JeanneCake

Has anyone ever made a chocolate brioche? Not brioche wrapped around a lump or baton of chocolate, but a chocolate throughout brioche. I can't find my copy of Emily Luchetti's Classic Stars Desserts where she had a chocolate caramel brioche bread pudding....and while I love the brioche bread pudding I make now, I'd love to do a chocolate version where the bread is chocolate, not the liquid.

I don't mind if the invitation is for 7, meaning we'll be sitting down to the table by about 8-8:15 or so. That's not what I would consider a delay but for my mother, who is managing diabetes, she needs to eat at specific intervals so that would mean she'll take a snack or plan to eat something accordingly. I think there's an "invitation to dinner" where there's a more formal expectation of when you'd be eating, and a "come on over around 7 and we'll do something for dinner" which is way more casual and prone to the whims of the distracted cook syndrome.

Sometimes I think it is because the host is trying a new recipe they've never made before. This concept (not to hijack the thread) I've never understood; why try to make something you've never attempted before - for company! Test it first! Then you'll know what to do and not have to order a pizza when it goes wrong. Now I've learned to have a snack before I go over there so I'm not ravenous when dinner is delayed....

I'm glad you like it My mom made this several times a week for us while we were growing up (that, and Texas Sheet Cake - which is kind of like a fudgy brownie with a chocolate glaze and nuts. Addictive. Very Addictive. Now I'm going to have to go find a recipe for that too and really bring home some taste memories!) and it was always good. Sometimes she would put a cream cheese frosting on it but we liked it plain. It works as cupcakes too

I've been using the same liqui-gel colors that I use to color buttercream/fondant; I am not crazy about the water-based airbrush colors but if it is a small amount, it's been ok. We've been using an Italian Meringue method from Herme's book, and adding the color to the second part of the egg whites, but we've also just added color before folding the batter. It seems to me that if you're going for a dark color, you run the risk of overfolding. We've had good results with Herme's method, and just like Teonzo, I've also found that on pastels, you do have to watch the oven time/temp otherwise a pale pink can have beige on it....

It's the regular one (not the Pro) - it's the one for the 6 qt KA; I got it at Home Goods about 3 months ago for $19.99; we love it so much at work that I called the company and they make one for a 20 qt Hobart (but it's really expensive). The more we use this little one, the more I think the money would be well spent on the one for the Hobart.... Here's a link to it:http://www.beaterblade.com/categories/beaterblade_1/beaterblade_.htm

I also have a Beater Blade (two, one for constant use and the other for backup), and love it; I want them to make it for my 7 qt KA, though.

Here is a link to the Barry-Callebaut site, and it lists the percentages for the white chocolate. I can't remember which one we have at work, I'll have to look tomorrow. http://www.callebaut.com/usen/products/chocolate/finest-belgian-white-chocolate

What about presenting a seminar at a local community college on starting a food business....

I am going to make Jaymes' sweet potato salad this weekend, but my favorite one comes from the Thrill of the Grill by Chris Schlesinger who owned the East Coast Grill in Cambridge MA. It uses fresh boiled potatoes, diced green and red peppers, red onion, scallions and an oil based dressing (it has olive oil, lime juice, garlic, tabasco, worcestershire and other stuff) and no one can get enough. I can make a 2x batch for 4 adults and there's none left for the next day Now I have to find the book!

Crooked Brook is good, too; a friend has gorgeous coats from there that she uses when she's in front of the public.

I've done wedding cake/pastries often at a local farm that has a tent set up next to the pond (it's lovely); and on many occasions, we use a regular 6' banquet table, covered in a burlap-kind of linen with cake stands and platters on risers. See if the venue will refrigerate the pies (there's going to be at least 20 of them, and I'm guessing you're doing 9" size?) until they're brought out for display; if they won't, you can put them in 10x10x3 inch boxes, and those into coolers with ice packs/dry ice. If it's being catered, my experience is that many caterers do not have refrigerated trucks onsite and if they do, they're tight on space because they're keeping their own food cool. Is the bride and groom having a sweetheart table for their own pie, and doing a pie-cutting/serving? (that's one pie that shouldn't be juicy or messy - you don't want them wearing a reminder of the pie for the rest of the night!)

