JeanneCake

Every holiday season, I seem to get obsessed with the idea of a "holiday" cheesecake - last year it was a Peppermint Cheesecake along the lines of peppermint swirl ice cream. This year, I'd like to try a Gingerbread cheesecake because I've been scarfing down Gingerbread cookies! Anyway, not one of my cheesecake books have a gingerbread cheesecake recipe (there's plenty that call for a gingersnap crust; I'm looking for the cheesecake to be gingerbread flavored; I may do a chocolate crumb crust). When I did a google recipe search, I came up with the same recipe a few different times. It's a basic vanilla cheesecake marbled with a molasses/spice swirl. I'm planning on trying it, but I wondered if anyone here had already done this or something like it. Another alternative is adapting Emily Lucchetti's spiced vanilla cheesecake recipe. Any ideas? Have you tried this before and are willing to share your recipe?

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! How cool is this?! Great job, girl!

Could it possibly work as a marshmallow? Maybe a toasted corn marshmallow? Go for five different textures of corn in dessert perhaps? (I'm fascinated lately with the marshmallow recipe so now everything looks like a marshmallow....)

This question made me remember (fondly) a meal I had in the UK at an Indian restaurant some many years ago. I was there frequently on business and most of my colleagues knew that if they left the choice up to me where to eat at night, it was going to be Indian and I would invariably get Chicken Tikka Masala. They were very kind, and we all ate Indian all the time! I forget where we were that night, but the sauce was so good I would have eaten in on the proverbial turkish towel (I think it was Diamond Jim Brady who said something like that - whatever he was eating was so good, he'd even eat it if it were slathered over a turkish towel.)

Very nice! What will it take to bribe you to do a demo on the tea caviar?! Does that look like fun or what?!

Admittedly I am very bad at math and am not even going to try to figure out what the ratios are for the batches I make, so if I give you the numbers.... Small batch size for the 6 qt mixer: 17.25 oz sugar (14 oz in the pot with the water; 3.25 in the whites) 12.5 oz whites 40oz (2.5#) butter Normal batch size for the 20 qt mixer: 41.5 oz sugar (31 oz in the pot with the water; 10.5 in with the whites) 30.5 oz whites 98 oz (6#) butter So the instructors are saying that the ratios for Italian meringue bcrm is 2 parts sugar to 1 part whites and a maximum of 3 parts butter to 1 part sugar - yes? This would mean that for 12 oz of whites, they tell you to use 24 oz of sugar and 36 oz butter? (what do your instructors say about minimums? For all I know, these numbers above could represent minimum amounts, these are formulas I got from my own instructors. These are batches I make on a regular basis because of the mixer size.)

You could reduce some of the sugar in the syrup; but if your relatives thought it was much too sweet to begin with, I'm not sure that will help matters. Did you use an alcohol to flavor it (I'm thinking if you used a sweet liqueur that might have taken it over the top)? I use IMBC as my "house" buttercream in the bakeshop (I don't add the alcohol), but no one has ever mentioned it is too sweet. Sometimes people feel it is too rich because of the butter (it's usually clients who prefer the confectioner's sugar/butter variety that find IMBC too rich by comparison) but for people who ask me for something sweeter, I go for a different formula entirely. The Classic/Neoclassic are both richer (due to the yolks) so maybe that might be worth a try. The other alternative is to use the pastry cream buttercream in the Cake Bible, that is less sweet than the Classic/Neoclassic and Mousseline ones.

In addition to using the ground, dried scraps for garnish, use them for the basis of your cheesecake crusts instead of crumbled oreos - or at least it will stretch them. The caterer I share with will sometimes use my scraps to make trifles; you could do the same with yours and sell individual cups of trifle (use a plastic cup with a lid for portability in individual servings). Or some sort of a riff on tiramisu using the cake layers instead of biscuit. If you make tarts, maybe you can get a thin sheet of cake to use as a layer between pastry cream and a fruit topping (RLB uses this technique in her Pie and Pastry book). I don't have the book at home, but Bo Friberg's book has a recipe for Rum Balls, which is a use for scraps. And when I really have a busy week, sometimes we make hotel pans of trifle and bring them to the local homeless shelter or day care center.

You could always ask her yourself - she regularly responds to questions and comments on her blog. It's "Real Baking with Rose" at RLB Blog Have you ever tried just holding back on the bp by 1/2 tsp or so? Scale out what you think you should use and then subtract in 5 gm increments and see what that does for you.

This is also a smaller size, but from the looks of it, you could use it to imprint an entire sheet of gingerbread... squires kitchen brick impression tool

I agree, you should just get a second mixer! Plus, another bowl for whichever one turns out to be your favorite. The amount of time you spend washing the only bowl/beater/whip you have is a waste once you get another bowl. For two or three years, I only had one bowl for my 20 qt Hobart (at the bakeshop). I kept thinking I couldn't afford to buy a second bowl (at $200) but as soon as I decided I *had* to, I was kicking myself for not doing it sooner. I have two whips and two flat beaters. I can start a second job and have it running while I wash the dirty bowl/beater and the amount of time it saves me is incredible. So... I vote for getting another mixer and a second bowl!! :

In addition to having the mousse more fluid than firm, I use a 2.5x3" cake pan to press down very lightly on my ring molds and 3" pans. You might want to consider getting a cylinder of solid wood (like the head of an old fashioned meat pounder) or something similar and use that to "compress" the mixture. It would work better if you were pressing against a layer of biscuit or cake.

Why do you want a tilt-head mechanism? Is that the only reason you're considering a second mixer? You could always sell your existing KA and buy something else and not invest in a second set of bowls/beaters..... I have two sets of bowls and beaters and whips for my KA; comes in very handy.

