JeanneCake

Check out the Easter Pastries thread newly bumped up in P&B forum; it has several photos of what you are describing....

how long did you let the tiers sit before stacking them? I like to use some corn syrup (replacing about an ounce or so of the cream with corn syrup) when using ganache as a glaze; the formula I use also has some butter in it (2# choc, 2# cream, 8 oz butter). But it doesn't seem as if the glaze was the problem .... in my experience when cakes crack, it's because the board flexes and causes the cake to crack (split). I haven't used foamcore for cake boards; I've been using the half inch thick drums made by a company in Canada - Enjay Converters. Most suppliers carry them now (Pfeil and Holing does, I'm sure others do too). Sometimes if a cake is very heavy, I use plywood; I've also seen thick masonite used by other bakers. I don't know that your cake was especially heavy, but if the board flexed, that could have caused the first crack and then the rumbling across those pavers just made the situation worse. I also use bubble tea straws instead of wooden dowels for support. They're strong, cheap, you can cut them easily ....

Well, there's always a glaze of sorts - mixing icing sugar with some type of liquid (milk, or water usually) and then a bit of flavoring (coffee, caramel, or lemon juice perhaps). You can make it as thick or as fluid as you like - it will be somewhat similar to a poured fondant in that it will develop a crust as it sits but is easy to bite through. I find it very sweet so I am not as fond of it, but it works really well on some cakes. Or what about lemon curd as a topping - quite tart but with the right type of cupcake, it might work. Maybe a gingerbread cupcake?

I did marshmallow lollipops last week for a fundraising event - I only half dipped them in chocolate then rolled them in sugared almonds (but surely you can substitute anything you want, non-pareils, sprinkles, fruity rice krispie cereal or maybe any kind of cereal). I am so used to dipping my cheesecake lollipops - which are frozen when dipped so that makes the chocolate set up almost immediately! - and doing room temp marshmallows meant that the chocolate didn't set quickly and dripped a lot. Someone suggested chilling the marshmallows but I just plodded along and finished them all and vowed not to dip the next batch of marshmallows! I double the recipe and use a regular full size sheet pan so mine are not as billowy beautiful as yours - they are the height of the sheet pan which is what - not even half an inch? so I made them more like financier shape rectangles....

Marshmallows might work; it might be time consuming to wrap or bag them, though depending on size. But certainly a lot of fun in terms of flavors and colors.... The same with brownies - I'm doing some brownie pops by cutting them into fingers, then dipping in chocolate and sprinkling on non-pareils, etc. But you certainly don't have to dip them in chocolate ....

Who knew something so simple could become so complicated! The Rich's I ordered somehow transformed into a generic product that is dairy (the sales rep is fixing it as we speak); the store-brand chocolate sandwich cookies are also dairy, as is every other variety of chocolate sandwich cookie now; and while I was there I checked out Cool Whip, which is also dairy (I always thought it was non-dairy but no. I don't know what's in it to see how it could be called dairy but never mind that for now). Droxies (Hydrox) are also dairy. I found chocolate graham crackers that are pareve so I'm going to use those instead of the oreo crumbs; different taste I know but same look. I think next time I am going to suggest they do a beach theme and go for sand instead of dirt - at least the Vienna Fingers cookies are pareve!

Pam, you're right about the Oreos - I always thought they were pareve, but no! Thank you for the heads up. I went to a large supermarket with a whole aisle devoted to Passover foods, and while they had plenty of Leiber and Kemach mixes, no cookies. I wonder if there are chocolate Nilla wafers (Famous Wafers are far too expensive to use for this) and if they are pareve.... I found Jello vanilla instant pudding at the store and it only had a circle U on it so that is pareve. Now I'm not sure what I'm going to do about the cookies if I can't find a sub for them; I might just end up making a plain chocolate cake (I use water in my recipe and will sub out the butter with margarine) and crumbling it up. I ordered the Rich's from Perkins and will see how it goes.

I'll be making 45 of them, it's a 5 oz serving (cosmo glass). Should I use regular or vanilla soy milk for the pudding (pastry cream)? I don't use soy milk so I don't know how the vanilla version differs from the regular or unflavored kind) then I can use the non-dairy whipped topping for the whipped cream. When you say vanilla creamer, is that a soy coffee creamer? In the milk aisle in the supermarket?