What great ideas, thank you! Tying the strings and using mesh bags will definitely keep me from going nuts untangling strings

I don't have a laundry service at work; I do my own towels (but we use more paper towels and less side towels) and aprons because I have a huge capacity washer and dryer and both have a sanitizing cycle. We have only about 5 dozen white aprons with long ties, but the most I am washing at any given time is about 15- 18. I try to put in a few large bath towels that I don't care about (I get a little overzealous with the bleach if truth be told) so the apron ties don't get too tangled up, but they do and I am getting tired of all the untangling. Even if I untangle them after the wash, they're just as badly tangled when they come out of the dryer. Any ideas?

The white chocolate whisper cake from RLB is my go to recipe for when a client wants a slightly firmer cake than our usual vanilla cake. I agree with the others, is the best!

I don't know that you can get convection (fan blowing hot air) with heating only from the bottom; the fan is moving the hot air around/over the product in the oven. I have a Blodgett convection (commercial) and I'm not crazy about the way I need to rotate the pans so the ones in the left corner where a hot spot is don't color. There was a convection oven from a manufacturer in Canada - I think it was Doyon - in which the fan reverses every 2 or 3 minutes so that might be a better fit for you.

This is getting a little past the point of how does a business owner manage the use of bathrooms. I don't think EdwardJ went overboard by calling about someone parked illegally. They are two separate issues connected by the use of a bathroom earlier in the week by a guy who just needed to use the facility but didn't want to buy anything. He wasn't a customer. I see a lot of "bathrooms for customers only" signs especially in downtown shopping areas with individual storefronts. A store is open for business, and they're not selling free bathroom time. I am a small business owner myself; I appreciate that people have choices about where they buy the kind of goods I'm selling. Customers are fickle, one day they love you and the next they don't. More often, it's about the price of the goods and how much money they think the goods are worth. But this is beside the point. The illegal parking is a completely separate issue. The guy parked his car and left it for more than the posted time, and the guy was taking a chance he wouldn't get ticketed or towed. He got towed. That's the consequence for illegal parking. The fact that it happened to be EdwardJ who reported the illegally parked car is just icing on the cake depending on how you think karma was working that day.

Tried out a beater blade on our little mixer at work; and one of the staff wondered out loud if such a thing was made for Hobarts..... I looked it up and found one on Pastrychefcentral.com, and at $185 I want to make darn sure the thing works and is worth it! We do a lot of cake and cheesecake batters so there's a definite plus in not having to scrape the bowl every few minutes, but there are no online product reviews on that site, so I'm here to ask do you have one for your Hobart? Does it work? Well enough that you would encourage someone to buy one? How does it hold up in washing (the rubbery blades look as if they could becoming misshapen or shred)?

If they have a website, sometimes there's a resource page on it and there might be an answer there. Or at least a corporate chef department that has email addresses that you can contact directly. My sister (who owned a donut shop many years ago) used to buy Pillsbury stuff and she used their website a lot.

I hope I'm not breaking any rules here, but our very own Pam R has a passover dessert book that you should get. Her recipes posted in RecipeGullet for Pesach are excellent, and you're sure to find something to work with that wonderful-sounding mousse filling!

It's not an uncommon practice. One can always strike out on their own. I agree, and it doens't bother me at all. HE will know who made it. He (the chef) will also know HE didn't make it, and couldn't.....

Ask your chef to buy one of the flexipan sheets of bundt shapes and try the flipped flan cake method....

Wow. It's never about doing what's really right for the kids, is it? Was there no push back from the parents?

In the same category as muffins or cupcakes, whoopie pies seem popular lately; just as easy to make as muffins (make the batter, scoop and bake, they'll cool quickly and you could use a cream cheese frosting as the filling).

I loved this! Thank you for sharing. And for teaching me (without knowing it!) that I am beating my marshmallows too much! I noticed the corn syrup is not clear (corn syrup here is usually Karo brand, and the red label variety is clear); it looks almost honey colored.... Nice job!