JeanneCake

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.

Here's a link to a 2x2 square cup; it may be larger than what you need since it is designed for petit fours/mini pastries and not chocolates CakeDeco link

I can't get kosher animal gelatin, so I've tried fish and agar agar. No luck with the agar at all, but the fish wasn't terrible. I only tried it the one time though. I don't think a lot of humidity is good. ← I got 5# of kosher for passover gelatin; the distributor said it was derived from beef but I don't have more information than that. It wouldn't work for Lior but Pam if you're looking for some, let me know - I still have 4# left...

You could also try Dobla - they have different types of chocolate decorations so they might have something you could use. www.dobla.com

The Cake Bible is a good resource for recipes; there's another version of this book coming out next year. Colette Peters' books are good decorating resources, and Margaret Braun's Cakewalk is in the advanced decorating category and might be a little much for a novice. Dede Wilson has another, earlier book that is geared to the home cook wanting to make a wedding cake - I think the title is The Wedding Cake Book.

Thaw the berries in a colander and reduce the juices, then puree the berries if you want. You can add some sugar when you reduce the juices if you think it needs it. Sometimes a little lemon juice is a good thing. RLB uses this technique for strawberries and raspberries - it works with blackberries and cherries too (if you can find IQF cherries)

Fanny-- Wow! Thanks for sharing with us, especially the photos! When you are paying attention to how PH make canneles, I'm curious about what they use to line the molds before pouring in the batter. Wolfert swears by a mixture of oil and beeswax, but I have a hard time believing they do this in a busy pastry shop. What does PH use? ← I'm not Fanny, but I remember a pc who mentioned on her eG foodblog that she had to oil/grease them every day before use. And no matter what you use to grease the moulds, wouldn't it still be the same thing? ← I remember that blog - and the pc said it was beeswax they used (they tried other things but nothing else worked as well and as beautifully) to grease the molds. 300 at a time.....

I was inspired to use my Felchlin white choc to glaze my latest batch of petit fours. (well, more or less. A friend told me she stopped using fondant years ago and used this) It worked perfectly, so much better than the traditional fondant I'd been using. I never liked poured fondant petit fours because they were so sweet, but this choc is a different matter entirely. I'm still using my regular old biscuit recipe, though. Would love to have other options - for those who are using an almond joconde, frangipane or whatever, what do you like/don't like about that particular sponge? I like that my biscuit recipe is so versatile - I use it for the base of my cheesecakes, buche de noel, spring rolls, to line entremets, etc. I've never baked frangipane as a sponge cake before, and I'm not too crazy about the almond sponge from Bo Frieberg either (it seems a little "leathery" to me but that could be that I'm spoiled by the biscuit.) So a compare/contrast would be nice....

What blog? What blog? I want to read it too! Fanny, thank you for sharing with us; I am delighted to read about your experience and learn right along with you! Waiting with baited breath for the next installment....

I usually make buttercream the day before I use it; mostly because of how I'm scheduling things (it's one of the last things I am doing while waiting for cakes to cool). You could use it immediately after making it (Saturday) and keep your cake refrigerated until a few hours before serving on Monday and you will be fine. The Cake Bible has storage recommendations with the recipes and for IMBC, the recommended storage is 2 days at rm temp; then there's refrigerated for some number of days (10?) and frozen (2 months?) but I am not positive about those numbers because I go through so much of it that it doesn't last more than a day.

For our local bookstore HP Party, I'm making Wand Cookies. I'm using a firecracker cookie cutter, coating in white choc (thanks Annie!), then writing a spell on the rectangular part and then sprinking glitter/pixie dust on the "star" end. Here's the cutter: click The cutter I have doesn't have the curve to it, I've just noticed. Looks pretty cool!

High Noon Entertainment does a few productions for the Food Network - I think they produced that Sugar Rush or something like that show - the guy from DC who is now a baker. They do the challenge shows, too. Maybe if you approach them with an idea, they can help you market it to the food network? All I know of High Noon is that they are near Denver - I have relatives there and was going to cheer on a friend who'd been invited to participate in a Challenge show, but it didn't work out (she didn't go and neither did I!) ETA: why not approach your local cable TV company - or PBS station? Regardless of what you think of Rachael Ray, she started with a mini segment on the local news show and it took off from there....