One of my catering clients needs a Dirt Cake dessert for a mitzvah celebration. It's been about 20 years since I had this last; I remember this as mixing up instant pudding mix with milk, and layering it with whipped cream and crushed oreos and letting it sit for a few hours and it was pretty good on a summer night after a barbeque. So since this is a meat meal, we cannot have dairy. I can get non-dairy whipped topping in a carton (Pastry Pride, Elgin and Rich's is what my distributor carries - any opinions on which is better than the other?) - can I use this as a substitute for milk when making the pudding? (I have to admit, I don't have any boxed pudding mix so I have to look and see if that can even be used at all.) Or, any other ideas on how to do this dessert if you can't use the non-dairy topping as milk?

What the reviewer expresses is their own personal opinion and I doubt that there is much you can do to prove malicious intent. It would be intereting to note whether the reviewer in question has routinely published poor reviews of similar wines/products. If this is their first poor review, then perhaps their motives are not pure and they do intend harm; but it's impossible to prove. And I think you'd have to establish economic loss to get anywhere (your winery lost X amount of business over previous years directly as a result of this reviewer's claims). So as hard as it is to ignore, it's best to let it go. Or send them a case of the wine in question!!

white chocolate would work to stiffen it without gelatin; I always like to add some of the cream to the melted chocolate (as if you were tempering it) so you don't get bits of hardened chocolate in the cream. You can also add some of the cream to the chocolate and then melt it and add the whipped cream to it.....

Sigh. Since our computer crashed a month ago, we've been trying to get it fixed to no avail. So all I have is the one from the website: Coffee and Heath Bar Pops The most popular flavors are the heath bar, oreo, and bailey's irish cream; I'm trying to do some "summer" flavors like pina colada, lemonade (pink lemonade maybe?) and summer drink types. Amoretti just sent me some flavor compounds to try out, we'll see how that goes.

I'm in search of vermicelli in different flavors; I already use the white, milk, dark and coffee versions; I'd love to be able to find different colors/flavors. I use this on mini pastries but mostly for the garnish on our cheesecake lollipops (after they're dipped in chocolate, I dip them in vermicelli, chopped nuts, chopped candy so they look better). I don't like the waxy taste that regular sprinkles (aka jimmies) give you with the lollipops (it completely overwhelms the cheesecake) and want to use something that compliments the lollipop. I found a company in Vietnam that makes pink strawberry, green (mint, and tea) and mixed colors but I can't tell if they are chocolate or not; and can't find a source in the US or North America. I'm doing a strawberry-champagne version for Valentine's Day and hoped to use pink vermicelli, but I'm going to use the strawberry curls from Albert Uster Imports. Would just like to have a variety of this to use for Easter.... Do you know of a source?

Ever since our cheesecake lollipops became popular, I started using the pate a glace from Schokinag because it's faster and easier. We have no trouble with the milk and the semisweet versions; I'm having trouble with the white. We are careful to control the heat of the bain marie (the water never boils) and always dry off the pail when finished. But two of the last few buckets of white we've used have caramelized on the bottom, leaving streaks of caramel color in the white (which when it happened the first time, I thought it was rust) and making it unsuitable for anything other than our heath bar crunch and caramel lollipops. So it's not a complete loss but I have other flavors that need white and to only be able to use a half pail is not cost effective. So I wonder if I'm doing something wrong, or if this is just typical of this product and I should plan to make more caramel and heath bar pops and live with it Is anyone else having the same problem with this product?

Hmmm. What haven't I made from this book is probably a better place to start! As the book is in work and I am home, I can tell from the top of my head that the Linzer Torte (tart) is excellent, and I've substituted best quality apricot jam for the seedless raspberry with good results. The pecan tart is hands down the best I've had, it is on the menu at several of my restaurant clients. Use the Lyle's syrup if you can get it; but it works with dark corn syrup too. At first I had trouble with the baking time for this recipe (the top was very spongy looking) but it turned out I needed to bake a while longer. The tarts are as beautiful as they are tasty. The Chocolate Oblivion tart is very nice, but I usually end up just pouring a good ganache into the chocolate pate sucree crust and call it a day. The Boulders Tart and the Tart Nadege is quite good. I also got good reviews on the peanut butter mousse tart. I make the apple walnut tart at the holidays but I prefer almond cream to the walnut cream if truth be told. That's all I can remember without the book in front of me!

