Redsugar

Fruitcake can be traced back at least to a Roman baked mixture of dried fruits, seeds, pine nuts, and the honey wine called satura, and has its modern derivatives throughout the world: German stollen, Portuguese morgado, Italian panforte and the equally splendid pandoro, English plum pudding & simnel cake, and an Icelandic lemon-cardamom cake. Merrie – a longtime friend of mine who was raised on Tobago – has told me that if you order a “wedding cake” in Jamaica, Barbados, or Antigua, it will arrive as a dark fruitcake made with candied lime, orange, and citron, and invariably steeped heavily in rum. This cake has been referred to as black cake in several of the preceeding entries of the discussion thread, and that nomenclature is certainly valid. An English cookbook of 1813 provided a recipe for wedding cake, most notable, perhaps, for its stern instructions: “Beat in your sugar for a quarter of an hour” and the yolks “half an hour at least.” A labor-intensive project, indeed! Unfortunately, fruitcake has become the object of countless bad gastronomic jokes – and this ridicule is rooted in the fact that most Americans, exposed increasingly to those insipid store-bought or mail-order products, simply do not know (or have forgotten) the incomparable sensory impact of great fruitcake. Probably nobody has ever evoked the spirit of fruitcake-making in the South like Truman Capote in “A Christmas Memory.” Ideally, the quintessential fruitcake should be made about one year in advance of serving, wrapped properly, and stored in the back of the refrigerator to mellow. During this term of storage, it must be pampered with occasional dousings of bourbon, rum, or sweet wine. If your patience easily tends to show hairline cracks, don’t worry! For, even in its infancy, the cake has the highly estimable quality to produce instant gratification – and reaffirm the consolation that nothing conjures up more year-end holiday warmth than an old-fashioned homemade fruitcake that’s been prepared with care and presented with generosity. For the past 15 years, my ne plus ultra fruitcake has comprised the following set of ingredients: 1 lb each: golden seedless raisins; Thompson raisins; crystallized orange peel; crystallized citron; crystallized lemon peel; crystallized pineapple (although usually I double the amount of crystallized red & green cherries); dates. 2 lbs pecans; 4 cups sifted flour; 1 lb sweet butter; 2 cups white granulated sugar; 1 dozen large eggs; 1 tsp ground cinnamon; ½ tsp allspice; ½ tsp nutmeg; ¼ tsp ground ginger; 1 tsp salt; 2 tsp pure vanilla extract; 1½ tsp pure almond extract; ¾ cup Kentucky bourbon. The above proportions yields one 5½-lb. and two 2½-lb. gorgeous fruitcakes, baked in a 10- x 4-inch heavy-gauge square tube pan & two 8-inch loaf pans). I am emphatic about not using marzipan on fruitcakes. Although I could possibly accept an almond-flavoured Italian meringue to garnish the top of the cake(s). Some years I have also made other fruitcakes, including a two-tone version, a light cake combined with a dark cake. Two classics unified! Also: A dried-apricot-&-date fruitcake sweetened with honey & brown sugar, and spiked with brandy & Cointreau. Another dried-fruit version was baked in a fluted mold kept wrapped in brandy-soaked cheesecloth for 2 months – and then devoured in about 2 days! And a buttermilk-chocolate fruitcake containing Brazil nuts, dates…and candied cherries macerated in cherry brandy. I have in my files a recipe for a no-bake refrigerator fruitcake that will probably remain unmade. Of course, other treats will also have to be made for gift-giving in December; such as chocolate-ginger bars, seafoam candy, fudge, orange-glazed walnuts, molasses taffy, hazelnut shortbread, white-chocolate macadamia bark (indispensable for my younger sister), spicy chocolate lebkuchen (indispensable for my father), and rum-raisin truffles (indispensable to me). Is it really too early to get invigorated for the Christmas Season?

