JeanneCake

Found my copy of the book.... Figure 7 and 8 are Cuscinetti (almond pillows), which she says uses the same almond dough as the desirs and sospiri - the pastries are just filled with different types of jam. Figure 5 could be bocconcini but in the book they are not dusted with confectioners' sugar so it might not be that. The description for sospiri has them heavily dusted with the confectioner's sugar after baking, though....and both these pastries are formed and baked the same. The bocconcini are rolled in granulated sugar before baking but not coated/dusted with anything afterwards. Hope this helps...

do you have her book (written with Mary Taylor Simiti?) Bitter Almonds? It's a great read, and recipes for some of the pictured items appear in the book. Carol Field's The Italian Baker will also have a lot of these. How lucky you were to go! What was your favorite pastry item from Maria's shop? Did you get to see any of the marzipan fruit she's famous for (among other thngs!)?

forgot to ask earlier - what's the yield for the formula? Can you reduce it by half (or increase it) and still have it work?

When I first opened, I used mousse in the buche de noel - I wanted to be different. But several people reported it was messy to serve with a whipped cream fruit mousse so I went back to buttercream. I would go with a white chocolate buttercream (rather than whipped cream if you are doing the Black Forest version) with chopped brandied cherries - use some of the kirsch in the buttercream for a little more oomph.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for an excellent demo!

I saw that! I thought it was bizarre, that she must have deliberately added far too much flour or not enough sugar or something. I didn't understand why it needed to be that firm, though. I haven't made a gingerbread house before so I'm not one to say! As for my favorite recipe for gingerbread cookies (people, etc), it comes from Rose Levy Beranbaum's Christmas Cookie book. You can roll it thin and bake it until it is firm - it will be almost like a gingersnap in terms of how hard it is; or you can roll it a little thicker and underbake it ever so slightly for a cookie that stays soft, but stands up to decorating or dipping in chocolate. I posted my adaptation in a previous thread on gingerbread....

To avoid the lumps when you add the flour, put a strainer on the top of the mixer bowl, put the flour in and then gently shake the flour through to the surface of the beaten egg. Then use a wide spatula to fold it in, moving the bowl as well as the spatula. When you're beating the eggs/sugar/vanilla, you'll get more volume if the eggs are warm (put the shells in a bowl of warm water before you start); but it's not a big thing. It takes a little less time than if the eggs are straight from fridge. But you want to beat them until they make a ribbon (the old Julia Child trick about taking the whip off the beater and writing O L E across the mixture with the batter that drops from the whip - the O should still be visible when you get to the E is a good way to know you've beaten them enough).

I love the pans made by Parrish in Gardena, CA under the name Magic Line. They're excellent; heavy weight, don't warp, square corners and no seams. They come in a range of sizes; but Cook's Dream has odd size square pans (11, 13, 15, etc..) if that's what you need for your design. Check out the demo thread for pictures by BKeith showing how to get the edges perfectly square.

The professional books I have are the Bo Friberg and Wayne Gisslen, they're great for reference, for looking up the basics before doing more research or experimentation. The others that have been recommended are all good and I second the vote for them, so now I'll just mention a few that I personnally reach for more frequently than others.. For recreational baking, I love every single one of Maida Heatter's books - and have gone through several copies of Great American Desserts and New Book of Great Desserts. I like RLB's Christmas Cookie Book. I like Mary Crownover's cheesecake book (a lot of the flavors rely on alcohol or juice concentrate but there are a few real keepers in there like the Cranberry Orange cheesecake). Anything Dorie Greenspan writes is worth having. And the Village Baker's Wife (Gayle's Bakery) is a fun book with lots packed in.

Pfeil and Holing also sells Chefmaster candy color; www.cakedeco.com - I don't know whether you'd be able to go and pick up your order but can't hurt to ask....

