JeanneCake

Does buying yourself a present count? I just got my copy of Herme's new Macaron book last week because I couldn't wait to get it for Christmas!

I'm curious.... do the delivery people get an hourly wage? Or are they solely dependent on tips?

cue music.... Please come to Boston, for the springtime....there's lots of gold.....

Abra has a blog about her experiences in France; check out frenchletters.wordpress.com - her writing is often touching, insightful, thought-provoking and heart-warming.

I have no idea if it is traditional or not, but your mention of the hazelnut flour being expensive prompts me to suggest the Linzertorte recipe in Rose Levy Beranbaum's Pie and Pastry Bible. It calls for blanched (or you can blanch them yourself easily) hazelnuts that you grind with the sugar/flour and make an easy, press-in-the-pan tart pastry that is very delicious. It's less than a pound of nuts for the one tart (I usually increase the recipe for us at home because with our crowd an 11" tart is the right size and it's still less than a pound). If you try this recipe, don't make the pastry too thick (it puffs a bit) and you can take whatever dough remains and add egg white to it until you have a pipeable consistency and then pipe a lattice on top using a pastry bag with the end cut off (you don't need a piping tip for this, just make it a small opening because with all the added egg white, this will spread a bit during baking).

I have the same problem with the door (to the shop) width. I have two large picture windows that will have to be removed when I finally buy a case. I've already got a quote for the window removal/replacement so I think the real challenge is going to be coordinating the delivery and window company arrivals. So if you have the option to remove a window, or take the door off the frame to get a case in, look into it.

I was intrigued by this thread so it took me a little while to figure out when it was that I joined; turns out it was Oct 2004. I had no idea it had been that long ago, I thought it was more recent than that. Like all of you, I've met some incredible people here, people who have become true friends (not just virtual ones), and learned so much from everyone here. I wonder where some have gone (RedSugar, GiftedGourmet, Nightscotsman), will forever miss others (FatGuy, Karen, CanadianBakin) and treasure all of you who still post and share your wealth of knowledge and humour!

EdwardJ is the man for refrigeration questions. Or a lot of food service/restaurant/retail shop questions. Incredible wealth of knowledge. Plus he has a chocolate shop so has relevant experience with regard to your questions.....

I know this is not helpful in the least, but better it is buzzing around than falling dead into something or she/he finds the lifeless fly on the cooler floor, for example. One of my best employees had an electrified "tennis racket" that was a bug zapper. When we shared a kitchen with another company, even though they had blue bug lights everywhere, they would leave the garage door open and that's when the bugs came in. She was a magician with that thing in her hands, nothing lived if she was on the prowl with it!

What is the glaze (or glazes) like when you make the full amount? Does it still seem too thick? Does it cool too much and become harder to pour? I've been using the chocolate lacquer glaze from the Rose's Heavenly Cakes book and it keeps well, you just have to add a little bit of water when reheating it; so I always make a full amount (or usually we do a 4x batch size) and keep what is left for the next time.

Sigh. now i'm annoyed with myself for missing the promotion; your test about the minimal marking made me think of my dipped holiday cookies. I'm not a chocolatier or confectioner so I don't want to temper a little bit of chocolate just to dip a pop or what-have-you so I'm using pate a glace, but it marks and looks bad and I just live with it. This shows I don't have to; when we are doing hundreds of cookies this will more than pay for itself.

I don't do anything with chocolate, but I want this!

I'm glad you're posting this, it gives me inspiration. Please don't stop. I love all types of cuisines, although my favorite dish is chicken tikka masala (with brown rice). Looking forward to the next installment!

I love the holiday hallejuah brioche in the Cake Bible; others I've tried are a little "heavy" for my taste, but that one is light and delicious. I was trying for a chocolate brioche bread pudding years ago and wasn't impressed with the Charlie Trotter or Sherry Yard recipes - they were good, but not what I was looking for.

