JeanneCake

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....

Thank you for sharing with us. I feel as if I've been on vacation by reading your blog, thanks for taking all of us along for the trip!

I was going to say you seem like too nice a guy and I would hate to see you in front of the evaluation gang! They don't say anything positive to these contestants and I think that with the living conditions, close quarters and lack of family/friends contact, they're looking to cause these people to break down. My son loves this show, although he's not enjoying this year's as much as last year's. Last year, they did show how they would read from the teleprompter when presenting the recipe - every week was an "on camera" presentation, not this food fire drill at the wedding, military base, NBA game, etc. - it was much more about how to be in front of a camera. By the time they got to the final four, then they started asking about their food point of view. You probably want to think about what's your "hook" before you submit your tape. And have a back up idea in case someone else has that same idea once you get to that spot. what about how to cook with your kids, or for your kids? Basic technique is what PBS is already doing; this year's contestant Amy is the "gourmet next door" which sounds similar to what you're thinking of. What can you do/offer that isn't already on? Someone fill me in - I couldn't watch the show last night. It sounds like JAG is still standing, who got beamed back home (the evaluation room line up reminds me of the transporter room on Star Trek. They come in, line up in their spots, don't move a muscle .... )

I can get Sicilian pistachios from Albert Uster Imports (click here) but I don't know if they sell retail. Or the King Arthur Flour site....

What if you could modify the recipes posted on the strawberry cake thread and use cherry puree (from Perfect Puree) instead? I don't know that this would work, but it's a start. I think some of the strawberry cake recipes used jello, (or maybe the poster didn't want to use the jello) and if there's no such thing as cherry jello you might be out of luck.

Aacck. My son loves watching this stuff and I am usually hovering in the background so I have to endure it too. It is just awful. Truly and completely awful. They're saying they're going to give the winner a TV show, but they've done nothing to prepare them or test them for that. It looks more like Dinner Impossible than anything else (I stopped watching that after the first few episodes so maybe that's not a good comparison anymore.)

This sounds like a Superman movie (just lost his powers is what makes me think so). Is it the second one (with Christopher Reeve)?

The most diplomatic way to handle the situation is to go the health dept route: Explain that the restaurant is in voilation of all kinds of codes and isn't covered re: liability if something should happen to a guest eating food that is not prepared in a licensed facility. And then offer that if she wants to come into the restaurant and prepare the food there, well, then - we can have you come in on (name day/time that is probably most inconvenient...) and this is what is selling so we will only need 2 cakes and X pudding..... If she's charging you for what she's bringing in - handle it the way you would any other distributor - I didn't order this, please take it back....

I don't think it would work. Based on how the cake behaved above, it was weeping by the evening as Susan's experience. I can't imagine it surviving the freezer...

That's total crap. All of the reality shows do it, to create conflict. On the Apprentice, they had little to no access to media (TV, email, etc), so they had plenty of time to talk, drink, and get in trouble. That said, what does that have to do with this show? They aren't trying to create drama by pitting personalities... IRL, I don't think the winner will live by him/herself, shut off from the world while he or she tries to film shows. ← The article in the Lawrence Eagle Tribune said that the contestants had been told they could contact their families every other day by phone. This didn't happen. Unfortunately the article is no longer active. Most people on business trips are allowed to call home more often than these contestants apparently are. But if you're told you can stay in touch up front, and then it turns out you can't.... sounds like a bait and switch tactic to me. There's no reason for it (the shutting them off from the outside world) and you and I aren't in a position to judge whether this is a valid reason or not for why the person was emotional on the show. Sounds to me as if they do this on purpose - it's just another trick to make things harder. It's entertainment and anything goes.

Tommy is from the area, and local news reported that he was told he'd be able to stay in touch with his family, which includes two toddler children. The reporter went on to say they weren't allowed to contact their families and that bothered him, obviously. I'm not sure I'd want to go weeks or days without knowing how my kids were doing, especially if they're that young. But so much for the whole premise of this gimmick. Where are the first winners of the Food Network Star contest? They're not on anymore....

Maybe this is for a different thread, but your post made me think of a question. Does anyone know if there is a difference in the mixes made for use in a bakery and mixes made for the home consumer? My rep is leaving me samples of bakery mixes and I haven't tried them yet, but I was curious if this is just the consumer stuff packed into 50 pound bags.... (he's not leaving me 50 # bags, just sample bags )

JGarner, I've done that! But with carrot cake. It was years ago, I'd just gone out on my own and baked a 2-layer 12" round carrot cake. It was heavy and dense, not at all normal. - more like hockey pucks than cake. So thankfully I had more pureed carrot and could make another batch. Same thing. In desperation, I called my friend in CA (we use the same recipe) and we compared notes. I left out the baking soda!!! Both times! Gahh! The cake was due that night and it's 2 pm. Thank god for freezers and friends!

I think the pan she used had a one inch lip on it (we called it the old pizza pan because my father used to work in a bakery while in school and he snagged one of these incredible, heavy, sturdy pans. My mother still has it!) You should be ok; I don' t know the Sue B recipe, but I've made the TX sheet cake a few times myself many many years ago and never had it overflow the pan.

Peel the peaches and stew (poach) them in a simple syrup laced with a vanilla bean. You could reduce the syrup a little and then store the peaches in the syrup. You might even want to add some white wine and poach them in that....