JeanneCake

Thank you for the great ideas! The sweet croutons are a nice touch. As it turns out, the event has printed menus because people are expected to vote for their favorite soup and the winner gets a plate or some other sort of trophy. The organizers weren't sure what to do with a dessert soup - no one had ever approached them about it before! I told them I didn't need to be on the ballot.

We have six of these at work; they all open 180 degrees.

When my husband first moved in with me, he would awaken to the smell/sound of garlic sizzling in olive oil as I started the usual Saturday morning routine: making gravy (what we called tomato sauce when I was growing up). He said it was the hardest thing to get used to. I married him anyway. I too, hated the smell of coffee when I was in my twenties. I don't know what changed, but now I have to have dark roasted coffee or it isn't a good day. Remember that old OJ jingle - a day without oj is a day without sunshine? Change that to coffee for me, please. I also used to hate olives with a passion and now I can't get enough. So maybe there's hope for your husband that his palate will change ...

Well, if you don't have any white coating chocolate (which is what the Felchlin Ultra Gloss is), you can use poured fondant. Do you have the Cake Bible? There's a recipe for "food processor poured fondant" in there, and it would work. It takes a while for the sugar to cool down (an hour), though so plan ahead. That's what I used until my friend told me she used the white choc with better results and far better taste. Poured fondant is similar in texture and taste (sweet!) to the icing you make with confectioner's sugar and milk or water - it's a fluid icing that will eventually firm up like ganache does. If you freeze your petit four squares, you can dunk them in the fondant with fewer crumbs. Keep it over a water bath or double boiler so it stays fluid and doesn't crust while you're using it. If you use the white choc, you can dunk them too; either way you might want to dunk twice for better coverage. Strain whatever you're using because you will get some crumbs in it no matter how careful you are. How many of these little darlings do you have to make? If you go with a half-sheet size, with 3 layers of sponge; you can get about 45-50 out of it; very probably more if you are making them dainty little 1" squares. Trim the edges all the way around before you start making your little squares or cuts.

Yep, they're thin when you make them in the jelly roll pan. But when you put them in a brownie pan (sold in supermarkets) or a 9x13, they're thicker. Takes a little longer to bake, but they're the right thickness for when I want to overload them with fruit or make the pecan-only version. I can't get enough of this when I make them with apricots, cranberries, and pecans!

Do you have any of Maida Heatter's books? There is a huge selection of bars in her books. My favorites are the California Fruit Bars (basically a blondie with assorted fruits like figs, apricots, cranberries, dates.... ), Palm Beach Brownies, the York Peppermint Brownies and the Katharine Hepburn Raspberry brownies. And there are other non-chocolate bar recipes, but you can take the California Fruit bar recipe and add chocolate bits or heath bar, or coconut, and bake it in a brownie pan rather than a jelly roll pan to make it thicker. I think you should stack the bars in a tower..... You can bake and freeze the invidually wrapped bars ahead and transport them in a box or milk crate....

A friend sent that photo to me; I remember the text saying that the bride had a model-maker create a "mask" for the face and the baker built around it. And what do you think the kitchen staff was thinking as they cut it!!!.....

A creme anglaise doesn't have starch in it to thicken it; it has the same components albeit in a different ratios (creme anglaise will have yolks while creme pat calls for some whole eggs and yolks) but the main difference between the two is the lack of a flour or cornstarch thickener. I think of custard as a broad category - they can be cooked on the stovetop, or in the oven; purists might say that custards are only thickened with eggs (no starch) but creme pat is very definitely a custard and it has flour and/or cornstarch. So your mileage on this definition might vary.

