JeanneCake

can you airbrush over a stencil on to the sugar piece?

I like the chocolate brown idea.

Congratulations!

I use Felchlin's Ultra Gloss coating for the cookies and it worked perfectly for the gingerbread house I needed to finish the same day for delivery.

What kind of heat sealer do/did you use? I'm considering getting one - I've bought from Spectrum Ascona in the past and he had a few in his catalog. Especially witih Christmas coming up, I'd love to be able to heat seal the bags for the different varieties of cookies we do. Thanks!

or melted white chocolate, for those times when you should have started earlier than you are and you need it to dry faster! It can be messier than royal icing, and is probably not a good choice for something very large, but for gluing walls, doors, etc, from the inside, it worked really well for me last Christmas season.

Try Crooked Brook - here's a link: Crooked Brook Chef Coats

Today, while on the premise of last minute school shopping, I succumbed to the urge to buy decorative Halloween candy thinking I would make a haunted Gingerbread house and these black and white caramel things would look great as tombstones, some candy pumpkins, candy corn in various dark colors; a whole big bag of black jelly beans! (that was really an indulgence since I am no fan of black jelly beans. At least I won't eat them while I'm imagining doing this project....) Anyway.... I've been searching around for some patterns. I have a few books on gingerbread houses, they're ok; but I was wondering what creations you have found or made. I thought Martha Stewart had done one a few years ago, but I haven't been able to find it with a google image search. I did find an interesting pattern at Franky's Attic page Sorry to rush the holiday, but these things take time ETA: Does anyone have the Martha Stewart magazine with the directions and/or picture of the Haunted House? It looked a little like the house from the Psycho movie (but this is going on memory and I could be very wrong). It's not on the MS site. I tried checking Amazon and I can't find it in the index of her Halloween book so I am all out of ideas on where to find this.... ) Thanks.

What's the turnover rate for the lower paid staff (the bakers and demi chef de partie). How could they possibly work 40 hrs/week there and not need another job to pay the bills?!

Well, now I'm on a mission to find it in Boston; I have client who wants napoleons on the menu so maybe this is the easy way out for me! And maybe if the pastry gods are smiling at all of us today (instead of rolling around on the floor laughing) it will actually be cost effective compared to wholesale.

Jelly, hmmm my Italian grandmother would make me a ricotta jelly sandwich when I was little (my grandfather used to hide blocks of chocolate in the dining room sideboard); sweet strawberry or grape jelly, on really good bread, and fresh, whole milk ricotta. Yum! Or Nutella from the jar. At the shop (where I'm surrounded by buttercream and cake) I've also been known to take a handful of craisins, milk chocolate callets, pecans and chow down.

How true, how true! The caterer I share with does several lunches a week for them (we call them drug lunches) - they are the only customers that use a credit card which if you weren't going to accept you might want to rethink. The only reason my landlord accepts credit cards is so she can do these lunches, and they are lucrative... And, you can negotiate the transaction rate when you are talking to the credit card company - shop this around for the best deal. Ultimately I ended up not doing it (I couldn't justify the amount they were charging for the unit but the transaction rate was below 2%) but it would make my life so much easier if I took credit cards.

I also think your estimates are on the low side... and agree that without knowing what your average beverage price is; what your average lunch price is (and does that include a beverage and a dessert or is it a la carte?)or whether there are other choices in the area or not makes it hard to quantify the numbers. This is exciting - and scary - I'm sure. We're all with you in spirit and pulling for you!

Maybe you could team up with an existing Personal Chef service. I wanted to see what that was like so years ago I spent a few days assisting a Personal Chef and then got a side job cooking for one particular family. That was the easiest because I didn't have to lug everything into the house each time, just the food I was preparing that night. I know there are professional personal chef organizations that are available to help people get started - here are two: US Personal Chef organization USPersonal Chef Association As a side note, while I loved being a "personal chef", what I hated was having to take all your condiments/equipment in those portable plastic hold-alls and it takes you 20 mins to get everything from the car into the house before you can even get started

Someone get this artist a TV show! Move over Duff Those Christmas trees are gorgeous!

The first kitchen I rented had these - they were ancient (so was the building!)! I used to turn a sheet pan upside down on the floor of the oven then put the cake pans on that. When I put the cake pans directly on the floor of the deck ovens, they burned quickly and were dry.

I did exactly what OTC did for a tiered cheesecake wedding on Aug 5. I used a plastic support plate, and cut the "hidden pillars" (I had to buy this at the craft store because I don't typically use this but it was easy to find) to size and it worked out great. Assemble onsite but you can put the plate/pillar into the cheesecake before you leave. Then with some double sided tape, you can attach the small cake to the plastic plate....

I love the apple cake recipe in Payard's dessert book. This is a link to it Weekend Apple Cake He calls it a "weekend cake" because it was made to last throughout a weekend (two days?!). It's a wonderful cake, and I think it would be good with the type of apples you have. Enjoy the windfall.....

You're welcome, Rob My absolute favorite passion puree is from Albert Uster. It has more "oomph" than the Perfect Puree one - at least when I make passion curd (using the Cake Bible recipe - all yolks, pure heaven on a spoon) I can really taste the difference. When I use the PP, I get a "so-so" response - when I use the AUI stuff, people swoon. I have no idea why this would be - both are less than 10% sugar. Anyway, the puree stays frozen for up to 2 years; min order is 6 containers (each one is 32 oz). There's enough other stuff you could choose from to make the minimum ($250) for free shipping..... Good luck....

Oh... it can't be over already! I've had such a good time this week. Thank you! And C, and his mom, and your friends, and.. and... and you are so generous to share life with us for a week. I'm sorry it's over but I've enjoyed every minute of it!

Amoretti has a licorice extract - it's a huge bottle, but I think they are pretty generous with their samples. You could contact them and see if it works in your regular ganache formula.... Here's a link to their list of extracts amoretti extracts

I've never had a bottle of balsamic do this, or any vinegar do that come to think of it. So you know how it goes: when in doubt, throw it out.

I don't believe she's ever referred to herself as a chef - or that she's ever wanted to be called a chef. She knows her strengths and is playing to them; isn't that what we all do at work?

I am SO enjoying your blog! Thank you! I feel as if I have been on vacation when I haven't even left the bakeshop. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to blog this summer. You have no idea how much it means to those of us who can't get the time off! Living vicariously through all of you, and enjoying every minute of it!

Years ago I found a recipe for raspberry curd online - it had the strained juice, butter, sugar, yolks and the standard procedure. (You can make a firmer curd by using whole eggs and adding the butter at the end, or with just yolks and having everything in at the same time and bringing it to a specific temp - 186 is what I use for citrus). So by experimenting with the level of sugar you could probably make a curd or rough approximation of one with unsweetened juice of almost anything..... consider the possibilities - berry, pineapple, tangerine, even juiced melons probably.