JeanneCake

WOW! Well done. Beautifully described and photographed - congratulations!

Everyone will have their personal favorite, and mine comes from the Pie and Pastry Bible by RLB. She bakes it in a tart pan, rather than a pie pan so the filling is less deep (fine by me but because it is so good, I wish there were more of it or bigger pieces!) So if you're thinking you'd like to try another version, I'd go with that one. It is basically yolks, brown sugar, lyle's golden syrup (or dark karo syrup but it is far better with the Lyle's), cream, salt, butter cooked on the stovetop then poured over toasted pecans in a pre-baked shell, baked for 30 or so minutes. The top gets "foamy" and starts to settle down toward the end of the baking period so all you're left with are glossy pecans which you can scribble all over with dark chocolate if you want, or you can add cocoa to the filling and go for a chocolate version. If you need the recipe from that book, PM me.

I made my first one yesterday too... it was for a client, and I was a little anxious about it holding together especially since I got started on it later than I thought. I ended up using white chocolate as the glue to assemble the sides - it set pretty quickly and held enough so that I could overpipe with royal icing and add embelishments to the sides (I used candy canes along the roof line to hide the white chocolate). It was a great learning experience - now I'm hooked!! I would say that you don't want a royal icing that is too stiff, but you don't want it soft enough to run. What I used yesterday was like the consistency of creamy peanut butter or maybe marshmallow fluff - made great snow drifts! The Franky's attic site had a lot of good tips. Good luck and have fun!

I wonder if you can rework that chocolate (guiness) stout cake to use the root beer instead of the stout; I don't know the recipe so I'm just thinking out loud. I know a lot of people here have had great luck with it and think it is wonderful. You don't taste the Guiness per se, it just gives a full flavor to the cake.

One of my former instructors teaches in the pastry program and the pastry program is well-regarded. I don't have any information about the savory side, though. What other schools/programs are you comparing it to? There's the school in Cambridge, but I can't remember the name of it (brain lapse!) at this second.

I use Rose Levy Beranbaum's gingerbread cookie recipe, it's the best one out there IMHO; it calls for baking soda (no powder) which is there I think more for managing the acidity of the batter than for leavening. For this dough, I make it in big batches, then scoop out a big scraper-full and plop it on a parchment sheet dusted with flour. I roll it around on the flour for a few turns, then sprinkle a little more on the top of the dough, then put another parchment sheet on, and roll it out to the thickness I want. Into the cooler it goes and it's ready for cutting into shapes, etc. I've noticed that I have a tendancy to not use as much flour so with this dough, if it is not well mixed enough, it will puff and bake poorly; when I use liberal amounts of flour it bakes perfectly, with no puff and no spreading. And then I go and gild the lily by dipping these guys in chocolate before decorating them! Edited for typos

Try the No Fail recipe without the baking powder, and use some flour when you roll out the well-chilled dough. I use a similar recipe (it has a little milk in it) from Toba Garrett and once I stopped adding the baking powder, I had no trouble with the slight puff that can occur. I use parchment on the sheet pans so I don't have to wash them as frequently and there's no sticking.

Ah hah! Now I know what happened to me yesterday! Bad baking karma! I have had some samples of cake mix from my distributor who has been bugging me every week to try it. So yesterday I decided I would. What a mistake. At first I thought I did something wrong with the chocolate variety - they looked like hockey pucks. So I made some yellow ... hockey pucks. Then just to keep them all company, I made some white ones. I can't wait to see him again and tell him that this isn't going to work but I think I must have weighed the water/oil wrong (I won't tell him that though!!) - I mean people use this stuff all the time and they aren't selling hockey pucks. But I feel better knowing that others had problems too. Alanamoana - loved the performance anxiety quip!