Hey Brian- I caved and bought the Hero stuff (paying for shipping aack!), waiting for it to arrive. I ordered the cherry jam because I'm doing variations on the linzertorte - using the hazelnut dough from RLB's Pie and Pastry Bible (it's very sturdy, you don't even have to roll it, just press in pan and go). So I have three variations: cherry, raspberry and the apricot jam from Agrimontana. You can store the linzers for a week at rm temp wrapped. For the lattice, I just make up another batch of dough and add egg white until it is a pipe-able consistency - use a small round tube (ateco 3) to pipe it with or the lattice expands too much due to the increased egg white and doesn't look good. I always figure that people are going to get a box of truffles anyway, and The restaurants I sell to are asking for "fondue" for V-day and I'm suggesting flavored ganaches with different marshmallows for dipping. But marshmallows are definitely catching on here, and the marshmallow thread has lots of good ideas. You could create another "dessert box to go": half-dip heartshaped marshmallows, truffles, cookies or mini tarts ..... Last year, I did broken heart cookies for anyone who was a grinch about V-day...it was not a huge seller but the new gourmet store is really interested these.

I like the cutters from Copper Gifts because they're sturdy and don't lose shape after years of use. But there's another place I've bought from that might help. They don't have a corset, but maybe you could modify this nightgown shape to suit: Kitchen Collectibles Cutter There's another place called The Copper Cookie Cutter Store that looks good, but I've never ordered from them

How much can you concentrate the celery juice? I'd rather see you add it to the finished buttercream to get more oomph out of it. I have no idea how much (if any) natural sugar would be in celery, but if you use the microwave to reduce the juice, you won't caramelize any of the naturally occurring sugars in the celery. But if you come up with a sort of celery concentrate, the flavor will go much further than if you used celery juice to moisten the sugar. Plus, if you don't get all the impurities out, you'll crystallize the sugar as you make the syrup..... this sounds pretty cool..... second thought: can you make a celery "curd"? Use all yolks a la RLB's lemon curd recipe to get the most celery flavor (fat carries flavor and using all yolks will help capture as much of the elusive celery flavor as possible).

O.M.G. these stories are funny, and I'm embarrassed right along with you who were there to see it firsthand. I can't even handle the noise of nail clipping when it's done in the bathroom at home. I cannot even comprehend doing that in public. Why? Why?! Katie, please, let's hear your stories! Start a new thread and keep the laughing going.....

I was talking to the caterers today; they did it last year so they remember that no one had a dessert soup, and everyone did hot soups. They were busy with corporate lunches so they didn't have a lot of time to chat about it, and they are considering doing a crab-tomato bisque with some type of crouton. They're still playing around with the idea too. So. I have a lot more options with a cold soup than a hot one, but I'm still playing with the idea. I haven't decided anything yet! The advantage of the cool/cold soup is I can serve it from small clear juice cups (which I have thousands of) and not really need spoons. I guess I can do that with a hot soup too; even a hot soup isn't going to be boiling hot when it's served. I love passionfruit and the idea of thinning out passion curd with creme anglaise (or doing a swirled soup a la the Silver Palate) with the champagne gelee. I was also thinking of a cherry soup and one of the cooks said there was a traditional Danish cherry soup but she couldn't remember the name. I also like the idea of the vanilla soup with brownie "croutons"!

Or maybe you call it pastry cream when a pro makes it and pudding when your mother opens the box?! People don't know what I mean when I say I fill a cake with pastry cream and chopped fruit, but when I say it's like a vanilla pudding, they get it. I don't know the technical difference, either; but I bet the Jello company couldn't sell "pastry cream" but they could sell "jello pudding". You know those marketing types! I attended a seminar years and years ago, and the chef (whose name I can't remember) said - there's not much new in the world, but you can put a spin on it and call it something else. He was talking about deconstructing tiramisu (the ultra popular dessert at the time) and saying that if you called it tiramisu everyone would think they knew what it was and may not order it, but if you called it something else, they'd be intrigued and you could sell a lot more of it.....

The caterers I share space with are participating in a Soup Fest in early February. I am toying with the idea of participating as well. Part of me doesn't want to, it's been a crazy holiday season and I want to recharge my batteries before wedding season starts. The other half of me is intrigued by the challenge of a dessert soup in with all those other savory soups. I'm having a hard time coming up with a warm dessert soup idea (it's cold here in New England! I'm not sure about a chilled soup for this event). In fact, the only idea I have so far is Sherry Yard's Chocolate Elixir or whatever it was called at Campton Place (I think it was ganache served as a hot chocolate drink.) So, any ideas out there?

