it, it makes a noodle. If you carefully drop a spoonfull, it makes a spoonful, ravioli or whatever you want to call it. Using a larger baster makes a larger drop to fall off and form into cavis*. *Cavis of course are baby caviars. The process and the chemicals do it all for you. I was a cog in the wheel. Fun fun fun though.

I don't think a combination muddies the water at all. The more the merrier. Combinations are fine. Extra cool-er even. Jack Daniels caramel sauce, be still my heart!!!!

Thank you, Jeanne and Tweety. Yes of course, Mette, help yourself, don't be shy. Umm, no not expensive. The sodium alginate was twelve dollors and the calcium chloride was seven and the sodium citrate was six I believe. It's all on his webpage plus the recipes I used.

Many thanks to willpowder.net without who's product and graciousness to deliver to me overnight this would not be possible. I mean they called me on the phone a coupla times so we could do this. Customer service out the whazoo. As well as many thanks to Jonathan M. Guberman's adventure in alginate thread. Last but first really thanks go to the brilliance of Ferran Adria at El Bulli. ........................................K8's Tea Caviar I gathered the sweetened lemon tea, sodium alginate and sodium citrate and some great whisk-ers. Now I gotta be honest. The first time I made this I was careful to weigh and measure but still I didn't know what I was doing because my guiding recipe had fruit puree in it so...I guessed on the right amounts of materials. Somewhere in the neighborhood of two teaspoons-ish of each to a liter or two of tea. I combined those ingredients before I added them because the alginate needs help to dissolve--I used hot tea and actually used my blender the first time but then just whisked for the other two times. I strained my tea mixture to remove any stubborn alginate blobs. I gathered a large pan, a food baster, a liter of water and the calcium chloride --again something in the neighborhood of two teaspoons to the one liter of water. This easily dissolves. Sucking up the tea in the food baster... A few baby cavi's being born... Lots of brothers and sisters... See the loch ness monster over there?? Just squirt out a stream, or of course you can make spoonsfull etc. Pour your babies into the big strainer into the big bowl ~~insert surreal memories of my girlfriend's guppy harvesting~~ Get your guppies, er I mean, caviars into the frige quick--keep 'em cold. Pour your solution from the blue bowl back into white container and...Viola!

Chezkaren, shaloop, Darcie B, duckduck, Pontormo, C_Ruark, CanadianBakin', dejaq, I can't thank you all enough. Great job all around, K8, but I like the cookies the best! ← Me too, Patrick! And my husband's and daughter's and son-in-law's favorite too. The flavor, the (clever) looks, the components, the cookies are the true star of the challenge.

I cannot believe you had people there that day in that time. And that you know about it!!! How cool is that?! Wow I was stunned when I read that. I think of Indian Corn--modeled out of candy clay and/or some sugar doughs. In fact the combo I made the other day of gum paste, candy clay and fondant would be perfect corn. Corn fritters Jonathan, aka Chef-boy, made this delicious beggar's purse out of deep fried phyllo dough filled first with marscapone and fresh corn right off the cob--to die for--the heat of the oil melts the cheese---would just need some sweetening or a nice sauce of some kind. I wonder what a pinch of mace would do to brighten that into a dessert. Ooh oooh you could sugar in between the phyllo leaves~~Anyway--just an idea to spark another maybe... Corn pudding Polenta something?? I mean I can't even stand a bowl of sweet oatmeal, nix on the rice pudding, but it's a thought. Corn husks, some kind of tamale something or other Candy corn candy corn Don't forget popcorn...popcorn cakes !!!!Go Cheryl Go Cheryl!!!

SweetSide, JeanneCake, cookman, Kerry Beal, gfron1, chiantiglace, Pam R, Shalmanese, Kouign Aman, Swisskaese, LittleIsland, Tweety69bird and May. Thanks you guys! I appreciate all your kind, very generous and outrageously funny comments. How is the flavour in the spheres? It tastes exactly like iced tea. How did your hubby like it? It's ok. It's not on the menu for the holidays. We're not huge foodaholics. Chef-boy on the other hand will go nuts for this concept. It's so easy, it would be fun to do going forward to freak people out though. Like make 'apple' pie and do it all deconstructed. I'm curious about the caviar - do they 'pop' or is it more of a melting in your mouth? They more kinda melt, they didn't really pop. But they can leak. They have to be kept refrigerated or they pee. I am not sure if you were aiming for that or even aware, but it definately attributes to the idea of being homey. I missed it. Thanks! I will work on the recipes and show how & where I learned to do the tea. Thanks again.