The most basic recommendation I will offer on this topic, is that you should use either a housemade ketchup (I usually make my own at home) or buy a very good organic brand product (such as Muir Glen). An exec chef, in whose kitchen I had worked, was a great conversationalist who often shared anecdotes of his travels & food-stylist jobs (for corporate accounts... such as when he and a partner cooked several hundred pounds of French fries in order to achieve one small, faultless packaging photo). One afternoon he told me about one of the "grossest things" he had ever seen: A delivery truck, bearing a shipment of tomatoes, arriving at a Heinz processing plant. Not laden with freshly picked, vine-ripened tomatoes, mind you, but the foulest, rotten heap of tomatoes that ought to have been dumped into the compost bin. Chef remarked that, if it weren't for the sterilizing & preservative effects of the vinegar, no one would dare to eat the stuff. As pastry cooks, we must proudly advocate the purchase & use of top-grade ingredients. We and our clientele invariably deserve the best provender.

Kit: A recipe for Persimmon Chiffon Pie, contributed to the Los Angeles Times by Marion Cunningham. (Although, this particular recipe doesn't use a "gingersnap crust," as you had indicated.)

In my opinion, you are going to have an ice cream soda, rather than a milkshake! I suspect that the reference made in this thread to the gelato-&-coffee drink is for affogato al caffé – which I have made by combining vanilla ice cream in a glass with hot espresso. A hot espresso-&-chocolate beverage is called Barbajada. You may like to consider serving your milkshake with fresh bomboloni (doughnuts). Of course, you’ll be using your own in-house chocolate syrup? (For example: 1½ cups granulated sugar; 8 fl. oz. water; ½ cup Dutch-processed cocoa; 1 tsp vanilla.)

Indisputably, the Hobart is a proven workhorse. However, you may want to consider another machine for purchase: The lower price & broader warranty on the Berkel PM20 Mixer are more favorable to that offered by Hobart. (The gear drive is built exactly like the Hobart’s.) Clearly presented comparison of stats for various, tabletop, commercial planetary mixers.

amccomb wrote: “…there were persimmons everywhere at the farmers market. They were those small mushy ones, not the large, shiny, firm ones.” Possum in a ‘simmon tree, Raccoun on de groun’. Racoun ask de possum To shake dem ‘simmons down. (Excerpted from an old folk song) Generally, three main types of persimmons are marketed: Hachiyas & Tamopans are soft when ripe, whereas Fuyus remain crisp. One large soft persimmon yields about ¾ cup purée. (But 4 oz., according to the Chef’s Book of Formulas, Yields, and Sizes, p. 238.) Be sure to let persimmons fully ripen at room temperature in a losely closed bag, turning the fruit occasionally, until they yield to gentle pressure. They can be eaten out-of-hand, skin, seeds and all. Persimmons are most commonly used in cakes, salads, puddings, and sorbets. Referring to my journal, I see that I’ve used Hachiyas to make quick bread, drop cookies, *sorbet (1 cup pulp + 1½ Tbsp lemon juice + simple syrup), and to enrich an old-fashioned buttercream-iced yellow cake. Also, a baked pudding whose ingredients comprised: 2 cups persimmon pulp 1 cup grated sweet potato 3 beaten eggs 1¼ cups granulated sugar 2 cups flour 1 tsp baking soda ½ salt 1 tsp ground cinnamon freshly grated nutmeg minced gingerroot 1½ cups milk 4 oz. melted butter 1 tsp vanilla extract orange-liqueur whipped cream, for garnish You could viably substitute an equal amount of peeled, sliced Fuyu-type persimmons (mixed w/ lemon juice) for the apples in a double-crust pie. Consider a fruit salad: kiwi, pineapple, bananas, Fuyus, seedless grapes. Serve w/ honey-yogurt dressing. *Papaya, persimmon, and kiwi sorbets together would make a lovely tricolor combination on a sampler plate.

Last evening I rediscovered a collection of recipes in my files for about a dozen types of savoury crackers, such as...Thin Wheat, Crispy Rye, Swedish Oat, Onion-Fennel, Peanut, Sesame Thins, Water Biscuits, Parmesan Rounds, as well as spicy-sweet, exotic Curry-&-Ginger Crackers which, I'm sure, would ideally accompany servings of Pumpkin Soup. FYI, a basic cracker formula using 2 cups of flour will yield between 4 to 10 dozen crackers, depending upon how thin and what size you make them.

