JeanneCake

stay away from the Viking, there's an earlier thread on these mixers. I have one and hate it.

This is the same type of thermometer my instructors used. I've been through three of them (Polder) and finally bought a Cooper because I learned that if the wire is exposed to a flame, it renders it useless. The Cooper has lasted a year without incident, and I've often wished for an infrared, but I find that being able to set (and reset) the alarm on the probe type so I can start another task is very helpful.

Thank you, Wendy, I would love to try your formula. I can't afford to keep using Philly, so every little bit helps. The bottom line for the plain cheesecake is that it is too easy for someone to buy a prefab, frozen one - they come to me for the unique flavors I offer (white choc toffee, cappuccino, oreo cookie, eggnog...) but everything comes down to the bottom line when the client is a restaurant. Here's the smallest batch size I make (this makes 25 3" size or one 10" round): 3# cream cheese, at rm temp 13.75 oz sugar .75 oz cornstarch 6 whole eggs 1 TBL vanilla 1/2 TBL lemon juice Mix crm cheese with paddle until creamy, gradually add sugar and cornstarch, scrape sides down often. Add eggs, vanilla, lemon juice, mix until incorporated and pour into crust. Bake at 300 for 90 mins, 20-30 mins for the individual sizes (or for my circumstances, I bake in a water bath at 350 for the larger cakes), turn off oven and let sit for 30 mins. Top with barely sweetened sour cream (2 oz to 1#). For the individuals, you can put the topping on when they are sitting in the oven to let the sour cream set up (if you have to get them out the same day you make them!) or you can put it on after they come out of the oven, let them sit overnight in the walk-in and then torch them to remove the rings. The original formula didn't use the cornstarch, but when I started baking the large size cakes, I used it to help firm it up a little. I mix the cornstarch with the sugar (like you would for pastry cream). Thanks everyone for all the help!

I'm baking by feel. One restaurant client gets one or more of the 10" size for their weekly brunch, and depending on what flavor I'm making, it might bake for anywhere from 90 mins to 2 hrs in a water bath at 350. I'm looking for the center to barely wiggle, because this is a big cake (I'm using anywhere from 2.5 to 3# of cream cheese for this size) and usually give it some time in the turned-off oven. That's where I first started to see the difference - the unfamiliar brands of cream cheese were taking a lot longer than usual, and since the ovens had just been recalibrated, I could rule that out as a possibility. And one, white chocolate toffee, baked to the point where it didn't jiggle in the center, and still this client said it was soft in the middle, but not as much as the others. I would really see a big difference in the batter consistency when I was making up the plain cheesecakes; with Philly, the batter is thick (like sour cream), with the other brands, it would pour like water! I couldn't figure it out, and since there's a huge swing in the price ($1.80/# for the other brands, $2.10/# for Philly) I was hoping I could use the less expensive stuff (I'm using 50# a week). But now I know I can't let the distributors substitute because I can't easily make up for whatever is in the cheaper brands. Two more weeks, then everyone is on a diet and I can get a week off!!!

With the other brands I got (Raskas, Axelrod, SommerMaid and now I can't remember the first one) the cheesecake batter was more fluid, and the centers of the larger (8, 9 and 10 inch cakes) were very very soft - to the point that one of my clients returned three of the plain cheesecakes saying they weren't cooked in the middle! This week, using only the Philly, everything baked the way it was supposed to, all the cheesecakes are "cooked" all the way through, all the clients are happy.... What could be the source of the problem? What's the function of the gums and stabilizers? The only difference in ingredients is that Philly lists a cheese culture where none of the others did; and while they all listed milk and cream, I'm curious about the cream. When I order heavy cream, I'm always asked whether I want 36% or 40% (butterfat) so, I wonder if the type of cream used in the production of cream cheese has a different amount of water and this could be it?

