JeanneCake

I just checked my Albert Uster buckets, and all of them have hydrogenated veg oil so don't bother going there. Most commercially made fondants are going to have this in it; when Crisco changed their formula, the homemade fondants didn't work well and people started to switch to Spectrum shortening (I think that's the brand...) If you call Bakels and tell them, they'll definitely respond. Especially if they hear from enough of us. Maybe they don't even realize that this "trans fat free" thing will affect them. And there's no way people will pay for fondant designs and HAVE to peel off the fondant. If you don't like it, that's one thing. But having to remove it because you're not allowed to eat it is another!!

What's in this drink?!

what happened to once burned, twice shy? The FN should have known better after the Network Star thing when one of the finalists had been found to have fabricated or embellished some of his credentials. At that point, they should have gone and done due diligence on ALL the on air talent regardless. No exceptions, no excuses. Robert Irvine isn't the only one with egg on the face here.

My most beat up cookbook is Maida Heatter's Book of Great American Desserts. There are three clumps of pages broken completely free from the binding, the paper dust cover has been lost to time and all my recipe notes and adjustments duly noted along with the vanilla stains. I used to keep an elastic (rubber) band around it but now I just let it rest in peace. I had to buy a second copy of it years ago. I'm even considering buying a third just in case. I've also gone through two copies of the Silver Palate books (the original two); and The Cake Bible. As for the savoury side... I have a few Pierre Franey books that have seen better days, as well as my Aida Boni Italian cookbook.

For us growing up, our usual Lenten Friday meal was white fish (cod, scrod, haddock) and tomato sauce poured over it. Usually by the time I got home from practice it was overcooked and rubbery and the tomato sauce was ... well, not soft anymore! I hated it. And my grandmother thought that meatless Fridays should extend throughout the year, not just during Lent. Victoria's dish will be on our menu from now on. Thanks for sharing it. Do you still see her?

for ganache the general guideline is with dark chocolate, you can use equal amounts cream and chocolate; with white chocolate, you use half as much cream as chocolate.

I remember something similar if not the same thing you are remembering - the employer had been given a printed copy of the entire thread, presumably by someone who had access to it and put 2 and 2 together, resulting in the OP's loss of a job. Be very careful what you write, it can haunt you for years.

it's a lot more work but you could use a mold to form the shape and keep them chilled until service. Use bloomed gelatin, add it when the curd is still warm. Your mileage may vary but start with 3 sheets per 2 cupcs curd. I haven't used PH's recipe, or the one in Friberg; I use the curd recipes from RLB to flavor buttercream with or pour over cheesecakes; when I need a tart recipe, I add some whole eggs (an all yolk curd is pretty intense IMO, good for when it will be "diluted" but you get tired of it if you are trying to eat your way through a 4" tart.)

I have great luck - and an excellent response - by adding Irish Cream to an Italian Meringue Buttercream. Add as much as you like to taste, but not too much otherwise the buttercream will be too soft. The amount will depend on your batch size - for about 2# of butter, I'd say not more than 3 oz of liquor....

Make extra pieces of everything and make sure they're dry when you go to assemble them. Having extra will help you if something breaks unexpectedly and if you decide you need to support a piece, you have a duplicate. Sort of like coating the back of a gingerbread wall with chocolate for extra strength. Good luck! Take pictures to share the fun!

I agree with Annie - in the same situation I'd bake and freeze the unassembled cakes; then use a simple syrup to add a little moisture (and perhaps flavor, depending on what you end up with for flavors) when assembling them. Butter cakes tend to be perceived as drier than cakes made with other fats so the syrup will help with that. But definitely don't freeze the cakes fully decorated with fondant; it's hard to bring them back out of the deep freeze without ruining the look of the fondant. I would prefer to freeze the layers rather than freeze the crumbcoated cake - but that's just my preference; I like to have two coats of buttercream under the fondant or a single thicker layer of buttercream. Good luck!