Several years ago, during a stay at a country inn, I devoured a generous slice of an over-the-top Carrot Cake. Hedonistically impressed by every morsel of that dessert, upon my departure I asked the innkeeper for a copy of her recipe. She told me that, after many variations, she believed her formula was finally perfected. Perhaps this recipe (which she soon mailed to me) may not surpass your own gold-standard for a grand carrot cake – but at least you’ll agree that it’s compatible with it’s developer’s extraordinary surname, Peerless! 4 cups grated carrots 2 cups granulated sugar 8 ounces butter, cut in pieces One 14-ounce can crushed pineapple, in own juice 3 cups flour ½ tsp baking powder 2 tsps baking soda 1 Tbsp cinnamon 1½ tsps allspice 1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg ½ tsp salt 1 cup dried cranberries, plumped, patted dry 2 large eggs 350° oven. Greased & floured 10-inch Bundt or tube pan. In saucepan, bring carrots, sugar, butter, pineapple to a simmer, then cook 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat, cool completely. Combine flour, baking powder & soda, spices, salt, and cranberries. In separate bowl, beat eggs until lemon colored. Add carrot mixture and stir to combine. Add flour mixture, stirring only once until batter is combined. Pour into prepared pan. Bake approx. 50 min. or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Let stand 10 minutes before turning out. When cooled, cover with icing: 4 ounces butter, softened 2 cups powdered sugar, sifted ½ cup lightly toasted pecans, chopped ½ cup crushed pineapple, drained ½ cup coconut

Swisskaese, et. al. -- Yes, the recipe for Pischinger Torte (to which you've linked) bears a general similarity to the one provided for Pišingruv Dort, but the basic distinctions are that the latter uses egg whites only and the top wafer is brushed with the simplest of sugar glazes. I would not doubt that we could adapt one of the the great Viennese masterpieces, the Esterhazytorte, substiuting the oblaten wafer for its traditional hazelnut meringue leaves; one could, of course, retain the Esterhazytorte's marachino cream filling. Although one's imagination might be straying, the Eingerollte Mandeltorte is another possiblity for adapation to wafer discs. (Incidentally, one of my goals for the upcoming depths of winter, is to augment my meagre E. European baking repertoire. But I certainly won't start with a Baumkuchen! The flourless chocolate Dörytorte looks like a sensible first recipe.) Do we have eGullet members with a solid expertise in Viennese pastries? A most fascinating craft.

En route to finding the desired chewiness in your cookie recipes, try some experimentation: *Reduce the flour content by 15-20%; *Use shortening (or unsalted margarine -- definitely wouldn't be my choice, but might be an option you'd like) which would provide for a chewier texture than that imparted by butter; *Substitute liquid invert sugar for the granulated type: consider using corn syrup, honey, glucose for about 10% of the sugar weight; the baker's general rule-of-thumb for interchaging sugar types is 7/8 cup honey for 1 cup granulated, 3/4 cup maple syrup per 1 cup granulated..but, beware! You could be risking imbalances in the recipe due to acidity & moisture changes -- not least of all, taste; *Remove the cookies from the oven & sheets just before they've finished baking and immediately transfer them onto cooling grids;

For my home kitchen, I invariably purchase eggs lain by free-run hens. I've often had double-yolks; indeed two weeks ago, all sixteen eggs (sold in 8-shell fillers) were double-yolk delights. Beautiful omelets & whipped-cream eggs!

A currently available free cookbook from Tasting Menu: All About Apples. (Download & open the file in Adobe Acrobat Reader.)

ludja: Yes, the layers of the Pišingruv Dort are filled w/ a chocolate mixture composed of butter, sugar, bitter chocolate, vanilla sugar, chopped toasted hazelnuts, and whipped egg whites. The top is left plain so that it can be spread with a simple glaze.

