JeanneCake

This made me think of all the times a wedding client who wanted the (now trendy) "naked" or "barely there" wedding cake design (it's thin layer of buttercream on the outside that allows the cake to show through) ask if the price was lowered "because you're not using the same amount of buttercream as you would on a fully-coated cake".... 🙄

What is corn casserole and how do you make it?

Our local turkey farm sent an email very early Monday morning and I called to reserve a turkey at 9 am on Monday morning I wasn't the first one, either! It will just be myself, husband, child and my father; but I will cook a 13 pound turkey, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, the brussels sprouts recipe from Epicurious that calls for chestnuts (but I usually end up forgetting them) because the recipe is sublime and I could eat an entire pound By. Myself. and candied sweet potatoes (no marshmallows!) and probably roasted carrots. And since I am a baker, we will have my favorite brown butter pear tart, my husband's favorite triple chocolate mousse, and chocolate chip cookies for the kid. I also love the cranberry walnut tart from Epicurious so I might indulge there too; or at least hope that one survives the holiday rush at the bakery and I can just bring one home. My father is the least fussy eater I know so he will be thrilled with everything and I will send him home with lots of leftovers so he doesn't have to cook for three days and neither will I! Such a bounty to be thankful for! PS, Toliver if you find yourself near Boston, there's a seat here at the table for you.

Lisa's posts always taught you something, she shared her knowledge freely and she was a born teacher. I saw that notice some months ago but didn't want to believe it was "our" Lisa so I put it out of my mind; I have been missing her thoughtful and insightful posts. 😥

Hmmm, very true! The ones I got were the 21" size so kind of limited for use - at least for me. Mostly I use them with the big round tip I use to make buttercream dams when building wedding cakes and with those huge speed bag tips for doing crumb coats. And now I'm not going to use them for filling cannoli, based on your tip about the scraper!

The ones at a bakery I helped at were old Ateco cloth bags; the inside lining was plastic and had started to split in places because it was old but the outside cloth was still in good shape. I hated them! Disposable bags are the only way to go! We have them in 12, 18 and 21 inch sizes; although recently at a demo I was able to score some amazing Felchlin disposable pastry bags that are really wonderful; just enough texture on the outside to make them grip-able when you're filling it with buttercream ..... I have to find a way to buy these bags.....

Eh, the only thing that could happen is the top might unravel (because the top of the bag is finished/sewn). Over time, the cloth bags start to crack after repeated washings and then the plastic flakes .... so depending on how frequently you use the bag it might not be an issue for long

If you look up the recipe for Rose Levy Beranbaum's Luxury Oatmeal cookies, there's a recipe for homemade granola that looks wonderful (I haven't made it). I haven't seen Lisa on here in quite a while and I do miss her contributions and wit!

What will you do with them? How are they prepared?

I could have a kitchen the size of a football field and still not have enough room. (I've never actually been on a football field but they look huge on TV).

Me three.

Depending on which Maida book you have you can go with the Queen Mother's cake too; I usually use bittersweet for everything but I think that cake could be good with the semisweet. You could also go with the flourless choc cake in The Cake Bible (the original pastry chef I got my recipe for bete noire from only used semisweet for her version). Share photos of what you make!

Before I left home in my early 20s; I painstakingly copied all my mother's recipes in my own steno books, and I still have them. Going through them reminds me of my childhood and some of the things I loved to eat. My favorite things in the summer were her macaroni salad and this jello thing I remember because I so loved the crunch - it was jello, with shredded carrots and walnuts, possibly even some thinly sliced celery. The jello was just to hold it together and I would eat it straight from the bowl she made it in, and could never get enough of it. The Boston Globe newspaper had it's own version of social media 50 years ago, it was called the Confidential Chat where people wrote in under pseudonyms and shared advice, recipes, housework solutions and grocery shopping tips. A lot of my mother's recipes came from there....

I have been using this recipe (nightscotman's) for years, mostly for vanilla marshmallows to top our smore's tarts - and I've made blackberry, passionfruit, cherry, raspberry and strawberry over the years. One time I wanted to make blue ones (vanilla ones colored blue) and added blue gel color and while it worked, the marshmallows were different and not in a great way. I'd like to make flavors other than using a puree for flavor - like using an extract (Amoretti is having a 15% off sale til tomorrow night). There are a few marshmallow shops making all kinds of flavors/varieties and I'm wondering how it's done. Do they use an extract? Water or oil based? Powder (like freeze dried mangos or bananas pulverized in a food processor?) Do you who make marshmallows use different recipes when you want a specific flavor or do you use a base recipe like this and add some kind of flavoring agent like an extract, concentrated oil, powder or compound?