The "spackle" is probably something along the lines of a fake icing called PermaIce. I've never used it, though. Like Anne, I always cover the styrofoam with fondant (usually a cheaper brand for store displays, the good stuff for when the cake is due to appear in a magazine!). You need to charge a sufficient amount to cover materials and a little of the labor - consider also what the buyer intends to do with the display cake. Some area florists use my dummy cakes in their windows - they add the silk flowers to match the season, but I've given them the fondant-covered tiers in exchange for displaying my placard and a portfolio. In those cases, I didn't charge them because the exposure brought in plenty of business. Same for the jewelry store. I also don't expect to get the dummy cake back, but if you're loaning it out, you need to recognize it won't come back in the same shape it left in. Something always happens to it. So, figure out what the styro costs, the fondant, the cake drum, etc. and how long it took you to do it and go from there.

In the last month, I have gotten at least four different brands of cream cheese from my distributors, none of which have been my brand of preference (usually Philly or Smithfield Farms). Anyway, I have been noticing that my (plain) cheesecake batter handles differently depending on which brand I'm using. Sometimes it is more fluid, other times thicker and I can't imagine that whole eggs I'm using (shell eggs, not fluid eggs) could make such a difference, all else being the same (fruit fine sugar, a little cornstarch, whole eggs, lemon juice and vanilla). I finally gave up and bought a case of Philly at the local warehouse - much higher price, but at least I know this weeks' batches will be more consistent. Any ideas? Do some brands use more water (or maybe the type of cream influences the amount of water)? The ingredient list is usually milk/cream, cream culture, gums, stabilizers, although each brand doesn't list identical ingredients. Thanks!

Ice down your table before you roll the Satin Ice fondant, keeping the rolling surface as cool as possible helps a lot with this brand. (don't use one of those ice-filled pins, though!) Or you could try using a silpat or roulpat, but I don't like the pattern it picks up from the mat if you simply place therolled out fondant on the cake and peel off the mat. When I was searching for the Bakels site, I noticed that they were featuring Julie Bashore from House of Clarendon and Colette Peters- both of whom had been Satin Ice advertisers/users previously. Because it is so soft, it tears easily and that's frustrating to patch or fix. You can avoid some of this by rolling the fondant around the pin to place on the cake rather than using your hands/arms and make sure you're not wearing any rings or bracelets, a watch, etc.

check out www.qzina.com - they are a distributor in Canada. I don't know what brand of fondant they carry, but you will want to have more experience before you buy the Satin Ice brand - this is a very, very soft fondant and a challenge to work with. You can ask them directly at www.americanbakels.com and find out who the closest source is to you.

You can buy the Pettinice (made by Bakels) from Pfeil and Holing at www.cakedeco.com in pails of various sizes/prices. This would be ok with RLB's truffle cake (which is a delicious cake, especially the raspberry version). I've made the cake many times, and in my experience, it handles best when it is very, very cold. If you have any gaps or mishapen sides, use some just-firm ganache to fill in and then chill it again overnight. If you use the Pettinice, you don't need to use the veg shortening that RLB calls for when using commercially made fondant. Use a little cornstarch and a cool stainless steel table, along with a heavy rolling pin (use a french pin or a 14 or 18 inch rolling pin for best results). The home made fondant from the Cake Bible is more translucent than the commercially made stuff- hard to describe. The fondant in the picture (the Art Deco cake) is thicker than what I usually do; about a quarter-inch to a third of an inch is plenty. Fondant can be frustrating for a novice the first time; how much do you use? how thin to roll out? what if it tears? Colette Peters' books include a chart for fondant amounts on various cake sizes - you might want to look into borrowing her Wedding Cake book from the library to skim through, but Margaret Braun's Cakewalk book has excellent pictures of fondant application that would be helpful to you. Fondant will show every lump and bump under it so be sure the cake beneath is smooth and blemish free. I would definitely practice putting it on a cake pan before doing it on a real cake. Good luck!