The CI recipe is posted at Leite's Culinaria. I may have a justifiable claim to membership in the Banana Royal Family: For many years, I ate 3 bananas every day. Calculating at a common 7 in. per banana, that would total 638.75 ft. of bananas consumed for the year! I recall viewing an episode of *The Victory Garden* several years ago: The reporter visited the only commercial banana grove in California. I was envying him (and the citizenry living nearby, because the operation maintained a roadside market from which it sold its exotic produce) as he ate a plant-riped “Ice-Cream Banana” which he said tasted as smooth & flavourful as vanilla custard. During the past quarter-century, I have prepared a wide range of banana desserts. The fruits have been chopped, sliced, puréed & flambéed. They have gone into breads, tortes, cheesecakes, custards, soufflés, griddle cakes, doughnuts, pies & tarts. But, of course, banana bread is one of the quintessential comfort foods in the baker’s repertoire. To make my banana breads, I have used butter, vegetable & walnut oils, yogurt, buttermilk, applesauce, egg whites, and liqueurs. I have added numerous flavour complements, including peanuts, walnuts, toasted almond & pecans, cashews & macadamias, chocolate, dried apricots, and raisins. Various types of sweeteners have been poured into the batters: Blueberry honey, golden syrup, turbinado and light brown sugars. Since 1999, I have bought only certified organic bananas; it is my conviction that they consistently ripen properly and taste better than regular, commercially grown bananas. However, considering that there are about 300 varieties of bananas grown worldwide, how many of them will we ever see? I always remember my sixth grade teacher telling the class about the cocoa bananas she at during her Easter vacation in Brazil. Put those on our shopping lists! I offer two uniquely different banana bread recipes: The first one was obtained (more than 10 years ago) from the pastry chef at Montreal’s Queen Elizabeth Hotel. Perhaps it won’t score high marks on everyone’s rating system, but very it's special nonetheless. The second recipe is a yeast-raised version developed by a genuinely gifted friend of mine. 1 lb EACH peeled, very ripe bananas (skin almost black), sugar, and flour; 1 Tbsp baking soda; ¼ tsp salt; 4 large eggs; 4 fl oz vegetable oil; 8 fl oz buttermilk. Line two 8x4x3-inch loaf pans w/ oiled parchment paper and pour in the batter. Heat oven to 275° F. Combine peeled bananas, sugar, baking soda, and salt and blend until thoroughly mixed. Pour mixture into a bowl and add eggs, one at a time. Then incorporate flour. Lastly, add the oil and buttermilk and beat the mixture for about 2 minutes, or until smooth and well blended. Bake for 2½ hours. The instructions are definite: Do not remove pans from the oven prematurely! 1 Tbsp active dried yeast 1 tsp white granulated sugar 4 fl oz lukewarm water 2 overrripe large bananas 2 eggs 1 cup white granulated sugar 2 fl oz oil 1 tsp salt 4 fl oz scaled milk 4-6 cups bread flour Proof yeast. Purée bananas until very smooth. Add the 1 cup of sugar and continue to purée. Add, salt, eggs, milk, and oil. Turn into bowl, check temperature, then add proofed yeast. Add 2 cups flour and beat very well. Add enough of the remaining flour to make a soft dough. Turn out and knead, adding additional flour (variable according to moisture content of bananas) to prevent sticking. Place in oiled bowl, turn to coat, and let rise till doubled. Turn out onto work surface, divide into two equal portions and shape into small loaves. Place in oiled tea loaf pans. Let rise until nearly doubled in height. Bake 30 or so minutes in 375° oven. Turn out and cool on wire grate. This bread is an exemplary choice for peanut-butter sandwiches. It has a more pronounced banana flavour when toasted and is then delicious spread with blueberry or strawberry preserves, pineapple-apricot marmalade, or simply spinkled w/ cinnamon sugar. And heavenly in a caramel- or rum-sauced custard bread pudding.

Banana cake must be lighter than banana bread. I always use cake flour in banana-layer cakes. The gluten content in a.p. flour, will be counterproductive to the sought-after cakelike texture. My initial response to seeing sour cream listed in the recipe is that it is more appropriate for, say, a pound cake, or cheesecake. I would substitute either plain yogurt or buttermilk for the sour cream. I use 2½ tsps. baking powder + ½ tsp baking soda per 2 ½ cups cake flour, always sifted. A ¼ cup less sugar; 2 extra-large eggs, lightly beaten before being added to the creamed mixture. Focus on not overmixing the batter. Use either release spray or baker’s grease (flour + shortening) to grease the pans. Try greasing only the bottom of the pans, so that the batter can “climb” up the sides and rise higher.

