Patrick S

viva, I think I used the bittersweet ganache recipe from the book -- but any ganache will work.

I'm curious about this as well. I've wondered what happens when a chef leaves -- whose recipes are they? In a lot of other professions when you are employed by somebody, they usually own the work you produce for them. There recently was a head chef change at a well-known local restaurant (Mel's), and the place kept a lot of the old dishes, but also added a lot of new items created by the new chef (many of which I think he brought from the last place he was a chef). ← The recipes belong to the chef i think. ← It depends on what you mean by 'recipe.' As discussed earlier in the thread, in most cases (e.g. where there is no contract to produce a recipe specifically for the restaurant), the chef will only own the physical copies of a recipe that they created, and may have copyright over a specific literary expression of a recipe, but the chef will not own the ideas or the methods themselves. If chefpeon's coworkers know her recipes already, and do not need chefpeon's written copies to make them, I dont think she has any way to prevent them from doing so.

I may be misunderstanding you here, but the boiling point of sweetened condensed milk is going to be a bit higher than the 212F water in the water bath, for at least two reasons. First, the addition of sugar (SCM is about 40% sugar) causes a boiling-point elevation (boiling points always raise when more solute is added to a solution). Second, as the content of the can heats up, the pressure inside increases, and the increased pressure also causes a boiling-point elevation. I'm pretty sure therefore that its not possible to bring sweetened condensed milk to a boil in a water bath. A simmer will be safer than a boil, but only because the pressure inside the can is going to be proportional to the temperature of its contents, and the lower the pressure, the lower the risk that the container will fail.

Yes. You need 1/2C no-sugar-added applesauce, and two apples, IIRC.

Let me add another recommendation for the applesauce spice bars. They are addictive. Last night I also made the double apple bundt cake, which I look forward to trying tonight. Flickr images: #1 #2

When I make tart dough, and before I refrigerate it, I usually flatten it very thin inside a large ziploc bag by pressing down on it using a rigid sheet pan. That way the dough needs very little rolling when you are ready to bake, and thaws much quicker if you've frozen the dough. I use a circle cutter to cut a circle a little bit bigger than needed. I also leave the dough a little thicker than needed. So I cut the circle, press it into the pan, then press the dough with fingers till the desired thickness is reached. Then I use a thin, sharp knife to trim the overhanging dough. Then I again use my fingers to make sure the dough is even thickness around the edges. Then I refrigerate for about 30 minutes. Then I blind-bake at 350F.

Way to go, gfron! Very creative, as usual.

You bought 6+ pounds of a pricey chocolate you'd never tried before? If after further experimentation you decide this chocolate isn't right for you, and you want to unload it, please PM me.

I don't know -- the CDBPH recipe usually have good "feet", but lack the air pocket. My hypothesis, just speculation really, is that it has to do with the rigidity of the macaron shell -- if it becomes too rigid, the inside of the cookie pulls away from the shell as it cools. If it is not rigid, then the shell is pulled-in as the cookie cools, creating little wrinkles.

Very nice Patrick. I see this cake calls for 3 T of dark rum as part of the liquid portion. How discernable was the rum flavor in the cake? If not very, do you think it would have been better served in the glaze or as a glaze? ← I only used 1T of rum in this cake (none of us here are big fans of rum), and the flavor is definitely discernable, but not strong. With 3T, I imagine the flavor would be fairly strong. If you like a strong rum flavor, I would make the cake with 3T rum. I would then sample the cake, and if you decide you want more rummishness, I would mix some rum with the jelly glaze.

For dessert, apple cake from a recipe found at Payard's website. Simple but satisfying. Flickr

Having made macarons so many times, tried so many recipes, and engaged in such seemingly endless discussion on this matter, you'd think there would be a simple answer. But if there is a simple answer, I dont know what it is. All I can do is tell you what I do. I usually use an insulated baking sheet -- but not always. I always beat whites or meringue until very stiff. Except for Lebovitz's recipe, which go into the oven right after piping, I always let the piped cookies sit for at least 30 minutes before baking. I also don't have a definitive reason why the CDBPH recipes sometimes yields cracked macarons. The very first time I made macarons, I used this recipe, and I also got cracks. I've used the same recipe many times since, and rarely are there any cracks. The only thing I know for sure that I did different the first time is that I did not let them dry before baking.

