JeanneCake

I'm curious about where to find used confectionery equipment; like everyone else, I'm thinking of getting a guitar (for cutting pate de fruit, marshmallows, petit fours) but I wonder if buying a used machine - if one were to be found - is a good idea. Do you have a dealer you'd recommend? What say you all?

Another possibility is to modify a blondie recipe (a little like brownies but with brown sugar, eggs, butter, vanilla); my favorite recipe is from Maida Heatter in her Great American Desserts book for California Fruit Bars. As I recall, you melt butter and brown sugar and then add eggs, vanilla, salt and flour. And steamed dried fruit and pecans (or all pecans). I've made this with cherries and hazelnuts; kind of chewy, and sort of butterscotchy; on the thin side (about a half inch high) but no matter what you put in it, it's really good!

It has been hinted that I am going to get a Valentine's gift of a coffee maker (my child is not good at keeping quiet) since the one I had on the counter isn't working any more. Usually I make coffee if I am home or having guests so while I want something useful, coffee is not a religion in my house so the single cup thing would be ok.. I make coffee at home once or twice a week at most and I'm told that they were looking at the Starbucks one (because they had hot chocolate there today). If I need to do some hinting of my own between a Nespresso, Starbucks Verismo and the Keurig, which one should I start gushing about (because that's what will be in the box . No chocolates for me this year!)

Some of the favorites from my non-professional cooking days were from Maida Heatter's books - the California Fruit Bars (also the Pecan Bars version); the Oreo Sour Cream Cake (a white sour cream cake with chopped oreos - you pour some of the batter in the bundt pan, sprinkle in chopped oreos, put the rest of the batter in, then glaze with chocolate after cooling), her Bran Muffins (don't laugh, these are awesome. Use walnut halves, not chopped walnuts and use golden raisins.) for cookies, go for the Chocolate Gobs (Best American Desserts) or Mulattoes (her first book). Rose Levy Beranbaum's pecan tarts, hazelnut Linzer (try it with apricot jam intead of seedless raspberry, it's fantastic), the key lime pie from the bottle of Nellie and Joe's key lime juice....

No, that's the thing. It's a supporting beam (or whatever they're called) and I think this is going to be a dealbreaker. I don't want a cooler that is only 4 feet wide and I don't want it to be the big square in the center of the space. Sigh. It's always something. This is a great retail space, too.

So I'm considering new space; and the challenge is that there are four steel poles that are about 4 or 5 feet away from the corners at each point. I need to install a walk in cooler; and I've got the panels, etc (I'll need to buy a new compressor). I'm thinking that I can't install a cooler with one of those poles in the corner of it because the ceiling panel of the cooler would have to have a hole cut in it then sealed around the pole and that could be a problem. Yes? No? Has anyone done this before? Can it work?

When making key lime pie, I always use the pasteurized yolks, and I use .62 oz of the carton stuff to replace 3 large fresh yolks, so if you were to use about 15-17 grams or .2 oz per large yolk that would probably be ok. I use the pasteurized yolks for this recipe only because there's so little cooking involved - the acidity of the lime juice is what is setting the mix not necessarily the heat.

I've seen similar results when using pasteurized yolks when making fruit curd - compared to using shell eggs, the 'set" in the curd is much softer with the carton stuff. I don't know why that is; i wonder if some of the proteins are neutralized during processing. I know this isn't much help, sorry

Can you describe the scones? Or buy one and take a photo to post? You might be able to add rehydrated apple chips to a rich scone recipe or otherwise modify your favorite type of scone to include apples....

I am considering buying a large and small for each of the chefs at my major accounts as a thank you gift for their business over the past year. Is it lame? Or would make a well appreciated gift?

You could sugar them (paint a very thin layer of egg white, and dredge in sugar, let dry) and then use them in mendiants or as decoration for future desserts. Stored airtight they will last quite a long time; but if there's any moisture they'll develop mold. You could store them with a dessisicant packet in them for insurance.

Our go to formula for most of the ganache we use (cake filling, outside coat on cake) is 2# chopped chocolate or callets - we use bittersweet choc, usually a 60% - 8 butter in with the chocolate. Then in a pot, 2# heavy cream (40%). If we are using it for tarts where we'd like to to maintain a gloss for a few hours, I'll sub an ounce or two of corn syrup for an ounce of 2 of cream. Bring to a rolling boil (as in climbing the pot) then pour over the chocolate/butter. Let it sit for a minute or so, then stir very gently with a whisk. Then leave it alone!

You can also use food color pens on a pastillage (or gum paste) plaque.

I have two different lemon curd recipes; one that uses only yolks (we call it cake curd because we use it as a component in our lemon cakes - spreading on the cake, and flavoring the buttercream) and the other (we call it tart curd because we pour it into tart shells) that uses whole eggs and some additional yolks. The cake curd sets firmer than the tart curd; and to my taste is a far stronger lemon punch (all those yolks are fat, and fat carries flavor....). I don't like the cake curd in a tart shell, though for exactly that reason. In our cheesecake, if I want to make it a little firmer without resorting to adding (any, or more) cornstarch or flour (only the pumpkin cheesecake has any flour in it actually), especially when I'm trying to make cheesecake pops, I replace one of the whole eggs with two yolks. If I get cocky and think I need it to be a littler firmer and add an extra yolk "just because", I am rewarded with a too-tough texture and end up making little cheesecake superballs that can take your eye out!