When I first read the list of spices, I wondered how they might work in a hot chocolate (a la Sherry Yard's Campton Place Hot Chocolate, which is in the style of ganache, served in a mug). Maida Heatter, in her book of Great American Desserts, tells about a cookie made with melted vanilla ice cream. It takes the place of butter/cream, spices and eggs in the cookie recipe. Maybe the speculaas ice cream, melted, could take the place of the dairy in your favorite cookie recipe?

You also want to specify how problems should be reported (if an order is short some number of items, if something is not ok how is it refused - at delivery only, or within 24/48/72 hours?) And on the subject of payment terms, you want to also specify what happens if they are behind on payments - when do you shut off their orders so you don't lose any more money.... how often will your pricing change and do you give them 30 days notice for price increases or just reserve the right to change prices more immediately. Is there a charge for delivery or is delivery free with a minimum order amount. Be specific about the ordering process, too. Detail how long it takes between placing the order and delivery, whether there are any additional charges for rush orders.

Ok, NO. Don't do it. Now that we have that out of the way, I'm first nervous that she hasn't done any type of market analysis or study. I'm not talking about something you pay high-priced consultants for. Why would people buy her product? What's so special about it? What makes this area the right area for this product? Is the places listed the right places to be? I wonder whether she's approached a health club or yoga studio to ask their input as to what their clients want (whether there's a snack bar there to sell this product) and whether they'd be interested in being part of the "market analysis." No risk on their part, we want to test market the products and see the response. Then if there is a good response, move to the next step (this would be part of the business plan that she really should be doing. To go to retail locations, she must be fully approved/licensed/insured. Otherwise, it's like jumping into a river head first from a rocky ledge....

Will you share your recipe for egg nog truffles? I'm going to a truffle making party this weekend, we're all bringing 100 centers of various flavors and dipping/finishing them at the party. Then we all go home with some number of boxes of mixed truffles, just like a cookie party.... I'm making white chocolate passion fruit truffles and a milk chocolate cranberry one. Others are making caramel, black raspberry buttercream, chocolate chip, a peanut butter version, and a grand marnier one is in there too. I'd love to do an egg nog truffle! Thanks!

I was after a candy cane cheesecake last year - I crushed them and used them in the batter as well as a garnish - they melted on top just like yours - as alanamoana said from the humidity in the fridge. (They eventually melted inside too). This year, I found Andes peppermint bits in the supermarket, but I haven't bought them. It is probably along the same lines as what alanamoana is describing witthe candy cane bark. If you celebrate Easter, and try the same thing with jelly beans - same result!

They aren't blue, but here are some gold ballotins from a company I've dealt with for a while and have always had excellent service from: Spectrum Ascona Spectrum Ascona Gold Ballotin If the link above doesn't work, go to www.asconapkg.com

You could ask the supplier if they will tell you who they sell this product to and ask that company if you can buy a carton from them (if they don't want to give out client names, they could ask their customer on your behalf)?

I subscribed for many years, starting in my 20s when I had my first apartment and couldn't afford much. I could travel all over the world in a week, armed with that magazine and later, when I had advanced at work and was travelling a lot, I could go back in time and find articles on the places I was heading to. The zenith for me was reading Laurie Colwin's columns and when she died, I was bereft. It was nice to have a whole year of her columns to look forward to, but when they stopped, I found I didn't feel the same way about the magazine. Now I don't read it as closely or as thoroughly as I used to, but I have decades of the magazines stored here at home. Whenever I decide to part with them (not any time soon, mind you!), it'll be someone's motherlode!

I like watching the food network for the entertainment value and if I pick up a few cooking tips and techniques, so much the better. I'm a baker by trade so I don't expect to learn a lot from these shows, but it's better than anything else that's on TV. I'd rather watch Paula Deen than some not-really-reality or crime show where half a dozen people are killed before the opening credits! (well, truthfully, I usually am reading a book or emailing friends. We've only got the one TV and it's off during homework time and I get up too early to stay up late to watch much!) I was reading in the Boston Globe newspaper about the woman who started the don't like Rachael Ray website and how the thing has taken off and created a life of it's own. Yet on numerous occasions the journalist notes how the woman chuckled or giggled to punctuate what she was saying - not unlike what RR would do! What I find fascinating is that both Paula Deen and Rachael Ray have exuberant on-air personalities, a joie-de-vivre that comes across to some as too much so that makes them a target for being bashed. Are we all just in a perpetual bad mood and can't take it when someone else is happy?!