The wowie cake (aka wacky cake) doesn't crumble; I've used it as layers in a wedding cake (vegan wedding); actually you could make him a layer cake with this recipe and the type of frosting that has confectioners sugar, butter and use almond or rice milk for the usual milk that is used to make it creamy. (for the vegan wedding I did the whimsical bakehouse frosting with all shortening). And it would work for a layer in the entremet; you can slice it (torte it), but it's a coarse cake when made with the GF flour so you can't get the usual thin layer you'd want for an entremet. the ingredients for a 9x13 single layer would be: 3 cups flour, 2 cups sugar, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 cup Hershey's, (mix this in a bowl); then I put 2 cups water, 2/3 cup veg oil, 2 TBL white vinegar and 2 tsp vanilla in a pitcher, then mix it all together; some pleaces say you can use a mixer and I did, when I needed the wedding cake, but usually just by hand until it all comes together. Then in the sprayed pan, bake at 350 til a toothpick comes out clean. I have subbed out almond flour and hazelnut flour for the Hershey's in equal measure for when I needed a non-chocolate version. I also used the Bob's Red Mill flour replacer in the chocolate version and it worked. That Cup4Cup client used the Hershey's chocolate cake recipe but that won't work for you because it has eggs.

I also second the Wacky cake idea (I know it as Wowie Cake); you need Hershey's for it to work (well, in my experience Hershey's works better than a more expensive cocoa); you can use the GF flour subsititute and it works. There's one from Keller, called Cup4Cup, that a client asked me to use specifically for her cake, but I don't know offhand if it fits the requirements for your guest. But try it; the cake works and he'll be thrilled to have it with some of the sorbet or whipped "cream" that others have suggested.... And you know we all want to see the smile on the little boy's face when he takes a bite of whatever you make! And you can give the parents the recipe for it so they can have it at home

You mean sheet pans? Or cookie sheets? All our sheet pans have rims that are an inch high, and as long as I am careful to hold the end of the parchment that has the piped shells on it with my right thumb, I can slide the template sheet out from under it with my left hand and it doesn't disturb the piped shells... ETA: for clarity. I hope.

What shape are you trying to make? When we have a lot of 2.5" round individual pavlovas to make, we make 10-15 full sheets of parchment paper marked with circles using a black sharpie marker. We slide that under a plain sheet of parchment and use it as a piping guide. After an entire sheet pan is piped, you can then just slide the template out from under and use it again and again and again.....maybe this would work for you? You could even mark one side of a silpat (keep in mind that you wouldn't want to put food on the side that is marked, and it could wash off over time).

You can, I'd go with cream because it's more flavorful than coconut milk; as Lisa suggests you can also add a coconut flavor in the form of a compound (I like Amoretti's Toasted Coconut) or an extract (I've used the one from Albert Uster, it's ok but I like the Amoretti one a lot more). Have no idea if you can find coconut extract in the spice section of a supermarket but my experience with those kind of extracts is that they can be bitter if too much is used. Maybe even consider doing a coconut marshmallow; or a coconut dacquoise if the other ideas don't work as well as you'd hoped.

He has two books; Bachour and Bachour Simply Beautiful; both should be available from Amazon....or you can contact him on his Facebook page for more information....

I am a glutton for punishment, but I think I'll stick to pastry !

Or filling with flavored marshmallow? and then sealing it so it's still a half egg, but at least filled with something? Is it hard to seal the bottom with chocolate when it's a marshmallow filling? (I don't know anything about chocolates, just pastries

The link worked for me as well, and I saw this in the description: Egg Molds Each mold produces half eggs. These molds are designed to work in pairs. They work best when they are used to make hollow whole eggs. Please note: The nubs, holes, and guiding lips around the edges of the cavity, (these ensure that the molds line up) may make it difficult to scrape the chocolate when using the molds to make half egg shapes. So I am not sure it is worth going through all the aggravation, instead, would you consider buying a different type of mold?

Andie, could you get your neighbor to give us her notes? I've been making meringue shells for pavlova and this past weekend I was disappointed in the results (the meringues wept a bit). I know that we just moved into our new kitchen and I was baking them in the range oven (not the convection) and attributed it to the oven temp. The recipe comes from an Australian women's magazine and has worked well for me in the past (4 whites, 1 cup bakers special sugar, 1/2 tbl cornstarch, 1 tsp vinegar, 1/2 tsp vanilla and it scales up nicely) but I'd like something well tested if you know what I mean!

I agree with all of pastrygirl's recommendations (even the same opinion of Iuzzini's book) and that you can't go wrong with Lebovitz and Luchetti's books (her first book, Stars Desserts can also be hard to find).Pichet Ong's recipe for pate a choux is the best one I've ever tried. Bachour's books are very beautiful and have great inspiration, but I haven't made anything from them yet. His verrines are gorgeous. I've found that Maida Heatter's books have been good for inspiration although they are written for home cooks. She made desserts for her husband's restaurant for many years and a lot of the recipes in her first two books were ones she made frequently for the restaurant. I have also used The Cake Bible for components (cake, pastry cream, bavarian, blini, curd).