Oblaten wafers were once the specialty of the town of Karlovy Vary, formerly Carlsbad, in the Czech Republic. According to Mr. Babinec, a Czech ex-patriate who is a longtime friend of my father’s, there are several varieties, some very small & crisp, others that are flavoured, usu. w/ chocolate. He told me recently that in Vienna some of the smaller bakeries may still produce fresh, hot oblaten, but usually they are bought at delicatessens. Interestingly, about 10 days ago, I pulled a recipe out of my files for Pišingruv Dort, an oblaten torte. Ten oblaten, about 10-inches diam., are used in that particular cake. Re the small, crisp variety: Lilly Joss Reich offers a recipe to make Vanille Plätzchen (The Viennese Pastry Cookbook, p. 61). ). The batter is spread to about 3-inch rounds, left at room temp. for several hours, then baked at 275° until very crisp.

First of all, what are we proposing to use – oatmeal or rolled oats? If oatmeal, what grade? I purchase mine in small sacks from a grist mill situated about 35 miles outside of the city. The facility has a huge stone to grind the various grains into flours. The flavour is simply wonderful. Oatmeal is produced from grinding the kernels of oats; and remains nutritious because it retains the bran, kernel, and endosperm. Besides oatcakes, I use it to prepare the porridge that goes into my Maritime Brown Bread. Oatmeal is available in several grades, the most easily obtainable for most shoppers is found in supermarkets and is known as “Scotch type” oatmeal. Coarser ground oats are commonly called “groats” and are sold at natural food stores. Oat groats cook in about 45 minutes, but you can buy steel-cut oats (the groats are cut in smaller bits); rolled oats are steamed & flattened groats which cook in about 15 minutes. Please note that oatmeal does not store indefinitely; with its high fat content, it easily acquires a bitter flavour. Rolled oats is the much commoner form of oats, the coarse ground oatmeal being rolled out into flakes. It, too, comes in several grades: Old-fashioned, or “large,” is for slow cooking, as well as the quick-cooking and instant varities. Quick-cooking oats & instant oats have been steamed longer and cook in several minutes. For the purpose of breadmaking, the slower cooking type produces bread with the best nutty flavour and texture. Recipes The first baking instructions I’ll offer in this entry, are for basic oatmeal griddle cakes. These unsweetened griddle cakes are fundamental Scottish fare cooked by the traditional method. They can be cut, sprinkled w/ crushed coarse salt crystals, then baked on the top shelf of a hot oven; then left to dry with the door propped open. 1½ tsp salt 2-and-2/3 cups medium-ground oatmeal 1 oz bacon fat or lard up to 10 fl oz boiling water fine oatmeal for rolling out Mix the salt into the oatmeal. Melt the fat in a little of the boiling water and stir into the oatmeal, gradually adding enough wter to make a soft dough. On a board sprinkled with fine oatmeal, thinly roll out the dough. Cut into triangles Cook on a fairly hot oiled griddle until the edges start to curl – about 5 minutes. The next recipe is for those bakers who want to produce sure-fire popular oatcakes in volume. When I worked at a mid-sized resort in the late ‘90s, we baked these oatcakes at the end of every afternoon shift in order to supply next morning’s breakfast buffet. Later, they were packaged and sold in the gift shop for a healthy profit. I recall one day on which a Floridian tourist offered me $20 for the recipe because, he said, his wife just had to bake them at home. (Why not him, too?) Substitute the fats as dictated by your health-consciousness and/or budget. 6 cups oatmeal 6 cups flour 2 cups granulated white sugar 3 small tsps baking soda (not heaping) 2 teaspoons salt 1 lb 80% butter, softened 1 lb lard Mix all ingredients and add water to desired consistency; it should not be wet, but you want a mixture pliable enough to roll out in a sheet pan. The above proportion amounts provide 3 sheets. We rolled the oatcakes from between ¼- and 1/3-inch thick. They were baked for approx. 12 min. in a 350° oven. The following are my father’s fav. oatcakes, and when I visit my parents he will want a batch made. He freezes then, and eats one for breakfast each morning – unthawed! 2 cups oatmeal 2 scant cups flour ½ cup granulated white sugar ½ cup packed light-brown sugar 1 cup uns. butter (if preferred, you can use ½ cup each butter & vegetable shortening) 1 tsp soda dissolved in 1 Tbsp hot water 1 egg, lightly beaten Mix, roll out, cut into rectangles, and bake in a 325° oven. The last two recipes are for the rolled-oats type. Experiment by using various sugars, such as turbinado & demerara. They were given to me at the resort by the exec. chef from his previous post at a country inn. 3 cups rolled oats 1½ cups flour ½ cup packed brown sugar ½ tsp salt ½ tsp baking soda 1 cup vegetable shortening ½ cup cold water Cut into squares and bake at 350° until golden brown on the bottom. On supermarket & import-foods shops, you’ll find rough oatcakes (such as those made by Walkers or Nairns) that contain bran. The last set of ingredients provide something along that concept of oatcake: ½ tsp baking soda dissolved in ½ cup boiling water; let stand till cool 2 cups flour 1 tsp baking powder 1 tsp salt 2 cups rolled oats 2 cups bran flakes cereal 1¼ cups granulated sugar 1¼ cups vegetable shortening Roll out the dough, cut into 2-inch squares, and bake in a 450° oven until quite golden. Serve w/ a small pitcher of cream, maple sugar, marmalade, and pour a nice cuppa.