Hi ... I use Perkins for most of my dry goods and the oreo crumbs from an earlier post; they don't carry Skor bits and my salesperson had no luck with a special order, which is why I was buying them retail. I didn't ask at the store, since I couldn't find the whole candy bar, I thought maybe Hershey stopped making it. But that's a good idea. I tried going to the puratos web site, but can't find any US locations - maybe I'm looking in the wrong place? I know they advertise in Modern Baking, there has to be something in New England. I had a peppermint mocha at Starbucks and that's what started me off on this whole candy cane cheesecake obsession! I thought I would just add some peppermint schnapps to my existing white choc toffee chzcake recipe and replace the toffee with the candy bits (the toffee melts too). I think I just wanted some crunch in the cheesecake, it could use a little more peppermint flavor in it, but I didn't want it to be a dark chocolate cheesecake. It's ok, could use more peppermint flavoring, so I'm definitely going to be doing this again and again. But... if you have a recipe you'd be willing to share ...!

My local supermaket no longer stocks the bags of chopped Skor bars. Now all I can get are chopped Heath bars and they don't work at all well. When I use the Heath bits for the topping on my banana cream petit fours (rum flavored pastry cream in choc cup, topped with a banana slice, glazed, sprinkle with Skor bits) it looks horrendous (the skor kept its shape, the Heath melts). The Heath bars also don't work as well in my white choc toffee chzcake, but since they're in the cake it isn't as bad. Does anyone know if they stopped making Skor bars? I'd also like to find a source for peppermint candy bits to add to cheesecake batter. I wanted to make a candy cane cheesecake, and have experimented a few times with chopped candy canes in a white choc chzcake batter, but I'd like something that stays a little more solid, something along the lines of the bits in peppermint chip ice cream. Thanks!

Steve, I've always been curious about exactly what that luster dust stuff is! I took classes with Colette Peters a few years back and she liberally paints her cakes with various colors of luster dust (as opposed to "petal dust"), as do several other cake stylists/designers (Jan Kish, Margaret Braun, Gail Watson). Does anyone know what this stuff is? or what it's made from? It's definitely used all over her cakes in her latest book... I know in the UK, similar dusts are manufactured by Squires Kitchen and Sugarflair; and their equivalent of our FDA doesn't have the same level of stringency so they are accepted as food safe in the UK. I've been curious about Ann Baber's Folk Art Paint (it looks from the photos like the fingerpaint stuff we used as kids!) but I've always thought if you tried to order it, customs would stop it anyway. And, on a sort of related topic, remember those silver and gold dragees? What's in those that got them outlawed? I know in California, they can't be sold anymore; I'm just wondering why. I use the edible fondant pearls from Pfeil and Holing and now that I think of it, they're probably rolled in luster dust!....

There's two types of gold "dust" - one is called "gold ultra" which has "for decorative purposes only - not to be consumed" written all over it; and then there's a few different types of gold luster dust which is non-toxic - bright, super, old, antique, which can be mixed with lemon extract (paints and dries better than with a clear alcohol) and painted on fondant or gum paste. I've found the best price for luster dust at Pfeil and Holing (www.cakedeco.com) I agree with making the card from gum paste, and "painting" it. You could also (depending on budget!) use edible gold leaf sheets, which are a huge hassle to apply cleanly and may not give you the look you want after all that aggravation... On gum paste, you may find that the edible food pen ink would bleed so test it before you start writing on the actual piece (you might want to make several...!) Another option is to scan in an actual Gold card, enlarge it and change the name and numbers appropriately, bring it somewhere where they do edible images and have it printed. Then apply to fondant, and place on the cake....

My experience with the Callebaut bittersweet calets is that they are very viscous - much thicker when melted than any other bittersweet "chip" I've used. I like this to flavor my chocolate buttercream, but I'm not crazy about it in my flourless chocolate cake, ganache or glaze. Buy the smallest bag you can and test it out before committing to the bigger bag.