It's equal measures of nuts (almonds or it could be hazelnuts or even pecans or walnuts) and granulated sugar. But if you have almond flour, I'd use the powdered sugar because that would give you a more tender crust for the tart.

This is a great way to end the year! What a wonderful dessert! To me, it looks as if the bubble wrap was pressed onto the surface of the curd, the uniform thickness of the bottom part is what makes me think it was poured into a frame or pan and then left to set a little, then the (sprayed with a pan release maybe?) bubble wrap pressed on. Bravo, dejaq!

can you tell they've had some customer service issues in the past?! The part about not tolerating abuse regardless of who you are, who you think you are, who you know - THAT was funny! I don' know how appropriate it is, but after a long day at work, it made me chuckle and I sure could use a good laugh!

macarons? You could go through the whole thread on them, or use Nicole Kaplan's demo for help.... Does it have to be pastry? You could do a baguette.....

I can sometimes find frozen cranberry juice concentrate in my grocery store, perhaps that would be a good thing to add? It's not easy to find, but it's there. I use it for a cranberry-orange cheesecake. You could use a tablespoon of that (thawed) in place of reduced cranberry juice......

Here is how I would tell you how to make this in a 10" round springform pan (bake at 350 for about 60-70 mins). It is not how the author would tell you to make it. FIrst, chop into 1/2 cubes: 2 med green apples, and 2 med pears into a bowl and throw in 1.5 cups washed/dried cranberries. If you chop the cranberries, that's fine too. Beat with paddle: 1/4# softened unsalted butter, 1.25 cups white sugar, and 1/4 cup buttermilk until it is light. Sift or whisk together 2.5 cups all purpose flour, 1 TBL baking powder. Divide in half and add half to the mixer and add 2 eggs. Blend well. Then add two more eggs, blend and then add the other half of the dry ingredients until it is light. Stir in the fruit and pour (scrape) into a (sprayed with Pam or other baking spray) pan and bake until firm in the center. When I do this cake in the summer, I add about 1/4 cup of Poire William with the buttermilk (I have also used heavy cream with no ill effects s ince I always have cream around and not always buttermilk) and use the granny smith and anjou pears and raspberries and blueberries. I usually have cake flour on hand so that's what I use. It's fine either way (all purpose or cake flour).

Jim Dodge has a fresh fruit poundcake in his Stanford Court dessert cookbook. It calls for fresh apples, pears and cranberries - and I've been making it for years. In the summer, I sub berries for the cranberries and some Poire William for the buttermilk. It's definitely not "fruitcake" in the sense of soaking with liqueur or brandy or what-have-you, or making in advance. I've even layered it with buttercream for a client who insisted on it for their wedding cake. I think I would want to update the fruitcake with interesting dried fruits rather than the day-glow cherries. Sun-dried cherries or blueberries, or hazelnuts or macadamia nuts. I think people object to fruitcake because there's no cake in it (which is why it could double as a doorstop!) or it has weird bits of fruit that aren't delicious. I know that when I tasted the Harry and David version a few years ago, I thought it was awful. It was like a wedge of candied fruit - no cake to be found anywhere. And it was heavy and dense but not in a good way.

I agree! Beautifully done challenge, Cheryl. Will you be putting the recipes on recipegullet? I'd love to do the Indian Pudding for Thanksgiving! I love this cranberry tart; I have a similar recipe that I got from Epicurious. It is a huge seller, people love it. Nice job!