Christopher Kimball (The Dessert Bible) is a persuasive advocate for the tart-&-sweet apples combination in double-crust pies. He enjoys using Granny Smiths & McIntoshes. Many of my relatives prefer all-out McIntosh pies. The early varities are in the markets now. I agree that the Rhode Island Greening is a superb pie apple. I often like using Granny Smiths, too. They’re ideal in my Caramelized Roasted-Apple & Rosemary Tart. I’ve had much success using Golden Delicious in Tart Tatin recipes, as well as in Apple-Custard Pies. And let's also mention Pippins, another fine, tart apple for pies. In Dutch Apple Tarts, I like to toss in Red Delicious Apples, regardless of their inability to hold their shape. Royal Gala is one of fav. apples for eating out-of-hand. But, really, it’s too bland when cooked. Fuji & Winter Banana are two of my other top favs for eating raw, but I’ve yet to use them cooked. I have a recipe for Apple-Mincemeat Pie (passed down from one of my grandmothers) in which I prefer to use Cortlands. (And rum!) Northern Spy has long been esteemed as the consummate pie apple. Supplie are limited, though, so you may have to drive to farmers’ markets to buy them. Rome Beauty is one of the ultimates too, especially in pressing cider. Cortlands are definitely one of most-used varieties in my kitchen; I’ve baked a great many glazed sheet cakes & coffee cakes, plus gallons of sauce with that excellent apple. Gravensteins don’t rank too highly in my experience because of their total collapse when baked. Staymans are similar to Winesaps are mildly tart which makes they suitable for cooking, but they’re also quite juicy, so use them accordingly. The Winesap has experienced a decline in production. Pink Pearl – are they similar to Pink Lady apples? Nick Malgieri teaches that Northern Spies are the top-choice for uncooked pie fillings. He says that “Granny Smiths need to have some of the moisture cooked out of them, or the filling will be too liquid.” (How To Bake, p. 155) Sound advice, indeed.

I will concur w/ Sinclair & stscam re their preferences for coating a Gâteau Opéra. Stscam's glaze ought to provide a nicely glossed finish. I have long-understood that this elegant cake is a registered classic (created a century ago by Clichy), revived by Gaston Lenôtre back in the 1960s. Can this idea be factually documented? Last week I spent some time looking through my notebooks for remarks I’ve recorded on this preparation. My best friend’s birthday will be celebrated later this month, and I was considering the Opéra for that party. (Although now I think it’s more likely to be either a triple-layer choc cake filled w/ ganache and covered by a Grand Marnier-white choc buttercream or a brown-sugar-&-pecan bourbon torte – w/ the view of targetting some of his fav. flavours.) Anyway, reverting to the topic at hand: First of all, when making the joconde biscuit, do we use ground almonds, or almond “flour” in the batter? Second, do we use a flavoured 16° syrup or variation thereof? I will readily admit that, in most instances, I’ve somewhat simplified the technique from the get-go by baking a fairly straightforward almond génoise, brushing the layers w/ an coffee syrup (i.e., granulated sugar dissolved in hot espresso; Cognac can be added), sandwiching layers & top w/ coffee buttercream, freezing briefly to firm it up; covering w/ bittersweet choc ganache, and then, finally, pouring over a glaze (bittersweet + butter). Recommended to us couverture in the ganache? Butter also? In the glaze, I like to use a Barry-Callebaut for coating, although most often it’s going to be Lindt 70% cocao. (Champagne taste; ginger-ale budget.) To conclude, I would like to pose a question to Confiseur: What is the purpose of diluting the cream w/ milk in your glaze? Why not use pouring cream alone?