Last year, I bought a champagne compound - not an extract, unfortunately, but if you aren't able to find the extract, you might have to fall back on this. It was from Amoretti (www.amoretti.com) - I also recall a former instructor having bought something similar from Sieben through a local distributor (Primarque at www.primarque.com). Qzina in Canada sells a similar product. (www.qzina.com)

During the discussion, I said I'd make up a list of the equipment needed and send it to them along with the recipes (which I did and they said was ok - and that's when they said they didn't have the pans). I had been thinking everything would be supplied for me to just walk in with some finished product and start. But now I'm wondering, and I'd rather ask here to find out whether anyone else has done something similar! And, I'm a little embarrassed to ask the obvious question ("Of course we provide all your ingredients and you just have to walk in the room") because while I have lots of experience teaching, it's always been me putting on the class so I provide everything. Where the restaurant is asking me, I'm wondering if that means they automatically provide everything. I haven't found the right opening with the chef or the GM to ask the question, though.

One of my restaurant clients has asked me to make an appearance at one of their quarterly cooking demos. It's a Saturday from 10 to 2 pm. They described it as talking/demo from 10 to noon and then the break for lunch (which they will serve, and we'll have the desserts for lunch) and Q&A (there's no hands on). It isn't in the kitchen- it is in a room they use for meetings so it is limited to about 8 or 10 and the meeting room restricts the type of things that can be done. I met with them to learn more about what they're looking for and based on the room restrictions, we are going to show a lemon tart (making the curd on hot plate); angel food cake (to demo how to beat egg whites) and to talk about cheesecake. They have asked me to provide the recipes. I've never done something like this as a "guest" and I don't want to make any serious faux pas. If I were on my own at a presentation, I would expect to supply everything, but here I'm not sure and they haven't said so I thought I'd ask for your input. Who provides the mis en place? I would be bringing a finished tart, cake and cheesecake to show the final result, but based on the fact that they have the recipe and are providing the space, would you think they are providing all the ingredients and equipment (ok, maybe not the pans, they don't do a lot in house)for the demo, too?

I have not had good experiences with ebay for equipment. I bought a 20 qt mixer from a local person (meaning it was just far enough away so I could drive there to pick it up. Had to rely on the photo because it was too far to drive just to look and make a bid). Anyway, the mixer I eventually got (I bought it in Feb and between the weather and the seller behaving badly, I didn't get it for another 5 months) didn't look like the photo and the seller had taken it apart for "cleaning" and put it back together the wrong way. And I had to get a mover to go get it. Moral of the story is to buy stuff you can see and test first so ebay could work if you can get to the seller to see it before you commit. My father bought a 30 qt from a restaurant supply place in Florida on ebay. When the mixer arrived it hadn't even been cleaned, yet it was sold "like new" and this was from a "reputable firm". It was in pretty rough shape IMHO and I would have replaced the bowl (badly dented), whip (missing more than a few wires) and beater (cracked). There's lots of ads in the back of Modern Baking for suppliers that might be helpful. Are you on any of the local auction mailing lists? The caterer I share space with gets a monthy postcard of all upcoming auctions in the area so this might be a good option. The only bright spot is you just need the mixer, not the attachments if you go with another Hobart....

I've had similar experiences when I tried to substitute dark brown sugar for light; sieving the sugar would take too long. Maybe the browned butter doesn't contain enough moisture to sufficiently melt the sugar... Iwould alter the sequence a little: try mixing the whole eggs and brown sugar, heat to melt the sugar (Maida Heatter has a recipe for California Fruit Bars in which she does this, it takes about 10 minutes) and add the previously browned butter - still warm - and go from there. I've been using Rose Levy Beranbaum's recipe for pecan tart - calls for cooking yolks, lt brown sugar, butter, heavy cream, dark corn syrup, salt to 160 degrees -enough to melt the butter and sugar, but not hot enough to scramble the yolks. I usually go to 150 so I don't have to strain the mixture. (RLB prefers and recommends Lyle's golden syrup for better flavor - when I had trouble with this the first time I made it - there was a lot of foam on the top of the nuts and it was because I wasn't letting it bake long enough - she told me the Lyle's was far and away better than the dark corn syrup, but I can't get Lyle's in bulk and the price point for this tart goes way too high with the retail Lyle's ... but I digress, sorry!) Let us know what happens.... Jeanne