OK, without further adieu, the next challenger is Cheryl, aka Sweetside. Her 'secret ingredient' is a wide open one. Dessert containing five kernels of CORN. It's almost Thanksgiving and I love that story. It's wide open--however you want to interpret it, Cheryl. Cheryl is a graduate of culinary school and is employed in the field in a bakery I believe but more importantly she is my cake-buddy. I know she'll do a great job. "ALLEZ CUISINE!!!" Is that what Chairman Kaga yells before they start cookin'??? That's probably not how it's spelled, but anyhow, viola. !!!!!GO, CHERYL!!!!!

Remember those well penned words of Chiantiglace when he said, "She doesn't get her hands too wet with plated desserts." And Thank You, Anthony, for asking me to do the challenge. So we have Southern Sweet Tea with a Southern Welcome. So deconstructing iced tea. Umm, the components in iced tea, are the tea, lemon, sugar, ice cubes and the glass would be glistening with sweat. Occupational hazard of drinking cold tea on a hot day. I did add in the idea of mint--I've never had mint in my iced tea, but it made it more fun. I plated it in two different arrangements. So you'll notice the lemon tea caviar is on the outside of the upturned glass representing the glistening sweat spilling out and down the side over the plate beneath. The cubes of cake represent the ice cubes of course. Three flavors of cake, mint angel food, rose angel food and lavendar pound cake arranged on apricot flavored rose petals. I thought the florals represented the homey comfy welcome. So the diner tears open a cake cube and scarfs up a wad of caviar and pops it in their mouth. Eating with your fingers is very 'down home'. The poured sugar accents are mint flavored, straight up sugar. The iced tea cookie is a linzer style dressed with glistening tea jelly accented with Southern Comfort. Blew my diet on these buggers today--lol! Notice the green straw in the cookie er, I mean 'glass' of tea complete with ice. The 'pecan pie' is Pierre Herme's lemon cream with instant tea--kinda cheated but it's dynamite and it stays on target, tastes like Southern sweet tea. It's in a phyllo crust with berry sauce. Doesn't it look like the pecans are praying? Another view I need to turn this photo..but in the meantime... And a close up of the cake cubes on rose petals So the original plating thought on the pecan pie was to have it stand up on the plate to balance out the martini glass... but it looked so cool laying down...Cornucopia style...which leads me to the next challenge and challenger...

I got it I got it!!! brb...

I get this error, "You are not allowed to use that image extension on this board. A valid format is: http://www.domain.com/picture.gif, an invalid format is: http://www.domain.com/picture.one.gif" when I try to post my pictures. I just open up the picture in imagegullet and copy the address--what am I doing wrong?? Thanks Am I supposed to copy a link as opposed to an IMG ???

Hmm, ideally something not super flimsy like mylar wrapping paper would be kind of flimsy. But just so it has nice body, something like stencil weight. In fact come to think of it, I've used mylar wrapping paper before. The wrinkles where it had been folded messed me up as I recall so I worked around the creases. So it doesn't totally matter--but I have stencil weight-ish.

Alrighty then. A little update. Wow. Umm. Oh, my son, has a terrible expression if something is really great he says it is "the shit!". Really unfortunate expression. Well, I made some tea jelly with Southern Comfort today and it is the shit! I humbly report, bowing low. And umm, I made tea caviar! I don't believe it myself. I totally scewed the grams to ounces thing on one thing because I was so keyed up about attempting this for some reason. Yeah it's that whole decimal point thing. Well I was freaked because it is so cutting edge. Because I have no idea what I'm doing Because I just was. Because I don't even like caviar. It was like a force field was around the chemicals sitting there on the counter for days. I mean shoot I had 'em overnighted, I guess I got 'em Wednesday . Then I just dance around it all week just making myself more & more freaked out. And due to other people's excellent work in this field, guys, it was easy! I got enough to fake y'all out in a photograph at the least But the presentation is still a surprise. Oh my soul, I made some lavender pound cake and some mint angel food cake (mint?? Yes and not peppermint either : ). I was gonna do a gelatin thing but I don't think I need it exactly. The gelatin was back up for the caviar if it didn't work. But it did (Freaking EZ I tell you!) And as much as sweet potato is perfect for this, I just couldn't work it in anywhere. The pecan pie is still in the works though. Just thought I'd give you an "aerial view of Kitchen Stadium".