Years ago, an eGulleteer, MelMck, posted about her experiences in setting up a new bakery, Criollo. Do a search for her topic, which I think was "Mel's New Bakery" or something like that. It's a journey worth going on. The thread was mentioned in an issue of Bon Appetit, I think.

Does that mean this latest job opportunity is one in a series of similar episodes? Where you are talking to people over the telephone, or email; and when they meet you in person, you see the light in their eyes dim and the excitement wane? Did you feel comfortable enough with anyone you interviewed with - or a former boss, for example - who can give you some honest feedback about how you are coming across? What leaped out at me was the phrase you wrote and I put in bold above. Yes, age discrimination exists at all levels (against the younger employee as well as the older employee). People often make snap judgements on first impressions and this could be what's happening with you. When I was leaving one job for another as a technical trainer (where there were few women in the field, and being 25 and single, one of my mentors took me to lunch and told me very plainly that I needed to wear my glasses when I was teaching because it made me look a little older, and people took me more seriously when I wore my glasses instead of contacts. I tried it out during a class I was teaching - and he was right.) So perhaps something in your demeanor or appearance makes you look younger than your years and that did not inspire this group to let you take care of their million dollars. You need to find someone who will be honest with you and tell you if that's the case.

It will be easier for you to use modeling chocolate for this particular project - it won't distort and you can let it firm up over time at rm temp or chill until firm and then apply. Chefpeon first gave me this advice years ago, and it's spot on. Modeling chocolate rules!!

I have to tell the dishwasher at work to let the pans soak overnight and do them in the morning; she doesn't always listen but I tell her all the time. My mother used to put dish soap and water in a frying pan after a particularly messy dinner; bring the water to the boil, let it boil for a few minutes, turn it off and then let it sit for a little while. It was a breeze to clean after that.

No clue on how it works with chocolate! But it very probably is the same principle - using cocoa butter to make the pattern on the acetate and then applying the tempered chocolate. Or it could be a stencil with an airbrush. Maybe Kerry (Beal) would know. Or Ilyana (Lior) or John DePaula.

I think you would want to use cocoa butter on an acetate sheet; I think the edible inks are water based and would smear on acetate if you tried to put that through the printer. (I have an epson printer and those ink cartridges - I buy the frosting sheets from Pfeil and Holing because they're the same price and no shipping charges). When I make "logo" petit fours for clients, I use the sheets, and resize the client's image to something very small (an inch square usually) then put it on a (rolled) fondant square so I can make these the day before (I also like to paint the edges and make it look like a frame). I use dipping chocolate for my petit fours (less sweet than the poured fondant which is traditional) so it is possible to adhere the image directly to the chocolate (timing is everything, too soon and the image may bleed, too late and it doesn't stick.) but the fondant tiles work well.

This one (from Modern Pastry) is pretty much the same thing as the one from Vacarro's; the Modern Pastry slice looks like it's from a sheet cake, rather than a round. I know that at the bakery my parents used, they didn't have almonds on the sides, just more frosting but the cake looked exactly like the picture. In fact, even when my parents went elsewhere for the cake because Patsy's didn't have it, it was the same so if you are looking to make your own, the Recipezaar will give you that result.

I remember these rum cakes; we had them for every occasion (and sometimes just because) when I was growing up and I didn't care for them at all because of the overwhelming rum soak the bakery used to give it. The pastry creams were really good, though so I always polished off the filling part and left the cake behind! The picture and recipe that John posted above will give you that result and yes, do follow the instructions carefully.

Well, then. Let's get the protest started! Where do we write? Or do we know if there's someone who is still at Bay Bread who can say whether they are still manufacturing it for TJ?

IMHO, the best rugelach dough has cream cheese in it; most recipes have you roll into a circle and put the filling (usually some combination of nuts, sugar and dried fruits) and then you cut it into wedges and roll it. My guess is that in a commercial setting, it makes more sense for them to do it like croissant (cutting the dough into triangles). Whatever they are using for chocolate has to be able to survive the time in the oven without leaking and making a mess... but the article does mention they are oily? Did you find them oily? What is/are chalot? Is it the name of a specific type of pastry?