I'm wondering about compounds... I've had some for 2 years that still smell good (irish cream) and others that are rancid after a year (eggnog). I mostly use Sieben and Driedoppel and there's no expiration or best buy date on either brand.

And I was lusting after that sheeter! I thought the face was pretty funny too.... I logged in over 1000 cookies this season and have "cookie elbow" (I don't play tennis so I told the dr we can't call it that). The tenth circle of hell is being in the food business during the holidays - especially if you are a small business. Merry merry...

Decorated gingerbread men and eggnog for the big guy and carrots for the crew

Take the pavlova one step further and make meringue mushrooms (put the tops and bottoms together with melted chocolate); add some grated unsweetened chocolate to the meringue and make cookies (from Rose Levy Beranbaum's Christmas Cookie Book) which you can pipe into sticks or kisses; add some melted chocolate and make chocolate meringue (neve nero). If you are doing a lot of entertaining, you could make small individual meringue cups and fill them with different things (regular vanilla pastry cream, or flavored pastry cream, etc) for each different gathering of friends/rels.... Well stored (meaning air tight), these meringue ideas will keep for a long time (end of Jan). Or Angel Food Cake/Chiffon cake....

As a baker, I would say the easiest method would be to make an edible "ribbon" for the edge of the plate out of chocolate plastique (in dark or white) then print (with melted chocolate in a little cornet piping bag) the name on each one. Put the ribbon on the edge of the plate, and then the diners can put them aside til the end of the night and eat them with the chocolate lava cake or save them for ... later. You can make chocolate plastique (aka candy clay) yourself. I can't remember offhand the proportions, but it's basically melted chocolate and heated corn syrup. You mix it together, knead for a bit and then let it sit overnight or at least for a few hours (you can use it immediately but I find it easier to work if I let it rest). If you use too much corn syrup, it will be "greasy" and you can mop that up with paper towels. It would be far less work/aggravation to just use candy melts (the stuff that you can get at the craft store) to write on the rim of the plate. It comes in various colors and melts easily in the microwave, you just have to make yourself a little parchment triangle and you're all set.....it will set up on the plate and scrape off later....

If you end up going on a scavenger hunt for pistachio paste, I second the recommendation for MEC. I get the one from Agrimontana, which for me is easier to find (a distributor here in Boston carries their line) and it's good too. And on an unrelated topic, I love the apricot jam from Agrimontana, it is excellent. I make a regular linzertorte with raspberry jam, but use the same hazelnut dough (from the RLB pastry book. I add egg white to some of the batter to pipe the lattice.) for an Apricot Linzer and it is great. For Valentine's day I might go with a Cherry Linzer if I can find a super cherry bakeproof jam.... sorry, back on topic now!

Pictures, yes please! Just to make sure I'm following this: your roasting bags are pre-sealed at one end, and you are filling it with rice, knotting the open end of the bag and then putting that in to the straight-sided tart pan? The bag won't melt because it's made for high heat, but it doesn't get greasy from the butter in the dough? and the pennies idea has been mentioned by Julia Child and RLB; and Maida Heatter too. They get darker/discolored over time but they work well...

I have better luck with pudgy soft GB men when I underbake them. I love the recipe from RLB's Christmas Cookie book that I stopped trying new ones. If you bake for the recommended time, they will be crunchy. If you pull them early when you think they aren't done, they will still firm up but remain softer - meaning there's no crunch when you bite into them.

We use the tops from leveling the cake in trifles; we make individual servings in plastic cups with lids for take-away and in big hotel pans for buffets. If you google "dirt cake" you'll get a bunch of recipes along the lines of the trifle if you want to play around with it. But still, there's only so much trifle you can make. I've got an entire bus pan filled with cake tops in the freezer right now....

It goes a little easier if you spray non-stick spray on the blades of a knife or the scissors.