JeanneCake

I cannot tell you how much the kid loves that we have this grill.....it's going to get down to 38 degrees tonight and I didn't have to wrestle with the Weber outside so I am equally as thrilled 🥰

I have a vague childhood memory of my parents hosting parties where grape jelly and meatballs made an appearance but I cannot remember anything else other than the meatballs were sweet, and I got to eat them with toothpicks. Oh and my mother making parfaits - with what I'm pretty sure was canned cherry pie filling and probably vanilla pudding from a mix. My paternal grandmother was a phenomenal cook and she taught my mother while we lived in a two family house. Now I kind of want the grape jelly meatballs....alas I have no grape jelly, no meatballs and no recipe .... ETA that my grandmother did not teach my mother how to make grape jelly meatballs. That my mother got out of a magazine I'm sure! LOL

There's a FB eG Chocolate page?!

Tonight, I am eating a whole sleeve of Ritz crackers myself. Along with a runny Danish brie and some raspberry pepper jelly. Thanks Anna! It was a miserable trip to Restaurant Depot this afternoon and I am a little grumpy and hungry. Restaurant Depot was cleaned out of a lot of stuff but I did manage to get two tubes f 90% ground beef that I'm going to vacuum pack tomorrow, and a huge package of hot dogs because the kid wanted hot dogs 5# of hot dogs! ugh. They had no other beef, no pork, no lamb, no veal, no bacon, very little chicken (and rude shoppers had opened the few cases remaining and left the plastic bags wide open, exposing the meat. 🤬) I feel better now that the crackers and cheese are polished off 😉

Social media! I bought a case of SAF instant last week to send to friends around the country and then sold some to people in town who were posting that they couldn't find any. Yeast and flour is the new toilet paper

The Restaurant Depot nearest to me in MA (I don't go to the others so can't speak to whether this is a universal policy in our state or not for RD) opened to the public after a few weeks. I can't say I'm a fan of this idea. It was bad enough trying to navigate in there with cranky restaurant owners who thought they were the only ones who needed something and would bang the Uboats into you while shopping, or your vehicle outside; or leave them in the middle of a parking space because they're too lazy to move them remotely close to where someone else could use it.....they dump stuff out of the boxes and leave the empty boxes in the parking lot for the staff to clean up 🤬 anyway I digress. I only go at the end of the day, when it is less likely to be crowded and I take my chances on whether they'll have what I want. On Thursday I broke my own rule and went just after lunch. No beef, no chicken, little to no produce, lots of cheese, frozen stuff was ok, no seltzer, no yeast, fully stocked on flour and canned tomato products, fully stocked on pasta and bread; and they have a new brand of shell eggs and LOTS of big signs saying not to open the boxes. They say they only allow 2 shoppers per card, no exceptions but on multiple occasions while trying to get product off shelves, I was bumped into by other shoppers traveling in groups of 3. It was annoying to say the least. After shopping there, I now understand why cooks say bad things about owners. Sorry to hijack the thread a bit! But getting back on track, you should call the one nearest to you and see if they are allowing one day passes. The one I shop at does, and has a sign right at the registration desk saying so. Oh, and you need a mask and you should wear gloves (even if you don't normally. People are slobs.)

I am all over the place with comfort food. I find I'm craving something, I make it for a few days but then tire of it and move on. The only constant it seems is sauteed cremini mushrooms (I am buying 5# every other week to pad my order from the distributor), roasted broccoli, baked pasta (lasagne, baked ziti), tender boiled baby potatoes with butter and salt - and meatloaf (the recipe for Sister Helen's Meatloaf that appeared in the Ann Landers column about 40 years ago; I don't use the Accent and use half ground beef and half ground pork. You don't really need the bacon but you do need the tomato sauce on the top) until the husband announced he had eaten enough meatloaf to last the rest of the year Right now there's a frittata in the oven, which is tonight's comfort food. Stay well, stay safe everyone.

Can we get a WOW! emoji added to the list? (not embedded in text), that Toronto bakery story is one of many I would have used 😮 for!