I'd use it in a gingerbread recipe, replacing pepper (if the recipe called for it); mostly because today we were making the fresh ginger cake from David Lebovitz and the bite of the fresh ginger reminds me of the bite you get with dijon. I bet you could replace the black pepper and reduce the fresh ginger a little bit to compensate...use a teaspoon or two of the mustard if you go with that recipe.

What do you have to lose by trying? Especially if this is destined to be tossed anyway.... I'd be curious and if it were myself, I'd do a little experiment: divide the mixture in half. Bake one half and see what happens. Then mix a yolk or two with some sugar and combine that with the remaining half and bake that (on the chance that there aren't enough yolks to set the custard. If just baking it works, then you don't need to do this....)

What happens when you reduce the baking powder? Try it with 2 tsp instead of 2.25 and see if this makes a difference. Most cakes fall because of a weak structure due to too much leavening.....

Besides the obvious in how not to behave with people, what are you learning there? When you finish in 4 months, will you be a pastry cook with 24 months of experience or a pastry cook with 20 months of experience because you didn't learn anything in this job because of being paralyzed with fear? If you can learn new skills, or polish your existing skills (becoming faster, more confident) while dealing with the lunatic chef; then ok. I have to wonder: you're spending so much time insulating yourself from the emotional stress of this position that what are you able to learn?

I agree that the stress in this workplace is not doing you any good. You can't learn anything or be productive if you are always worried about what is going to set the chef off and have her yell. The fact that she yells should make you realize she's not going to be a good mentor to you as an apprentice so even if you stay, you won't get much out of the experience. Did this chef interview you for the position? Was she aware that you are a novice? If she did not interview you or hire you, she may be frustrated at her lack of input for a new hire. Chefs who yell are nothing new. To me, a boss that yells is a lousy boss. When a mistake is made, the boss should not be looking to place blame, but to figure out why the mistake happened and how to fix it if possible. When a mistake is made, the employee responsible should acknowledge the mistake and do what's possible to not repeat the mistake and show that the lesson is learned. When doing a new task, have someone show you how it should look, then you do it and have them approve it, then when you have done several, check in again to make sure what you are doing is correct before you do 100 of them and find out they are wrong. Explain you are doing this to prevent mistakes and to save the company money and time. Something you said in your post is staying with me: the "common sense that I lack and need for thorough guidance" - this chef is used to the workers already there who know the routine and do things without guidance. This may be affecting you more than you think. If you forget things quickly, try repeating what is said to you. Tell the chef you need to write things down (keep your notebook in your pocket) in order to stop making mistakes and to learn. Write quickly so it doesn't become an issue. But seriously, look for another place. This place is not going to help you learn anything other than to doubt yourself and that there are some really crappy bosses out there. If nothing else, it is teaching you what kind of boss you don't want to be.

Thank you! Am ordering it tomorrow!

Has anyone had any luck finding the white coloring (the titanium stuff)? PCB doesn't list it any more ....

That looks wonderful! I think I'd like to make these, or at least try. A few of my clients are planning holiday open houses to show their venue space; is there a flavor that is very pale (one of them is having a winter white theme) so that the PdF could be in the winter white spirit? Something like white peach? pear? any other ideas?

Is it possible? I've always done mine in small batches (meaning 14 or 28 at a time) in a regular oven; I am going to be getting requests for 150+ and I would really like to use the convection oven (low fan). I'll have time to try it out mid-Sept when things calm down, but thought I'd see if anyone is making it like that now; or has in the past and can either reassure me it's possible or save me from wasting the ingredients Basically, it's an egg foam (whole eggs beaten with sugar), with melted chocolate and butter that has a hot sugar syrup added to it, then that is added to the eggs and it's baked in a bain marie. I always get a crust on mine, it breaks up when the cake is compressed down after coming out of the oven (I always push down on the whole ones with the bottom of a tart pan, or for my individuals, a smaller round pan that fits inside the 3" round pan. This way, there is little chance the cake will be "sunken" on the sides - but if that were to happen, we'd just fill it out with some semi-firm ganache.

Yeah, blondies are not really white chocolate brownies; there's a recipe from Maida Heatter for California Fruit Bars which contain brown sugar, eggs, flour, vanilla - and then you add softened dried fruit and nuts; my favorite version is with pecans, dried cranberries and white chocolate chips; I thought you'd have better luck tweaking something that doesn't contain melted chocolate or cocoa based on what the OP was saying was going wrong with the recipes already tried....

I don't have a white chocolate brownie; I usually add a mix of white chocolate chips and dark chocolate chips (the callets) to the chocolate brownie we make; but if you're looking for a white chocolate brownie, you might want to consider tweaking a blondie recipe or a caramelita recipe to use more white chocolate. If you are replacing the dark/semisweet chocolate in a recipe you're currently using, you need to adjust for the additional milk solids and lack of cocoa solids (depending on the brand you are using) in white chocolate. I can't think of a replacement for cocoa if you have a recipe that is using cocoa and not melted chocolate....