JeanneCake

I am sorry to hear of your mother's passing Liuzhou, I remember the birthday party you shared with us a while back. It's definitely for the memories that we recall - fondly or not! - what we ate as children. My memories of certain meals mirrors my siblings (my sister in particular would hide the white fish doused in ketchup 🤢 in her napkin to keep from eating it but make is disappear from the plate!) and in the summer, my father would surprise us with a big container of ice cream and we'd make frappes/milkshakes; or we'd go clamming and have the entire extended family over for steamers. And we knew when we got hot dogs and beans or pastina on a Saturday night, we were getting a babysitter and my parents were going out. Before I left home, I handcopied all of my mother's recipes into my own steno book and I still have the steno book. I go through it sometimes - knowing I'm not going to make anything from it - and smile at the memories.

See! That's what I needed to know, and now I remember that from those hot cocoa bombs - without a machine there's only so much chocolate you can temper at once and use it! Once I got the right cocoa butter for the EZTemper, it was easier but still, there's only so much you can do at once. The cannoli thing is just an example of how there's lag time in how someone does something; and I don't know enough about bonbon production to know if there is a point of no return where you *can't* speed things up. I wish I were closer @pastrygirl or @Jim D. because I would volunteer to come help!

Curiosity question - when you are making bonbons, are you fulfilling orders (for wholesale or retail or a combination of both) or making inventory? I'm not making fine chocolates (I'm not making *any* chocolates ) so I wonder where the place is that would give you more ROI of time. Does having an intern polish molds make sense or is there the chance if it's not done properly, the end result is the piece doesn't come out of the mold and you lose that one(s)? Or is it possible to store the pieces you make in a day and then package several days' production all at once? I routinely refer to myself as the efficiency bitch because I am always looking at how to make a process more efficient. For example: It drives me up a wall when someone is filling cannoli, and they fill the shell, put it on a sheet pan and wait til all of them are filled; then they dip the ends in vermicelli and back on the sheet pan and then box them up. (this happens only once with a new person!) Every time you handle something adds to your labor cost; so cannoli shells are counted out for each order, they are filled, dipped in the vermicelli and put into the box in one fell swoop. (ETA that this means you fill one shell, dip the filled shell and put the shell in the box. Then go to the next one, etc) So I'm curious about whether it's even possible to do the same in chocolate making.

For the meringue buttercreams, it's more the butter going soft in the heat and melting/sliding; for the crusting buttercream it's a little firmer. In warmer parts of the country, bakers use shortening which is stable for a longer period than all butter types. We use a recipe from the Whimsical Bakehouse that has both shortening and a little bit of butter; it's very light and to my taste, not nearly as sweet as the "American Buttercream" type. We have also used all vegetable shortening when we need a dairy free version. Personally I don't like very sweet things so my preference taste-wise is the meringue buttercreams. Swiss meringue is "looser" than Italian; and American buttercream and whimsy will hold up better in the heat. You can store Swiss or Italian meringue for 12-24 hours at rm temp, American buttercream I think is ok for 3 days (could be longer) and the whimsy is ok for at least 3 days.

An Italian meringue buttercream would work, as would a Swiss meringue. An American buttercream, sometimes referred to as a crusting buttercream is also ok for a while at room temp. I define room temp as between 60-68 defrees Fahrenheit. If your room is warmer, or has no a/c on a hot summer day, anything based on butter will soften and be a problem to work with and will spoil faster. You can use vegetable shortening to replace all or some of the butter, just remember the taste changes as a result.

During the pandemic, my son has decided to cook more - which is a good thing, he's learning. He's decided that *he* knows more about organizing a kitchen than his mother 🤦‍♀️. You can hear me griping every time he puts something where it doesn't belong and I have hidden my Wusthof knives.

Yes, I love the browned bits in the filling! It does go from brown to black in an instant so I set a timer and keep checking it; I go for the darkest color I can get and move it off the induction immediately, it will go to black if you leave it on the burner. Ironically enough, I have never been able to "smell" it while others in the kitchen are mentioning how wonderfully nutty it smells!!

I have two different brown butter fillings - here's the one for the pear tart. I used to be able to get a poire williams concentrate from Fassbind that was absolutely amazing but sadly I cannot find this any more and the tart doesn't taste the same to me just using pear liquor, and the Amoretti compound isn't really bakeproof I'm told. You can cut this down to make 1 9" tart, just keep dividing it. It scales fine. I usually add a little more flour to this; and mix it with the sugar to cut down on the lumping..... Pear Tart.doc

This isn't easy to answer! I love making our flourless chocolate cake - it was what launched my bakery; I also love our brown butter pear tart. In November I love the cranberry walnut tart from Epicurious (normally I won't touch walnuts in anything else). I recently made a cherry pie for the first time in my life (with tart cherries and the filling from the Pie and Pastry Bible) and it was the first time I've ever enjoyed cherries other than fresh (we also made a cherry crisp with the filling to rave reviews). Now I get why people love cherry pie! I also love the Miami Beach Sour Cream cake from Maida Heatter - it is a fantastic cake. I should stop now.....

Your question makes me realize I've never not heated the milk/sugar first any time I've made pastry cream. I also take a page out of Roland Mesnier's book and put the eggs/sugar/cornstarch on a stand mixer on low speed with the whisk to mix while the milk heats. Then I dribble in the milk while the mixer is still going (and usually I end up adding all the milk anyway, not just some of it) and then dump it all back in the pot, stirring like a mad woman while it thickens over low heat; then add the butter. This is where I would add whatever extract I wanted to use (normally I am adding strips of orange zest to the milk while it heats the first time because we make our Boston Cream Pies with an orange-kissed pastry cream ). Then I run it through a strainer into another container, cover the top with plastic wrap and done.