Wendy, what fantastic work! I love the little nutcracker soldiers, and the village is perfect, absolutely perfect. You've all inspired me to create a gingerbread scene for next year - this year all I can manage is a thousand gingerbread men dipped in chocolate! My son loves to watch the food network and he watched the show where they talk about Disney and how they get ready for the holidays, and they made this 18' gingerbread house for display in one of the hotels (The Grand Floridian?) that was incredible. I don't know the name of the show, but maybe if it repeats through the month, you can catch a glimpse of them putting on the gingerbread clapboards, roof tiles, etc. Thanks, everyone, for sharing and for the inspiration!

There's a wealth of talented people who participate in egullet, so I agree with the previous posters! Everyone here is willing to share, answer questions and provide excellent help! But, if you'd like a magazine, depending on where you live, you might like to get a subscription to Cakes and Sugarcraft, published by Squires Kitchen in the UK. The web site is www.squires-group.co.uk. This is a magazine that includes step by step instructions for cake decoration/design for a few featured cakes, and the last few pages are cake photos submitted by subscribers. Lindy Smith, Debbie Brown, Carole Deacon and Maisie Parrish are all frequent contributors. There are two magazines published in Australia that are collections of wedding cakes - no how-to, no recipes, just photos - and they aren't closeups, but they are enough to provide inspiration. They are published in the fall, and usually I buy Modern Wedding's Wedding Cakes and Chocolates directly from the publisher and then I buy Bride to Be from a cake supply shop called Iced Affair when I buy supplies. I think the Modern Wedding site is www.modernweddings.com.au but I can't remember; I'll have to look it up.

This chart from the Wilton company is sometimes helpful - I have a color wheel that I got from Luck's but of course that's at the shop and I'm not! color chart from Wilton

Pfeil and Holing carries Americolor - their url is www.cakedeco.com. I also like Sugarflair colors - gooseberry is my favorite green, and they make several shades of blue (navy, ice blue, baby blue) that are really nice. The poppy red is pretty intense too. I get them from Beryl's - www.beryls.com And then there's Squires Kitchen in the UK - they have their own line of colors that are pretty nice. Their fuschia is the best! www.squires-group.co.uk

For those among us who sell your pastries and desserts to gourmet shops, restaurants, etc. - what's the mark up they expect to put on your product? I know it will vary by product (minis, whole cakes, individual desserts - and the fact that the shop probably sells whole cakes while a restaurant sells slices so they will have different margins on the stuff) but is there a general rule of thumb - usually around 20% that they expect to get? Just curious....

You might consider a percentage of your sale price, or just a flat rental rate - as you get busier your hours will increase and you should re-evaluate your situation every 6 months or so. If you're working around each other, how will you know their schedule and how will they know yours? You don't want to arrive thinking you can get the ovens for 4-6 hours and find out they have turkeys roasting in them! Does occasional use mean you're not storing anything there? Are you using all their equipment or bringing in any of your own (sheet pans, speed racks, etc)? How much space will you be able to use in the walk-ins (will you have your own racks?)? What about deliveries (if your use is evenings and your stuff is delivered during the day?) Are you expecting to be able to leave your washing overnight or will you be able to use their dishwasher (staff or equipment). One of the issues I'd suggest dealing with up front is using each other's inventory - if something absolutely has to be borrowed, you should establish that it is replaced in 12, or 24 hours or whatever works for you and them. You never know when you'll have to borrow something, my landlord always calls me before she uses something to make sure she's not going to affect my next shift. If it happens, you'll want to know before you get in that you're short on eggs or whatever rather than walking in and finding out your short on something!

I use Papetti brand yolks - they don't contain any sugar, though - and when I use them for curds, custards, and the like, I do notice that whatever it is I'm making doesn't set as firmly as when I use shell egg yolks. Curd especially, stays very loose - and I had started to think it was my imagination. So I don't have an explanation other than agreeing with you that they behave differently as a result of the pasteurization process.