There's nothing new about making mock puff pastry: I've use a recipe on numerous occasions since the mid-80s to build the casing for a large, multilayered Torta Rustica. Mock puff pastry is splendid for its ability to hold sturdy compound fillings. Mix the dough, turn it out onto the floured worksurface, press & roll into a rectangle, fold lengthwise into thirds, turn and repeat the folding twice more. After the third fold, refrigerate for 1 hour. Voilà, it's ready for use! Since 1989, I've often made another shortcut version of puff pastry using my Cuisinart to distribute the butter through the flour. I pulse it very briefly so as not to overmix the dough. The entire procedure takes less time than classic puff pastry and is really quite simple. True, it's flakier than the classic version and it doesn't "puff" as dramatically, but it's entirely suitable for Gâteau Saint-Honoré & Napoleons. In sum, there are two time-redeeming factors in such abbreviated methods. First, there is no requirement to rest the détrempe overnight before the sequence of rolling-&-folding stages. Second, the resting periods are not included in the overall procedure. So then, I would say that the mock puff pastry would be quite suitable for weighty entrees, such as Beef Wellington (filet de boeuf en croûte) or even friands, but the classical spirit should arise in the cook to prepare a full-fledged version for a more delicately elegant dish, such as a salmon coulibiac. As for delicate tea pastries such as feuillantines or palmiers, you must be your own authority and let your experience be a discerning guide. Curious as to the provenance of puff pastry, I found this interesting account: "A very early form...probably existed in ancient Greece, and flaky pastry cakes were mentioned in the Middle Ages, but it did not enter the realms of popular pastries until the seventeenth century. Two claims are made for its invention then, one attributing the pastry to a painter, Claude Gelée, and the other to a pastry cook in the house of Condé, named Feuillet." ~ Hilary Walden, Pâtisserie of France, p. 123. Now, which candidate garners the vote of the pastry contingent on eGullet?

There’s Duncan Manley’s book. You might be able to track down (via a search at addall.com) a copy of the out-of-print Bite-Size Cookies and Savory Crackers from Cindy's Santa Fe Bite-Size Bakery by Cindy Brooks. Bernard Clayton offers seven recipes for savoury crackers in his his New Complete Book of Breads: Onion, Plain Soda, Sesame, Knäckerbröd, Cheddar Cheese, and a buttery rich version.

The cake layer should ideally be a room temp. for torting. If you want to proceed using your cake leveler, please be alert to keeping it leveled upon the worksurface, and to motion through the layer as though sawing it when performing the torting action. It would also be to your advantage to have the cake positioned properly on a turntable, a device enthusiastically recommended by professional cake decorators. Since I have not used cake mixes, my comments re the excess crumbliness of your cakes may be too speculative. Still, they may have some troubleshooting value: If the cake is sunk in the center, the batter was too soft; or the cake was under-cooked; or too cool an oven was used. As you say that they fall apart when removing them from the pans, that may be due to using insufficient liquid; or overcooking; or too much leavening in the mix. Oh, the control you can invest w/ “made-from-scratch” batters! (I hope you’re not discarding the collapsed cakes: you can use the crumbs for mock truffles, by moistening them w/ rum, sherry, or fruit juice, shaping them, then coating them w/ cocoa powder.) Have you been using a Victoria Sandwich type of mix? In order to have a firmer cake, more suitable for cutting, perhaps you should consider a mix that ensures a denser crumb. No doubt “Sinclair” and other regular contributors to this fourm would have a recipe for a plain-batter cake mix that you could flavour w/ chocolate, citrus, coffee, spices, whatever. One final note: Thaw frozen cakes in the refrigerator, then bring them to room temp. before levelling & torting.