All this reminds me of the Chocolate Cheesecake Brownie in Maida Heatter's Book of Great American Desserts. This dessert is always a big hit and a nice change of pace from the usual stuff. It is a chocolate brownie with coconut and pecans topped with a chocolate cheesecake mixture also with coconut in it. Having said that.... What if you created or used your favorite brownie recipe using the chopped cookies instead of the nuts - pour it in the pan, then pour over it your cheesecake mixture. Maybe even marble the two by spooning it over the brownie mixture in gobs. In the original, both layers are not too thick, but you know you're eating a brownie and you know it has the most delicious chocolate cheesecake on top of that. The book has it in a square brownie pan, but I make it in a round, removeable bottom cheesecake pan and use some cocoa on the top.

What happened to the woman who won the Food Network Star contest? I don't have a lot of opportunity to watch FN (I try to see Ace of Cakes because it's funny and that's what I do, but usually I'm asleep because I start work so early in the AM) I seem to remember she got a good timeslot on Sundays but while Guy F has parlayed his "win" to go on to other shows, that hasn't happed with this winner. Or any other ones? And as for Sandra Lee.... well, I don't enjoy her show and I've seen it a few times. But I did happen to be awake when the FN did a "chefography" on her. I have to give her credit for persistance and sheer grit - to have been the "mom" to younger siblings while her mother was ill (she took over the family household as a young teenager) and then when her younger siblings went to live with their father, she was alone at 16 (her father wasn't in the picture, I gathered). I didn't know she was the person who invented the pouffy valence thing (I had one or two in my first apartment, I will admit. They were perfect for my budget and looked great.) and made her $ there. That to me explains all the tablescape stuff - she's creative and able to take inexpensive things and pull it together. And all that stuff she cooks is what she was making at 13 for her siblings so now I know what that's all about. It doesn't make me want to watch the show, or cook anything she's showing, but after watching that, I have respect for her and what she's been able to make of her life after a difficult start.

You may find that you need more "stuff" to make realistic looking gum paste flowers - the gum paste, color, a ball tool (to roll the edges of the petals and make them curve and curl realistically), a foam mat to roll the petals with the tool, cutters will make the job easier but you can fashion your own stencil to cut the petals from. Then wires, and perhaps green floral tape to make the buds with.... Weigh the cost of buying all this "stuff" to make some flowers with buying the real flowers and see what works out for you. It's less stressful to buy the flowers, but if you want to make them, start well in advance (like, now. And I'm not trying to be funny - you will want time to experiment and perfect your technique and it can take a lot of dedicated time to perfect a skill like this. I can make my own flowers and some of them are really nice, but Mother Nature does the best job, and Cal-Java, Avalon and a bunch of others also do a better job on the more complicated flowers so I will let them have the honor!) It will be a lovely gift from you to your friend; you should have fun doing it!

I buy the Felchlin from Swiss Chalet Fine Foods - they have three locations. The main one is in Miami, then there's a warehouse in NJ and I think somewhere in Texas? Not sure about that one. I think the website for more info is Swiss Chalet If you go for the Felchlin ultra gloss, you want the disks, they melt a lot easier (it's also available in a bucket). You can either pour it over the petit fours, or dip them (like chocolates.) I dip mine, and like to do it while they are still frozen if possible to minimize the crumbs. But you'll have to strain the chocolate occasionally to get rid of the crumbs and keep the bowl on a heating pad or return it to simmering water as it begins to thicken and to melt more. Sometimes you have to dip them twice, it depends on whether you like to see the layers within or not. The coverage will depend on the viscosity of the chocolate. With fondant, I always dipped twice and hated how it crusted; for me it's so much easier to use the coating chocolate. I bet you could use any other brand of coating chocolate. I've only used Van Leer dark so my guess is Van Leer in white would work equally as well.