Wow, too cool. When can I schedule some time in your kitchen?? No but I love to get a couple mixers going at the same time. I play, "Dueling Banjos" in my brain over the racket... du du du du du dum. du du du du du dum. dah dah dah dee dah dee dah dee dah dee dah dah dah dee dah dee dah dee dah dee~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I say the more mixers the merrier and you just can't have too many extra bowls.

I did a Dodge Dart car cake the other week and umm, I found this textured tooled leather look stuff--I mean it was plastic after all but it looked like leather and was great for the platform under the car. Then I turned around and embossed the fondant on the bride's plateau with remnants of the tooled leather look stuff. That was fun. There is so very much variety out there now the hard part is making a decison after you go looking. Oh yeah, I got some dalamation spotted fabric for a fireman's helmet cake I did. I think white velvet would be pure luxury for a bride's cake. I ought to go buy a yard now because you can't find it all year--but that's pricey like $20/yd-ish. I find one yard will cover most all bases I ever make. I just cover the parts that are exposed. And I gather it usually. But I love shopping for fabric for cake bases...till I have to make the final decision that is.

Umm, a miniscule amount of a steam droplet will seize your chocolate. I like powder color the best for getting deep color. But umm, I have used the wrong kind of paste colors before and then used inordinate amounts of oil in the choco and it was fine. it was for display though & not to eat.

I defer to your opinion. However I do want to encourage you about it. Aincha never eaten an almost too melty chocolate bar? Anywhere along in there is the right time to pick your mylar pattern pieces up off the plastic. Then allow them to fully harden, peel off the mylar and viola. Your learning curve is to get the chocolate the same thickness. (Not to mention proper temper of the chocolate.) But once you pour your stuff out and smooth with a spatula, just kinda take one corner of the mylar and tug it and the warm fragrant chocolate ooze will level itself out. I mean the chocolate does the work all you do is wait. If you move the pattern pieces too soon, just wait a bit longer. If you blow it then just remelt. If the edges are messy after it hardens run a warm finger across or a warm knife - instant straight edge. The chocolate hardens on it's own. And truth to tell, assuming you can cut out a pattern, the mylar dealie is easier than using molds. I mean a souffle is risky--you get it or you don't. Whipping egg whites you gotta be careful. Baking angel food cake, you don't open the oven door too soon. Bang something hard enough and poof you got angel food pancake. Chocolate is going to harden and get crisp all by itself all you have to do is watch it. Chocolate is fat and it will harden at room temperature period. Just make sure you pour a test area where you can touch it to see how's it going. Edges firm faster than the middle. There's a time span for when you can move it around. All you need is some time. The chocolate does it for you. Mylar is easier than molds because mylar peels off--keep the choco on one side of the mylar, nick it off cleanly if it does get on the wrong side. If you decide to try it, make tabs on the pattern pieces so you have handles to pick them up with and then later cut them off with a hot knife. Stuff like that. It's much easier than you're thinking. But this is just to encourage you to try sometime. Chocolate is fun.

I just use my pyrex big giant measuring cups with the nice handles -- or a pyrex bowl -- I cover it with plastic wrap--gotta watch it when you remove the wrap so you don't get a steam burn. Works great. It works even better to heat it for maybe one minute-ish & turn it off for a few seconds to make sure everything is heated well then turn it on to pop. Bags were kinda messy for me. Got my microwave too oily. Maggie, "The brain is 60% fat." I think 60% would be the standard maybe, but my experience is that it's on a sliding scale from 60 to 100.