When I am training someone new to using a piping bag, I tell them to think of writing a cursive lowercase "e' and that helps give them the idea of how to "cut" the finish and not have a point. Other times I've heard people say "swish and flick" from the Harry Potter franchise in describing the motion but honestly, *that* I don't get at all!

LOL, I said no last year after we did them; I told the Chef I wasn't doing them this year. Clearly I was wrong I found these adorable tiny sugar cones, filled them with flavored marshmallow, dipped them in chocolate and sprinkles and they liked them but they weren't big enough. So I did them again with the Mini Joy cones and they liked the size but apparently someone wants the beach ball pops and so they are done and boxed and waiting to go out for delivery tomorrow.... Que Emily from The Devil Wears Prada .... I love my job, I love my job, I love my job.....

Oh my goodness, we need to send you something to eat rather than these "meals"! Do they surprise you with this pretend food or do you order from a menu? Let's send take out to Anna's room; what is near you that you'd like? Hope you are better soon and out of there.

Update: the truffle shells were far too small to be useful or believable as a cake pop. I suggested we paint the truffles as beach balls anyway and perch them atop a blue marshmallow in a tiny ice cream cone but the client wants the cake pops. And is paying for them. I figure I'll sleep on Sunday after they are delivered..... In terms of lessons learned: 1) paint with colored cocoa butter or luster dust or apply colored chocolate with a cornet (not a brush) and 2) don't buy these, they are a PITA to get out of the plastic and lastly, I am really good at some things but not cake pops. I'm sure having the right materials helps a lot with this (the only coating chocolate I have is Felchlin's Ultra rondos and the white is very very thin when melted. Perfect for cheesecake pops and cookies but not for cake pops!) Thank you all for your help and encouragement!

I like the idea of painting colored cocoa butter or even colored choc for the stripes. The sugar gets messy during transport (some of it gets on the white, even though we pack them in cupcake papers); at least the painted stripes would stay put!

EXACTLY! 🤣

This is what they want them to look like:

I have an order for 300 beach ball cake pops this week; I'm looking for ways to make them less expensive for the client, and less aggravation for the staff. There's a picture on the Internet of them; they are basically white cake pops with four colored stripes of sugar (red, blue, yellow, green). The method the original creator uses is to dip the cake balls into white candy melts, paint a stripe of clear piping gel and then apply colored sugar to the stripe. They are time consuming, to say the least. And time=money and I'd have to charge something like $3.50/stick to even break even. So, I am looking for ways to reduce the amount of time, and cost - if possible. we've made them two years in a row, and the staff HATES these because the cake balls crack when dipped (when we made cake balls from our scraps); then we bought a cake pop waffle-iron wanna be thing, which meant they didn't crack but one side of the sphere browns more than the other and you can tell even after dipping in white... and now we are at Year Three. I can buy pre-made white round truffle shells from AUI; I was thinking to fill them with some flavored ganache (the flavor doesn't matter, I just want to pipe it in) then put a stick in, and let them set up. I'm not convinced I'd have to cap them because they need to be on sticks and they are presented to the guests with the sticks in a base of sugar "sand". Then I was thinking to paint some piping gel and then dip that into the colored non-pareils. That's the time consuming part I can't reduce. Can any of you think of why this would not work?

In your mind, do you have a date by which you say to yourself "if this hasn't happened, then I need to gracefully quit?" ... see what measurable objectives are reasonable to achieve within X time and then you will know if they are truly serious about changing. I'm not saying it has to be a big change, but you need to see some forward momentum to know this is going to work, long-term. Don't be the frog in the full pot of water slowly coming to the boil.

You are the second person this week who has mentioned "shrub" when talking about alcoholic drinks. What is a "shrub"? (My tired brain is only thinking landscaping... so ...._

I have nothing really to add except my experience as a user on social media - I'm *always* looking at the background, especially when I see other bakeshops featuring a picture. You'll be surprised at what you learn about the operations in another place when they post a picture that isn't a tight shot of the product....