Yes, that recipe is the best ever choux I've ever made. I don't even use an egg wash and the color is beautiful (I'm also baking in a convection oven so you might need the egg wash). I will eat the baked puffs without filling, it's that good! Chefpeon, years ago, posted Pichet Ong's recipe with her notes - she added one whole additional egg I think. And her advice in trying to determine if you needed more egg, was to add just the white first, then the yolk if it was needed.

You might need to increase the gelatin; one of our chocolate mousses needs a boost from the judicious addition of gelatin to keep it from "deflating" when we use it in a mold. Maybe your recipe was originally intended to be spooned out of a vessel? Do you use another layer of something in the center? (Meaning, is yours a layered entremet where you partially fill the mold/freeze then add a layer of something, add more mousse, then the base and freeze til firm?)

How large an entremet are you making? How deep is it? Is there cake (biscuit) or a firm crust (pate a sucree) as a base?

What would happen in the Chinese restaurant if two women, unaccompanied by a man/men, came in? Would the restaurant give them both price-free (I wanted to say price-less !) menus? I'm genuinely curious. And if two men came in, do they both get menus with prices? Are they making a distinction based on gender or by their definition, that a man is always the host?

caramelized sesame seeds? sesame seed brittle, chopped? AUI is selling caramelized cocoa nibs, chocolate coated cocoa nibs and other things like that. Maybe something like that would work? I feel like feuilletine - even coated in cocoa butter - won't give you a substantive crunch....

I've been getting their emails about the March sale and each time, I thought of you and wanted to send them to you but figured I shouldn't tempt you! Glad you are getting it!

I'm going to be thinking a lot about those mussels and that lemon sole! Our fish guy is on vacation til next week and I can't wait for his return.....

I'm not a legal eagle; have you written the site's administrator and asked that the content be removed, and did they respond? Maybe it has to be an eG administrator type that has to get them to remove the eG content?

There is only black currant jam to be had on toast. Well made toast. Woe to the child or husband who thinks it belongs in a peanut butter sandwich.

when I was growing up, Sunday lunch was pasta, homemade gravy (which I later learned from schoolmates who told me: gravy is brown and served with meat, if it's red, it's spaghetti sauce!) and lasted for hours. I got to shape the meatballs in the morning which my grandmother fried then dumped into the gravy with sausage, braicole and simmered for a few hours). I loved all of it. But when I was about 5 or 6, someone in the family decided it was time for me to have a little wine, and they mixed orange juice and red wine (homemade red wine) so I could have some wine and it was vile. I probably spit it out. I cannot abide orange juice To. This. Day. However, I have sufficiently recovered to enjoy any kind of red wine I'm not a fan of liver to be honest; but my mother was adamant about having a "no thank you" helping of any kind of food - enough for one or two bites so you could be polite. I also recall my brother and I *begging* for the ravioli or round spaghetti that came from a can. Chef Boyardee I think it was. THAT we definitely spit out! LOL

Do you use a scale? Next time, weigh the total amount of batter, then scale it equally by half into the pans. (Something I always do the first several times I make a new recipe) I wouldn't mess with the soda or the BP; you need to soda to balance the PH of the batter (which you are already tweaking with the little bit of molasses in the brown sugar and the acidity of the OJ). If both layers were falling, the leavening might be suspect; but I agree with Shain, it's more likely the pan.

The java chips ones are ok; nothing spectacular but not bad either. I did notice that the curbside grocery store had a family size pack of Dark Chocolate Oreos ❤️ so at long last, I have more of those :)! those pink and green (silver paper toffee paper 😄) ones might be good for a featured cupcake flavor.....

Agree! During a routine health inspection, the agent noted "containers of dried up frosting" - we melt small amounts of colored chocolate in 16 oz deli containers in the microwave for writing on cake, drizzling - and we had the deli containers on the top pan on a covered speed rack. I was going over the write up with her and asked her what she was talking about and she pointed to the deli containers. I asked her why she thought it was frosting (because we put buttercream in lexans to work out of, portioning the plain into bowls to flavor accordingly) since she never asked what they were or why they were there. She looked a little sheepish when I told her it was chocolate. (She also questioned what we were doing with spaghetti in a bakery and I know she learned something new when I told her I use it to anchor fondant figurines because it is safer than a toothpick.) I don't think they are trained for confectionery products. And, after reading the FB group about the hot cocoa bombs that people made over the holidays, yeah. Some of what I was reading was shocking and I wondered how people were getting away with it; with the advent of social media that allows people to randomly start making and selling food products online without detection - all that hard work people did getting cottage laws enacted is going to be severely tested.

Other than the obvious implication that a health inspector can walk in to the commercial facility at any time to inspect the premises to ensure everything is done properly; I can't come up with anything. The act of melting or tempering doesn't seem to be the issue - I'm wondering if it's the manufacturing of bonbons/inclusions that's the issue. You know, like why you have to have fire suppression if you have an open flame - because it's possible you could saute something and the rising oils could ignite..... so if you're allowed to make candy or chocolate products, you can then have bonbons that could possibly contain potentially hazardous foods (or whatever the proper term is now, I can't remember it because I always think of it as potentially hazardous foods!)

soften the butter, don't cream for as long or at a high speed, and try using a perforated sheet pan lined with parchment to bake the cookies. I don't know that this would work but when baking puff pastry and you want it to stay flat, you bake it between sheet pans (have parchment under and on top of your dough when baking) so it's worth a try.