Franci

Hi! How long did it take me to put my first video on??? Too long. But finally I did! Sometimes I make funny faces...sorry, it was more difficult than I expected. On the other videos I definitely look more relaxed. And here the link to the first recipe. It is missing an introductory part to the recipes and most likely I'll change the background color for the advanced baker section. Please, dear Egulleter, note that I am only going to use grams Last week we shot other 8 videos, in 2 days...gulp. I'll make a list of the recipe. Hopefully now that is set up is going to be easier to publish the other videos.

Got this and let's say that I am not going to buy it again! I like the crunch but not the after taste. Too sweet, make it very flat, missing salt and also the cranberries are just sweet.

I always butter and flour my non stick madeleine mold. To just have a thin film of butter, I first rub some soft butter on the mold and pass some kitchen paper on top, so there is no thick butter. Then I sift some flour directly on top of the mold and remove the excess by shaking the pan upside down. For the madeleines not puffing: 1. are you using cold batter? 2. Your oven temperature need to be at 375 to 400 F depending from the oven. 12 minutes in my oven are generally perfect. I tried more complicated recipes but this is my standard no fuss recipe. 2 eggs 1 yolk 120 g flour 100 g sugar 100 g lightly salted butter 1/2 teaspoon baking powder grated lemon zest Lightly beat the eggs and the sugar, whipping is not necessary. Incorporate the flour, previously sifted with the baking powder, in two times. Incorporated the melted butter (lukewarm or room temperature) and the lemon zest. Put in a container in the fridge. I usually prepare in the morning to bake at night but more often at night to bake in the morning.

Liuzhou, I wish you can return home feeling better and quickly! And hopefully condiments will make the food taste better :-)

I am not a religious person but yesterday night I thought I had a curse, my Cuisinart just stopped working while I was roasting some potatoes. Should I go to a pelegrinage? Just a couple days ago, still roasting potatoes I thought: is this slower than normal? Yes, it was. Just a sign. Me and kitchen appliances are not going along lately.

Honestly, I am at peace. On Tuesday when I'll get back to the kitchen, I'll pack it and send back to the sender. And hopefully I'll get my money back...I'm done with it.

I don't need to add any words to this

@JeanneCake I got in touch with them. Great customer service! They will provide me with samples and their distributor in the US is just starting importing their product. If it works my only concern is that I might be too small to meet their minimum requirements but they seem to be willing to accommodate me. They sent me specifications for the products. If anybody is interested feel free to pm me and I'll pass along all info by email. And if this doesn't work, I might need to buy a Sumeet

@Kerry Beal Thanks! Wonderful experiment. I might have to get a Sumeet! I tried a formula yesterday. Pulverized some sugar in the hotmix, added dextrose and combined on high speed. Drizzled from the top melted cocoa butter on low, mixed on high then added a drop of limoncello. Sift. Formula was: powdered sugar 75.2%, dextrose 15%, melted cocoa butter 9%, vanilla alcohol 0.8% It came pretty coarse, so that I used my sifter with larger net and could not control well the amount of sugar but anyway came very patchy, might be fine on a fruit tart but not on my cake with a pattern on top. I will try again today using my regular 10X with starch in it and see what happens.

Thanks @flippant I am not on Mac right now but I'll be soon, I'll let you know. The good news is that habemus hotmix! I unpacked the new machine today. Did a quick test bringing water to different temperatures and that was fine. Made a syrup and tried to make my hydrophobic sugar. Oh man, I got the nastiest cocoa butter on earth...never trust Amazon reviews But so far looks like is working. Looking forward to try more interesting stuff!

Hi @Merry Berry I am looking for a product without wheat. But I'd like to try to experiment making my own non melting sugar and some of the formulas I have suggest a powdered sugar with no starch added. The powdered sugar I get from the thermomix is more like a 6x than a 10X. Surely I'll use it to see if the formulas work for me.

Very useful, @Tri2Cook! Do you have also a model n to recommend? Thanks!

Here is another question. I know you have a beautiful topic there on chocolate sprayers but I don't have one. What is your recommendation in my case for spraying cocoa butter/white chocolate or a glaze. Don't want to invest on $400 right now, just for trying what can I use?

I should try that. Thanks Pastrygirl. It's squarespace, so it's a template. Glad you like it! And thanks for the suggestion. I'm adding to the list Added, thanks Yes, I tried in the past the organic confectioners sugar, A pain to sift! But it wasn't until this morning when reading all the labels on the sugar in Whole foods that I noticed it had tapioca starch! This is very similar to what I tried in the past, using white chocolate and was already thinking of replacing with cocoa butter. On the list That doesn't work, I already found it on the web, it has wheat: here That's very interesting. I'll email tomorrow to find out about gluten! thanks