Recently, I had mentioned elsewhere in the P & B forum that I have been using a mixture of three-quarters unbleached flour (it lacks whitening agents and thus provides a slightly creamy color in the bread) to one-quarter pastry (soft wheat) flour when making Fr. Bread baguettes. (I haven’t formed the loaves into any other of the classic shapes using this proportion of flours.) The reason I began using it, on the suggestion of a friend, was that she assured me it would provide flavour closer to the genuine pain de Paris. To my knowledge, rice flour is infrequently used in breadmaking – although it is lovely for dusting the dough when shaping it into loaves, esp. elegant braids. The rice flour dries the dough but does not adhere to it so the powdery appearance which results when dough is dusted w/ wheat flour is eschewed. It’s a delight to use, for example, on ropes of Challah bread. Cooked rice grains can be added to some white breads and, I suspect, they would produce fine loaves. I had indicated in my previous post in this topic-thread that I have a recipe in my files which calls for a measure of cooked white rice. Also, I have made French millet and rye breads on countless occasions; but I know of only one regularly produced Parisian-type bread that uses a non-wheat flour, viz., pain sportif, which has a mixture of wheat, rye, and soya flour in it. Undoubtedly, there are others. As most of us have learned from our technical books, flour provides the basic structure of breads (and, for that matter, cakes, batters, & pastry). But the structure is further dependent upon the type of flour – as well as the raising agent. Bread flour must be aearated by yeast. Most yeast-breads require kneading in order to strengthen the gluten, which, in turn, strengthens the cellular structure of the baked loaves. Soft flours produced a softer, spongier texture: one cannot, of course, beat air into bread flour, but soft flours are easily leavened by thorough beating which causes aeration of the dough. It is primarily for this reason (as well as the flavour enhancement) that I incorporate pastry flour in my baguettes. The texture of the a.p./pastry-flour baguettes is coarse & “holey.” If a closer texture is sought, then the bread should be left to rise a second time after it is punched down, before shaping it into loaves. I believe that Nhumi has embarked on a quite soundly logical course toward finding an acceptably textured rice-flour baguette, by As to the remark re CO2, let’s remember that the reason for slapping down the cushion of dough on the worksurface is to compress the C02 bubbles. This is performed so that the dough will have a better “skin.” However, when using gluten-free rice flour in a French-bread recipe, surely we want to avoid compressing the bubbles! Also, shouldn’t these loaves be baked at a lower temperature than the all-wheat versions? Clearly, it does not seem probable to expect the rice-flour baguettes to be utter duplicates of the real thing. The rice flour will add hardness rather than soft texture to the loaves because it is less capable than wheat flour of holding the CO2 gases and less absorbent. So then, should the dough be a lot moister? It appears we have a dilemma on our hands: Knead the dough fairly vigorously to work up the wheat-flour gluten, or shun kneading in order to prevent hardening? The better wisdom seems to be that we should avoid knocking out those blessed bubbles. When we add other grains to bread – such as cornmeal, oats, and bulgur – the reason is to impart greater variations in the texture. But with rice-flour we’ve entered a different scenario in which to experiment. When Nhumi concludes w/ the vital mention of starch & tapioca flour, we are led to another important consideration: The sugar/starch interaction may be a key to providing the sought-after texture. “French bakers once served eleven-year apprenticeships, but intensive courses at a school run by the Grands Moulins de Paris now turn out qualified boulangers in three months.” (Paul Rambali, Boulangerie: The Craft and Culture of Baking in France, p. 125)

This morning was the first time I've heard of baguettes made w/ rice flour. (I predominantly use rice flour in pastry creams.) The Trang recipe is excerpted across the Web. Yumi has indicated a positive outlook -- viz., that she'll run trial batches, varying the proportion of bread ::: rice flours in the baguettes. Bon chance! Subsequently, I've looked through a of couple of my bread-file binders, and have spotted only two recipes containing rice -- albeit one of them uses cooked white rice, which is added to a batter-method bread. The recipe looks sound, and I would expect it to provide a fine, crusty loaf. But then, it's only tangentially related to the sought-after baguette. The other recipe I located, was one which I had clipped from a Toronto newspaper a few years back. That bread is made solely from rice flour. I kept it primarily to have on hand if there was a contingency in which it could be served to someone w/ an intolerance to wheat products.

Corinne Trang's debatable recipe for Vietnamese Rice Baguettes.