This is such a lovely blog, Ilana. Thank you for sharing so much of your life with us; I'm loving it! I am so thoroughly enjoying your writing and photos! Thank you, thank you!

you can color regular pouring fondant; or I use Felchlin ultra gloss chocolate coating (I like how it covers and tastes better than fondant) and you can color that (pastels look better! )

You need to see it to believe it.... Two Eggs are Better than One ETA additional information: This is a newspaper article about a woman in the UK who cracked an egg only to find another, whole-in-the-shell egg within. The "outer" egg was about 3" in size and gave no external clues about what was inside. I'd had lots of double-yolked eggs, but I've never had anything like this!

No, it's just different. Roland Mesnier uses this method for the creme brulees in his books and I can attest to the fact that his Champagne Creme Brulee with sugared grapes is a big hit!

That's exactly how I feel too - I hate cleaning out those corners but that's what I want - straight, square, true corners. I don't want these fake corners in the daddio pan..... whine whine whine I don't even want to wash these to try them out.

I bought a set of odd-sized square pans (15, 13, 11) from Pfeil and Holing - and they come from Fat Daddio. They seem heavy enough. But the inside corners are "mitered" - meaning they slope and aren't square. I'm so used to my trusty Magic Line pans that I am wondering if I should send these back and just do a special order from Parrish's. I also noticed that P&F has a line of unusual shapes that I get from Australia (such as comma, petal, hexagon, octagon, triangle, cut-corner rectangle, etc) and now I wonder if those are coming from Fat Daddio too. Has anyone baked in these square pans? What do you think? How do those corners come out? Got any of those odd shapes? Do you like how these pans perform?

There are a few things I make in 3" round cake rings that need to be tamped down to get rid of air bubbles (which would look unsightly when the dessert is unmolded) or my individual flourless cakes that need to be pushed down after baking to fill out and make the sides smooth (rather than concave which sometimes happens). Years ago a friend used a cylinder of wood that she had made (this was in CA) but I need to find a tool like this because I'm tired of using the spray caps, which are just about the right side but not quite. Most of the pastry tamper tools are meant for tart dough and are 2" wide. Anyone got any ideas about where to find one? If I had to get something like this made, what kind of wood should I ask for, and where would I go (a butcher block place?).

I made Morello Cherry hearts (like gfron1 I didn't like how they were a little misshapen as a result of using the cutter and plus it was a lot of waste); strawberry and blood orange this weekend. The blood orange were great; I replaced an equal measure of blood orange puree for the strawberry, but felt it could use a little more oomph but they were by far the favorite. The strawberry ones were very soft, in fact, a day after they are almost mushy and I'm picking up some grainy texture in a few of them. I didn't beat these quite so long as the other two, though. I fill a half-sheet pan with this formula and sometimes it doesn't fully fill the pan - one edge might be a little thinner than the other if you don't beat for the right amount of time at the end. I think I killed my trusty 6 qt KA with these, though. Mind you, this workhorse is in use on an almost daily basis and I do beat the living daylights out of it so maybe it wasn't the marshmallows

I like the idea of fig, pear and goat cheese but I I know that's not one of the original choices For that matter I like raspberry and goat cheese too. I would like chocolate, hazelnut, apricot and coffee or chocolate, cherry, apricot and hazelnut

I guess it depends on how the client feels I love the ball and chain idea... make a broken link in the chain and have the ball positioned at some distance away dragging part of the chain You could put dollar signs all over it to either represent the amount of money it cost, or what they would save by being out of the marriage; or look at their wedding cake (get a description if possible) and just do half of it. I mean literally make a stacked cake and cut it in half (all that stuff about two becoming one...now the one becomes two....) There's a wedding cake somewhere online with iced letter cookies spelling out JUST MARRIED on two of the tiers. Spell out JUST DIVORCED in bright colors. Make a replica of a marriage certificate and "tear" it in two. Make a whimsy bride and groom sugar "figurine" and depending on which one your client is, have one spouse pushing the other over the side of the cake....