Correct use of gloves is not pointless. The man in front of me was using a pen that was left on the counter to fill out the labels. He went back and forth three times while I was there. At the post office, if you need to fill out a form, it would be prudent to have your own pen or at least there should be sanitizer for your hands after use. The key pad also gets touched a lot during the day. If the staff isn't cleaning it between customers, washing your hands when you get home isn't going to help the fact that you touched the door handles to get out of the PO, the door handle and steering wheel of your car, etc. I own a bakery and our health dept is telling us to disinfect all surfaces (door handles, keypads, etc) customers may touch, after each customer. They send email reminders every week. We are doing contact free curbside pick up; we put the client's order on a cart, wheel the cart outside and then after the customer is back in their car, we go get the cart and disinfect it (handles, surface, each part of it) for the next order. I know that's not possible for every business, but I'm taking every precaution I can, where I can.

Yesterday I shipped out 12# of yeast to various friends across the country; the # boxes were $3.63 from the distributor. It cost more to ship than to buy 😄 I have 6 left from the case. It was the first time I'd been anywhere except the bake shop, home or restaurant depot. Utter madness; one man kept going back and forth to the counter (and I would move each time he did, 6 feet away means come prepared for heaven's sake), no mask, no gloves, nothing. I had to repackage two of the shipments (I had been reusing the Rancho Gordo boxes, my labels were previously filled out and I brought shipping tape) and when I got back in line, the woman ahead of me was holding a mask in her hands. No gloves. 🤦‍♀️ I myself had a mask and gloves on (I keep a box in the car), and for good measure, a clorox wipe to use on the keypad.

that was an interesting video...before they showed what the product was, I was thinking it was a chocolate financier. Your recipe is going to make a fudgy brownie; I think you need some cocoa powder in there. I lost track but I thought I saw liquid butter (at the start), then sugar, cocoa, shortening, liquid eggs - and molasses maybe? so if you're open to a different formula, maybe go with a chocolate financier?

@shelby where are you? i have two pounds of (dry) yeast at the shop, I will send you some eta: forgot the @ sign

It looks like there's some type of divider already in place, in that box. What if you took pre-cut deli paper or food grade tissue paper and made sort of a trough with it (so it covers both valleys in the box and just slides over the top of the divider); then you could simply put three truffles on each side? Or put them in a paper cup meant for mini cupcakes or confections (depending on the size of the piece) and no tissue....?

They're sold out of all three models so I guess I am safe for now

I've had only two responses in the Pastry Arts group on Facebook. The first reply mentions her mentor as having made a box with 1" furnace filters (she doesn't say anything about a fan though). The second response is someone who fashioned a pop up laundry basket with a hole cut on one side. So I don't think this is helpful at all What if you asked them to give you the names of some recent purchasers - or ask them to give *your* name to the buyers and have the buyers call you if they want to share their experiences. And @spennie - I would contact CakeSafe and let them know what your experience has been. Their product is being misrepresented by the place you bought it from, and CakeSafe would want to know. They may not be able to do anything but they should know that this shop did not have the right information when recommending their products and as a result you are out a lot of $ and have something that isn't helpful to your work.

What's the child proofing that's required? Something that you can't open single-handedly? Or something sealed shut (with a heat sealer) that requires scissors or a sharp edge to open? Could you merely tape the sides of those 6-insert boxes - is that considered child-proof? I'm not around little children much lately but they are pretty inquisitive and inventive when they have to be

Hi! I know of CakeSafe as a company from their cake carrying totes, which are also exorbitantly priced (at least, when you're doing 14 weddings a weekend, I'm not buying 14 of these and then having to get them back from all the hotels and country clubs....) I don't have any of their products so I can't speak to their quality or performance from personal experience. I know other bakers sing the praises of this booth for airbrushing; one baker even did an airbrushing demo in a white dress to show how well it worked. Let me ask around in my cake circle and see what people say. Will report back. PS; if you sign up for their email list, they offer promotions and deals periodically so that helps with the pricing.

Host's note: this was split from the How to enrobe these marshmallows topic. I need to get off the internet. I just saw a video for a combination (?) Chocovision Revolation 3Z tempering/enrober/skimmer - for which I am not buying, trust me. I'm getting a 60 quart Hobart before I buy any (more) chocolate equipment (because I have an EZ temper, so @Jim D. the dark side has already started it's slow tease) and with what's going on in the world at the moment, I am in no position to spend $7k just because I'm obsessed with marshmallows. But wow, that is one cool machine. Sigh.