Yes, and not a lot of my experience with it is good. I have a 7 qt 1000 watt model and regret buying every time I bring it down from the shelf. It doesn't incorporate ingredients well because of the conical shape of the bowl; it is prone to stall after beating egg whites for 15 mins at speed 6 (not a huge load) which is why it is ON the shelf. I have two KA 6 qt models that I beat the daylights out of (no pun intended) on a daily basis and they have yet to complain or stop. Twenty years ago I bought a 5 qt KA and that is still going strong as well. I agree that Kenwood/DeLonghi is a reliable brand - I didn't go with the Kenwood because it had no handle on the bowl at the time.

there was a thread about this some time ago (last year?) - and one of the suggestions was that too much water in the pans inihibited the cooking process and the suggestion was to use less water in the water bath. I can try to look for the thread later (I really should be leaving for work!), but it might have been a suggestion from nightscotsman or wendy debord.

← OK, really people - on what TV show has anyone (host or otherwise) NOT made some positive comment about the food they're tasting? Other than Alton Brown on that motorcycle show, or Tony Bourdain perhaps (the travel show, which unfortunately I have not seen) I can't think of someone who tastes the food they've just ordered/prepared and doesn't start to make some kind of mmm-good noises! What do you expect them to do?! Spit it out and say "you've just wasted the last half hour watching me make garbage? Don't do this at home?!"

In school, our german chef instructor told us to never refrigerate fondant covered cakes (I still hear her admonishments when I do it now); but as Annie (chefpeon) pointed out, how can you get multiple cakes done for a particular day if you can't refrigerate them? So, on her encouragement, I've been refrigerating my fondant covered cakes and haven't had any problems. I try to build my cakes on Thursday during the day or evening and then on Friday (usually late in the day due to the schedule), cover the individual tiers and stack them. Then into the cooler they go. On Saturday, I take them out and start working on them. Sometimes condensation has been an issue when the weather is warm, the fondant becomes "dewy" and shiny and you need to take care with decorating it. If I'm doing a design that requires painting or elaborate piping, I'll schedule that cake for covering with fondant/finishing it for the day of rather than the day before. So, it works and it makes my life easier. If you have time, you could do a small test cake in fondant to see how your fondant will behave (with condensation and all) in your particular refrigerator or cooler.

Eewww! Way too realistic, so I guess they accomplished their goal. Lenabo needs to translate for us and tell us what the captions say!

You might have better luck using melted white chocolate to attach the flowers to the sides - the chocolate will set faster than the royal icing, especially if your fondant cake is chilled first; how big are the flowers? Full-blown roses are heavier than something like a hydrangea so you might need to support the flower with a toothpick. When I use purchased gum paste flowers that come on wires, sometimes I wrap the wire around a toothpick, or I wind the wires from two or three flowers together and put the wires into a coffee stir-stick "straw" because the sticks are longer and protect the cake from direct contact with the wires.

The wife is never going to leave; she is always going to second guess you and make your life miserable while you are there. Sounds to me as if she's threatened by your skill and ability and needs to restore the pecking order every so often with something stupid like throwing out a perfectly good batch of cookies. Take your recipes and get outta there!

It does look a lot better (price-wise!) than the other things we've seen. Kathyf, let us know how well it works out. I have two small clay guns - the silver one with the plunger and the red/black one that Beryl's sells. Both leave my hands feeling as if I have arthritis after a day of using them! Let us know what you think in terms of use, how much it holds, etc. Thanks for the info!!

There are definite favorites in the different regions of the United States. In the South (although I am not from the southern US), a layer cake called Red Velvet is popular - it is a plain cake with a very little bit of chocolate powder and a lot of liquid red food coloring. Here in the Northeast (Boston area), I get a lot of requests for "marble" cake - it's vanilla and chocolate cake batter swirled together in the pan before it is baked. But because I don't have a good scratch recipe for marble cake, I use two layers of choc or vanilla cake and one layer of the opposite (for example - two choc one vanilla) in my bakeshop. Friends of ours have recently adopted a child from St Petersburg. I would love to make some things for her now that she is here in the US (she is a little over 3 years old). Can you share some recipes for things that children love over there? I know I can't exactly replicate it but I could try to come close.... Thanks, Lenabo!

what a great idea - the play doh thing! Lots less $ than these cookie presses that I seem to be burning through, and with the bigger lever thing, probably a whole lot easier to use. After all, if a child can do it...! Very brillant idea, thank you! That clay extruder looks promising, though pricey. The advantage there is the amount of fondant it can have in the barrel so you can get a really long rope. Considering the amount of $ I've spent in cookie presses, I'd be a third of the way there already!

I need help finding a tool that will help me extrude fondant ropes. I've been using the Wilton Ultra Pro cookie press because it was recommended by Earlene Moore (Earlene's Cakes) to use with a wooden stand she makes specifically to support it so you can make long ropes, etc. But I've been through three cookie presses in the last year, and I'm tired of buying them and having them stop working after a few tries. What happens is that the mechanism stops clicking and I end up having to press down on the plunger with a cake pan (it works, but my shoulders and arms take quite a beating...) Fondant is stiffer than cookie dough, I know; I'm softening it up with some piping gel but still am having to replace them every few months. Any one have a particular favorite brand that they think can hold up to the abuse? Is there such a thing as a manual professional-grade cookie press?

My favorite apple cake/bread recipe is from Payard - and the recipe is online here although you may have to sign in with an email address. It's from his book Simply Sensational Desserts. It is excellent and lasts a while if you don't scarf it down all at once