After burying my head under the sand I need to solve a problem. Powder sugar that melts on top of the cakes affecting their appearance even it they taste still very good... I know about the sucre neige out there. I've not tried all brands but I remember trying with King Arthur Flour without a lot of help. The problem that is preventing me to go out and look for all other brands is: a lot of brands have gluten, and I want a GF product it's full of too many other ingredients for my liking So, I'd like to come up with another solution. Could you follow my thoughts. Not an easy task, my husband can testify, I'm not always a logical person 1. Making my own non melting sugar. Even with a Thermomix, Hotmix, I could not make a 10X grind. But it did not stopped me from trying in the past with some caster sugar that I ground as finely as possible with my tools, added some cornstarch and white chocolate, in place of cocoa butter, and some clarified butter if remember. It was a while ago. I don't remember working too well but I should give it another go. Even if it's not gluten free I just bought the Indian Tree Fondant & Icing just to see how effective it is. Now someone passed me a formula for hydrophobic sugar, it calls for: powdered sugar, dextrose, cocoa butter and vanilla alcohol. Do you have a source for 10X at least that doesn't contain starch? I saw that King Arthur has glazing sugar that has maltodextrin, not dextrose. Will that still work? And anyway what's the function of dextrose here? I could also try to spray very lightly with cocoa butter, let dry and sprinkle the sugar on top...should have to test it. 2. Finding a different glaze. I like the pattern on my cake, I'd like to keep it. Something very light that I could spray on top of the cake and stay put if the cakes get shipped. Any thought you have to spare?

Little update guys. We did 4 videos. After my first experience I need to agree with @dcarch, it was much more complicated than I thought. It was our first round so I am positive in the future we'll go down to a system and work faster. But it took us from 10 am to 6 pm to shoot 4 videos of about 2.5 minutes each! Wow, it was an experience. I've not yet seen them because they have been edited at the moment. I'll see them next week. Then I have to wait for some upgrades on my website to make them available. I'll probably release 1 at the time over a month period. So far I've covered: pasta frolla (short pastry), crema pasticcera (pastry cream), crostata alla confettura di albicocche (apricot jam tart) and crostata alla frutta fresca (fresh fruit tart). I'll keep you posted on when I start uploading the videos. In the meantime, I'm already thinking about the next round!

Before they introduced the Fresco, that is counter top, they had the wall version that is more expensive. It's called Freddy, maybe you don't catch the humor but Freddo in Italian is cold . Freddy is available in the US. But it's 2-3 times more expensive than Fresco. The other alternative is to look for a commercial small Irinox. Same brand. Also Advance Gourmet (I'm dealing with them at the moment for the Hotmix) have the Technofrost counter top, JOF-23, don't know the cost. But soon or later I want a blast chiller! At work and at home.

Ah, you can find different alternatives to the Thermomix, I have not tried personally, but I have some friends who own it: the cuisine companion from Moulinex

Kerry's idea of the Thermomix is good. But if you don't want to invest in it, I love my little Bosch MUM. If I am making bread I like it much more than my kitchen aid. And you can get all the attachments you want, cutter and blender included. I have many, included the meat grinder and nuts grinder. I bought the most basic one for 60 euros. I have one in Italy and one in the US. And one thing I'd buy without blinking if I were to move back to Europe is Fresco

Perfect Patrick! Thanks so much.

Hi guys, I know it's not the fist time I mention my need to pasteurize eggs. I need a little table if anybody has one for just pasteurizing the yolk. Example. 60C for how long? 70C? 80 already too much I guess. I am mixing the yolks with sugar and heating them together if that makes a difference. Thanks!

Ahhh, ahh, in this house we chop a lot of ginger, chinkiang vinegar and tons of sugar (it's a half shainghainese house) and dip steamed crabs. I love this so much more than crab with old bay seasoning.

But even after this...I love this machine! Tonight I made some pesto. Grated fist the cheese in it, then added garlic while running, pine nuts, stopped, added basil and salt. 20 seconds at high speed and drizzle the oil, 10 second at low/medium speed. Really seconds to make the pesto. Nice bright color, great texture and the color is still very nice and bright in the pesto left over. And didn't turn color with the pasta. Really great. Adding photo my son took of it

Ok, as Rotuts predicted. I need a new machine. The guy that has been troubleshooting with me these days was really without words...never happened anything like this before. So, I reprogrammed the machine. I am pretty sure, I've done it because everything happened according to instructions. I tried first some caramelized almonds that require a syrup to 120C. I selected the recipe stored into the machine, but the temperature on the display was not flashing, signing that the temperature was not rising. I manually input the necessary temperature and follow the next steps. The machine stopped when reached 120C. I checked with the thermapen and saw that it was reading 111C and not 120. So I tried again with the pastry cream. With the recipe stored in the machine same result as before. Temperature not moving. But if I hit the temperature setting, I could see that the target temperature stored was 84C. I decided to execute again the recipe manually. Selected the right speed and temperature of 84C. It reached 68C and then started to decrease. At that point I was already messaging with the Italian guy from hotmix. I decided to increase the target temperature to 120C, the pastry cream reached 85C and I turned it off. At this point, my help on the other side, suggested to try with water at 84C. It stalled too, like for the pastry cream. Craziness. The guy was sooooo nice and helpful. I'll get a new machine and this will become a case study

@rotuts , I've just finished working now, I don't have energy right now for the hotmix but over the weekend I'll work on it. The other day, with this guy on the phone, just setting the standard temperature of 84C for the pastry cream as other times, once reached 70-72C stalled and then temperature started to decrease. Then he told me to insert the turbo function and at that point the machine quickly reached temperature. So the machine is capable of getting to temperature, the only explanation he could find was with the program. If this can be fixed I'm very happy, I think it's a great machine with a lot of potential. I love it but only if I can have it working right. I'll keep you posted.