Thanks @curls and @teonzo for the help. I will try those techniques this week. You are right about the consistency of the coating chocolate, Teo, I did notice it got thick/viscous faster than I thought it would, I am sure because I was fumbling and thinking "dip the bottom see what happens" and "dip the top see what happens" "dip the whole thing see what happens". When we dip cheesecake pops, we are fast enough with the dipping that we run out of chocolate before there's a change in the consistency. The dark side is beckoning....come to the chocolate side, Jeanne, come to the chocolate side 🤣

With the current COVID-19 crisis closing things left, right and center; I am taking advantage of the enforced time off to play in the kitchen. I have been obsessed with the different marshmallow offerings from a shop in Chicago and another one in Arizona. So I've long used the recipe from Nightscotsman, adapted slightly to use less gelatin and whipped a few minutes less for a slightly softer marshmallow that's easy to pipe into forms or on tarts.... I'm using the cylinder flexi molds, sprayed; filled half way then I'm sinking a truffle into it and then piping more marshmallow on top. I let it sit overnight then I'm dipping them into coating chocolate. I need a way to make these look neat and because I am by no means a chocolatier, I am asking (begging!) for some assistance in making these look good. I don't know what I don't know so assume you are talking to a complete novice (because you are!) when offering help. I tried dipping just the bottoms. The tops of them aren't really level so they wobble a bit and the fluid chocolate drips on one or more sides when I'm dipping the bottoms. Then I "glaze" the tops, letting the chocolate run down the sides (I just scrape up the run off and add it to the next batch of coating chocolate I melt.) I try to slide them before the chocolate sets up too much in an effort to minimize how much they stick to the grid. Some challenges: I don't have any cocoa butter at the moment and am unlikely to get some any time soon given the current situation. (We have a lot of coating chocolate because we use it to dip cheesecake lollipops). I also don't have a finer grid either (if that matters at all). Am I doing this the wrong way, or approaching it the wrong way?

I did a delivery today to one of my accounts and I arrived at the same time another distributor's truck arrived. They had ordered 12 cases of TP and it was out of stock; and if the distributor did have any, it was limiting purchases to one case per account. So it's not just consumers having supply issues. My next order with GFS (Gordon Food Service) is for Friday and I'm going to ask my rep tomorrow about their paper goods/janitorial supplies situation. And to anticipate any questions - it's a private resort; the delivery is for client tastings that are 2 people only so the restrictions and limits in place don't affect this but all my other accounts have cancelled their orders for the end of this week and all of next week. We are going to adopt the take out/curb side pick up model and the staff baked today so we can have cakes and desserts available for the weekend.

I love the idea of cardamom! I'd put the powder in with the gelatin, only because if you add it toward the end of mixing, it might lump.

Or try it with half and half; or light cream. I used to make creme anglais with milk until a chef asked me to make his recipe which was thicker. His recipe used half and half and I've since adopted his recipe as ours For pastry cream though, I always use milk. To me, a well made pastry cream is luxurious enough with milk! Don't waste the cream

If you liked the flavor, you can try again and reduce the gelatin (do 1.5 packages or 2). I've been using the marshmallow recipe from Nightscotsman on RecipeGullet; it's an adaptation of one from Martha Stewart and it doesn't contain egg whites. You bloom the gelatin in water or fruit puree, then add the hot syrup and beat, adding air and creating volume; then you pour it out into a foil lined pan, sprayed with pan spray. It sits for a few hours then you dust it with potato starch/confectioners sugar and cut then store airtight. You can definitely fold in some of the powdered peanuts but the banana puree might be a challenge, since it's relatively thick compared to puree......

I have been wondering how you are faring, Teo, so I am glad to hear you are ok. I am having to get bleach wipes and hand sanitizer from my distributor since the grocery stores are out and we are using quite a bit of both at the shop. Staff asked today if they could order these for themselves. Of course I said yes; I am lucky I have this option. I find myself wondering where we will be at Easter; at Mother's Day.... will we be through the worst of it or still managing. Kim, you've made me remember I should have a plan for milk; the kid can go through gallon in a day if he's not careful! Dry milk powder; I haven't thought of that in years. My mother used it (as well as the synthetic "hamburger") about 40 years ago when we were young. My brother definitely did not like it and we all refused to eat the "hamburger" (she made sloppy joes with it and it was not a success)! I think she tried stretching the milk with the powder and water instead of a direct replacement but either way, my brother was not having it!