hmm... I guess I was thinking I should only paint the part of the pillar that would show, but spraying the entire thing is much easier/faster/etc. I was worried about using something that might react with the cake, like how wired gum paste flowers could theoretically introduce bacteria sitting in a cake.... I am not looking forward to this, chocolate glaze always dulls a little on a cold cake and this mom is high maintenance and expects the glaze to be shiny bright the entire night. Chefpeon, will any kind of non-toxic spray paint work? Is clear coat the same stuff? (can you tell I've never done this?!) Any words of wisdom (one coat vs two of paint and or clear coat)? I'm definitely doing the plastic pillars, my lucite ones cost a bundle to have made years ago and while no one seems interested in using them any time soon, you can bet that as soon as I paint them, someone will want them... in clear! Thanks so much for all the help!

I have a bar mitzvah client who insists on having the plastic plates and pillars for her son's cake painted so they aren't white (I've tried to suggest she use the clear lucite plates/pillars I've had made, but no; she wants a three tier chocolate glazed cake on gold plates with gold pillars - well, more of a coppery color because she wants to use these wrapped chocolate footballs and the wrapper is copper colored). It's one thing to paint the plastic posts of the miniature Torahs with luster or ultra dust, but that flakes or rubs off if it is handled. I can't imagine doing this for the plates/pillars. What could I use that's food safe? I haven't used pillars in at least three years, but the plastic ones I do have are the push-in type, which is what I would prefer to use for stability. They snap onto the underside of the plastic plate (all I have are the scallop edge type) and go straight through the cake. The pillars are 7" tall, which means at least three inches will "show". The cake size(s) are 13, 10 and 7 rounds. The cake is for Nov 27. Thanks! Jeanne

I use 50/50 by weight, too. My instructor used to float a vanilla bean in the container we used for cake syrups. On average, how long does your 50/50 syrup last before it get cloudy or shows signs of being unusable? I can't seem to keep it at room temp for more than a week or 10 days; and in the walk-in, it isn't more than two weeks if I'm lucky. It seems to me it should keep longer than this....

I've been in business for almost four years. For me, naming my business wasn't as hard - my grandfather always used to sing "I dream of Jeannie with the light brown hair" so the name of my business became I Dream of Jeanne Cakes (spelled that way because a restaurant business - now defunct - was operating as I Dream of Jeannie and the state where I live wouldn't let me incorporate as I Dream of Jeanne. So adding Cakes was an easy enough decision. I answer the phone as "Jeannie Cakes, may I help you?") Look online at ICES or TheKnot.com or weddingchannel.com for links specifically to bakeries because that way, you'll get to see a whole list at once and it might help you with brainstorming. Katie Cooks or A piece of cake by Katie is all I could come up with, sorry. Is there a fond memory or nickname from your childhood that might inspire a name? Or your name (or a pastry-related word) in your ancestor's native language (hopefully easily pronounce-able!). Maybe use your last name instead of your first? Something else to consider is what happens when or if you sell your business.... a name like "cake" or "Cooper St Bakery" doesn't have a direct link to a specific person.... Good luck and keep us posted on what you choose!

I like the pasta machine, and use it myself (I don't have the attachment for the mixer. The pasta machine can be clamped to the worktable when I am doing gum paste work so it isn't taking up space all the time.). I wish I had the motor because having both hands free makes it much easier to manage doing longer pieces for ribbons and you don't get that little line mark for when you stopped ever so briefly when using the hand crank! (for flowers, smaller pieces work best because when the gum paste is rolled that thinly, it dries very very quickly). You need to be religious about thorough cleaning regardless of which way you go; there's nothing worse than trying to clean a forgotten piece of gum paste from the rollers! Keep it wrapped in a plastic bag between uses (the machine, that is!) to keep the dust/dirt out.