CanadianBakin'

I've had great success with the one on the Cooks Illustrated site. It's very easy to adapt to different flavours and types. Always turns out well.

Please excuse my ignorance, but what exactly is a Diplomat Cake? I've seen them at BonTon's and Sweet Obsessions but I have no idea what's in them. I googled for a recipe and they varied quite a bit.

I totally agree with you on the "Fleur de Cao Cookies". Absolutely delicious. They're what I expect in a chocolate cookie. Intense chocolate flavour, not too sweet, great chewy texture. I liked them much better than the sparkle cookie. I couldn't get over how much they charge for cookies!!! Tiny sliced refridgerator cookies, 6 for $4.50!!!!! Holy smokes!

The Kolachy's are great! My sister-in-law and I made the trip in today from Mission and sampled food from The Kolachy Shop, Sen5es, Sweet Obsessions and BonTons. Thanks for all the reviews you guys give. It was fun to check out some of the places you talk about. I grew up in Burnaby but wasn't interested in the food scene then. Now I'm a bit jealous that I'm not closer. I'll have to live vicariously through you all and check things out when I can.

Wendy, couldn't you just keep some antibacterial hand wash in your purse to use after he has passed your table? It doesn't require water.

lemon, I just wanted to mention that the Bosch they used in that review is an entirely different animal. They didn't review any that had blenders or other attachment things which have much larger motors, bowls, etc. I guess to keep it simple.

Thanks Anne! I don't have a plastic one but I know what you're talking about and I will hit my supplier up for a couple. I just made another square that has an icing filling and used my metal dough scraper to smooth it and it worked a treat. Great idea!

The latest issue of Fine Cooking has a recipe for sliced fresh oranges with a caramel sauce that looks delicious. I'm sure clementines would work well too.

I'll give the offset spatula a try although I don't know how it will make things different from the smaller spatula I'm using at the moment. It's the air bubbles that seem to make smoothing it difficult. I've never had problems with the chocolate adhering although I think the cake comb will also help with smoothing the filling so i will definitely try that. Thanks for the ideas. I will be baking a variety of muffins, scones, cookies, loaves, cheesecakes and assorted squares. I'm really excited about the opportunity. I'm not a pastry chef by any means, just an avid home-baker so I really appreciate the help everyone offers here.

Nanaimo bars is one of the items on the menu at the coffee house I bake for. (opening this tuesday) Tonight I made it for the first time in a half-size sheet pan. The second layer is a pain in the butt to get smooth before pouring chocolate on top. Any ideas on how to do this more quickly? Here's the recipe and a link. I have both so it's easier for you to get to. Nanaimo Bars I vary it a bit but you get the idea. I thought maybe I was beating too much air into the filling so I used the paddle attachments and it didn't help. I don't want to be mixing it by hand as that will kill my wrist. After I spread it as even as I can, I run the back of a hot spoon over it. But it takes quite awhile for me to get it even before doing that. Maybe it's just me being too much of a perfectionist but there's got to be a way to do a good job quickly.

I purchased my first stand mixer this year and after researching I chose a Bosch Universal with the American dough hook. (If I could have afforded it I would have got the new Bosch Concept.) It has a 700 watt motor, a 7 quart bowl and no overhead arm which makes adding ingredients very easy. It's not ideal for very small recipes but I use my hand mixer for those anyways. It does handle medium to large recipes very well. I have had no burning smells, no skipping gears, no struggle in the least. It easily whips up a triple batch of cookie dough or several loaves of bread. You can check it out here. It's reported to have a 1% failure rate over 20 years. It''s definitely not the coolest looking machine but I'm very happy with it's performance. If you can afford it, the Bosch Concept has all the features plus a great look. One more thing, Costco.com sometimes has the Bosch Concept for sale with a particular set of attachments. It just wasn't the right combination for me plus buying from Canada can be a pain in the butt.

Check out this previous thread for some ideas: Buche de Noel $$$

fou de Bassan - How much liqueur did you use per recipe?

skyflyer - I just recently tried a recipe with cornstarch and one without. The one with cornstarch was more "melt-in-your-mouth" and spread a bit. The one with only flour had a heavier texture but held it's shape better and would likely hold up better if dipped in tea or something. My testers preferred the recipe with only flour. Personaly I prefer the melt-in-your-mouth feel of the cornstarch one.

I'd definitely keep your eye on "Home Sense". They are the same company as Winners but feature only housewares. They have great deals on some really nice bakeware. I've seen Nordic Ware, Paderno, Chicago Metallic, etc. Of course their stock is always changing so if you see something you want you have to buy it right then. And if you don't see what you want, try back in a couple weeks. I don't know if they have a store in Vancouver. There's one in Coquitlam just east of Ikea, and one in Langley on the by-pass near Chapters. There's also one coming next spring in Abbotsford which is about 20 minutes from me so I'm pretty excited about that. :)

Thanks for the info. I drive past that restaurant every day I work and thought it looked like a place to try. I'm looking forward to butter's (friends') review as well. On the sign it says sip, sample, savour which made me wonder if it was a type of tapas bar. What's the menu like?

Has anyone tried making these with a liqueur? I have a bottle of creme de menthe in my basement collecting dust.

I'm not participating in this thread due to time constraints but I wanted to let you all know how much I enjoy following it and seeing all your pictures. You guys amaze me!!

I had ice cream infused with Earl Grey that was very good.

Joni - for a half batch I used 1 tsp vanilla & 1 tsp peppermint extract. The flavour held up well in hot chocolate but was a bit strong if you were just eating them straight.

Pumpkin Loaf from epicurious.com I made this recipe recently and it turned out very well. Good rise, good texture. It calls for chocolate chips but would be just as tasty without.

I just wanted to follow up and let you know what I did. I did let it beat a lot longer with the butter, sugar & eggs. About 5 minutes. I filled the pans to within a 1/2" from the top and I put the magi-strips around the lower edge of the pan. Instead of using the melted butter line (which I may try in the future) I sliced a line in the top about 15 minutes into baking time. I'm pretty sure I read that tip on here as well. With these adjustments, I did end up with a taller, but not spilling over, loaf. And Wendy I think you're right about the pans. My dough has enough strength to rise in a taller pan. I'll have to search some out but for now I'm happy with how they have turned out. Thanks again for all of your input.

Thanks Susan. As you probably guessed our supplier is SnowCap too. I haven't tried the PC chocolate chips in a long time but I'll price them out and maybe do a comparison with SuperStores's noname choc chips. That's what I usually use at home. Sounds wierd but they have more cocoa butter than most chips and have a nice feel in the mouth. I find some choc chips are chewy rather than melt-in-your-mouth. But if you like them better than Callebaut they might be worth looking into. It really sounds like we're going to need to do some taste-testing.

Thanks for the caution, JeanneCake. I'll see if I can get a sample from my supplier.

Thanks for your help! With that in mind, I think I'll stick with the Callebaut calets for melting purposes and the Schokinag chips for cookies. That's the highest grade of chips they have and I imagine that they're still better than your standard "Foleys" chips. It would be wonderful if I could use butter in everything but I'm trying to be careful with pricing. I use margarine in places the average person wouldn't taste the difference. I've sampled the baking at most of the coffee houses and bakeries in this area and they don't have much to offer. So even using margarine in some items our product it is still WAY better than anywhere else. It's a pretty sad state of affairs when even our #1 bakery has poor tasting product.