The caterer I share with gets a monthly mailing of upcoming auctions; check with local auctioneers in your area for how to get on their mailing list for this sort of thing. Some of the big distributors (US Foodservice, Perkins, Sysco) also sell some equipment, but better yet, they may have someone on staff who can help you with a layout (assuming that you're buying stuff from them, this design service might be free, but check and see what they'd charge for the design time if you don't buy the equipment from them). Good luck!

And I've never been able to see her PBS show! How frustrating. I've never been able to master tart dough (getting it to not shrink on the sides, I've tried so many formulas that I know it has to be me that's doing something wrong - and it could be the mixing, or maybe fitting it into the tart pan, or maybe I'm just a klutz at tart dough and should not even attempt this anymore!) and how I wish I could see that in action!!! Maybe someone ... Annie? Wendy? please would someone do a demo thread on tart dough (pate sucree) so I can figure out what I'm doing wrong?

I got an email today with information about Rose Levy Beranbaum's blog, called Realbakingwithrose.com; I spent a little time checking it out and it's interesting. It's sponsored by Gold Medal Flour, and has some recipes and links to baking sites (egullet among them). In case you want to check it out: RLB's baking blog

There are a few different styles of apple cake or bread; the Payard recipe was the only one I'd tried that I liked. It was the layers of apple slices that made it moist and delicious - and different from a recipe that called for applesauce or grated apples. Maida Heatter has some in her New Book of Great Desserts - both types in fact. Her applesauce cake is very nice but I didn't think it was anything special; I can find that recipe and post my adaptation of it if you're interested. I still haven't found my Payard book, though. Wendy, what was your neighbor's bread like? Moist, wet, dry, cinnamon-y, could you tell whether it had grated apple or applesauce in it?

I really like the apple cake recipe in Payard's dessert book - in a side bar he tells how his father sold hundreds of them every week. It's made in a loaf pan, with some apple slices layered in it and I remember brushing it with some apricoture just to gild the lily. Do you have the book? If not, I'll hunt mine up and can tell you what my notes were on it. I haven't made it in a few years, but it's really good.

What about adding some to a white chocolate ganache for truffles? Or make a holiday dessert with layers of raspberry mousse alternating with pistachio mousse (you'd probably have to add a drop or two of food coloring to get a green shade). I've tried the Agrimontana pistachio paste and it's so much better than Hero or American Almond, but it's harder to find - I got lucky during a conversation with my choc vendor who happened to have some, as well as some of their apricot jam, which is hands-down the best apricot jam I've ever had. I've been using it for an apricot linzer torte, and it's fantastic.

I use IMBC as the "house" buttercream, and it's balanced so that I can add unsweetened hazelnut paste to it and it's fine. Depending on the client, they may ask for a subtle flavor or a stronger one so the amount I use varies. I like to pair hazelnut buttercream with yellow cake (spread with a barely there layer of apricot jam, although since I'm right now fascinated with a hazelnut and dried cherry tart, I am thinking I will try cherry jam on yellow cake with hazelnut buttercream. Since I build my cakes with two layers of filling, I may do a cherry jam skim coat with a layer of hazelnut and a layer of choc buttercream.) And there's gianduia - hazelnut and chocolate so you could put some praline paste into your choc buttercream and use that in choc or yellow cake....

How do the variations differ? I'm intrigued, because I always thought IMBC was beaten eggs whites (with a little sugar), hot syrup and then butter. I've found that if I am rebeating a cold IMBC, I have to warm it up (usually with a torch on the side of the mixer bowl) but one of my instructors used to take some of the cold BC and microwave it briefly - then pour the practically liquid buttercream into the mixer bowl. If I do this more than once, I lose the airy niceness and get a more "dense" (hard to describe) texture - very buttery and it is harder to handle than when freshly made or not previously chilled. Normally I try to make buttercream at the end of the day and hold it overnight for use the next morning (it stands about 12 hours or so) but when it's busy, I'm making it all during the day and using it as I go rather than waiting.