Made the espresso cheesecake brownie the other day -- another hit. I didn't bother trying to swirl the layers together. Larger version

Of course its humanly possible, though if you have functioning capsaicin receptors, you will most likely find the experience extremely painful. Compared to Thai chiles, which are typically 50,000-100,000 Scoville rating, Habaneros are typically rated at 100,000 - 300,000. So, as an approximation, Habaneros are 2-3 times hotter than Thai chiles.

Great job, Ling!

Each has their place in baking, and I'm certainly no shortening-phobe, but one thing that just about everyone will agree on is that butter is vastly superior in terms of flavor, especially in recipes where butter is a major component, like in puff pastry

I mad the oatmeal peanut butter chocolate chip cookies the other day, and they turned out great. If you can't decide between oatmeal, peanut butter, or chocolate chip cookie, these are a perfect compromise. Flickr images: 1 2 3

The photo of the cake in the pan was taken using a simple tungsten light. The photo of the sliced cake was taken using a hotshoe-mounted flash -- the flash head was pointed about 90 degrees to the right and bounced off of a reflector.

Thanks, Jean! I skipped the rum syrup as a concession to the Little One, who loves pound cake but is not fond of rum.

I made the rum-soaked vanilla cakes, minus the rum soak. These cakes are fantastic -- exactly would pound cake should be like.

Are we going to hear about your trip? I didn't notice anything on the Vancouver forum. ← Check this thread out, CB.

You could probably do that, but another way is to blind bake your tart shell, then cut circles of cake to fit into/onto the shell. I'm pretty sure that Herme has a coffee tart recipe that is assembled like that.

Ling, you did a great job with the lighting in your photos -- and your tart looks great.

One point I'd make is that storage guidelines usually seem excessive because they are designed to practically eliminate the risk of foodbourne illness, by preactically eliminating the conditions that allow pathogens to grow on food. If a given product is said to have certain time/temperature requirements, that obviously does not mean that a person who consumes the product when it has been held outside of those time/temperature requirements will get sick. It doesn't even mean that pathogens will have grown to unsafe levels -- for all we know, the product may never have even been innoculated or seeded with the harmful microbe. All it means is that the conditions were such that that could have happened. Most of us have many, many experiences violating food safety guidelines and living to tell the tale. For instance, virtually every food safety expert would caution against consuming raw egg yolks because of the risk of salmonellosis, but the truth is that most eggs will not have any salmonella, and you might consume raw eggs your whole life without getting sick. But there is a risk. Some eggs do have salmonella, in quantities that can make you sick. The risk is there, it is just very small. So the point is that while food safety guidelines sometimes seem excessive (I will continue to use raw eggs), they are not totally arbitrary -- they really are for the most part based on what is known about conditions necessary for pathogens to proliferate on food. Another point is that the vast majority of foodbourne illness is mild and self-resolves in a short period of time with no medical intervention. The CDC estimates that there are 76 million cases of foodbourne illnesses a year in the US, but that there are only 325 thousand hospitilizations and 5 thousand deaths. So, the serious cases of foodbourne illness are very much the exception -- only like 1/234 will require a hospitization, and only about 1/15,000 will result in death. Usually the sickened person has no way of knowing why they were sick or whether it was even a foodbourne illness at all. For instance, the people who have been sickened by eating spinach with E. coli O157 had no way of knowing the spinach made them sick. So, when Rosie says that "she has been using this partiucular recipe for over 30 years and have always left it out for several days with no problems whatsoever," its fair to ask, what does she mean, and how does she know? Does she mean that no one has ever dropped dead, mid-bite, with a forkful of her icing in hand? I'm being facetious, of course, but a lot of people do have an almost as simplistic view of the subject, and dont understand how hard it is to even determine that a given illness is from food, much less a particular food that they consumed 12-36 hours earlier. I think its safe to say that most bakers are not in the habit of asking their customers whether they experienced any nausea or diarrhea within 12-36 hours of eating their products.

So even when the sugar syrup (for IMBC) is heated to 248 - 250 degrees F, it's still not hot enough to heat the egg whites to proper pasterization temperature? ← That would depend, obviously, on a number of factors -- for instance, the starting temperature of the egg whites (e.g. are they a "room temperature" 70F or preheated to 120F over a hot-water bath), and the ratio of sugar syrup to egg whites. I've checked with the probe thermometer using RLB mousseline buttercream (which has a relatively low syrup/whites ratio) and room temp whites and no, it did not reach 140F, but I've wondered about using a blow dryer or heat gun to get the whites as hot as possible before adding the syrup, so that the syrup would push the whites into pasteurization temps. . .