Patrick S
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Posts posted by Patrick S
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As I understand it, the only thing microwave frequency radiation is going to do is heat tissue up. And that's not going to happen to tissue outside of the microwave unless 1) the microwave's shielding is defective or broken, and 2) the target tissue is very close to microwave leak.
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This is an El Rey white chocolate mousse with warm, thickened passion fruit sauce on top. The mousse recipe is from Sherry Yard, and is egg and cream-based. The sauce is simply sweetened passion fruit puree thickened with a little cornstarch. The picture is a wee bit overexposed.
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Sherry Yard says her creamy caramel sauce will keep refrigerated for up to 1 month, and I've kept it that long.
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I'm looking for a way to cheat at making these mille feuilles. . . This got me thinking there must be a source (local?) for prepared pastry cream (fresh or packaged). The packaged crepes have a good shelf life (and are super thin and tender) and I suppose that a jarred or frozen pastry cream would also have a decent shelf life. I guess one could substitute a jarred chocolate or hazelnut sauce but I really like the idea of the vanilla filling.
Is there even such a thing as jarred or frozen pastry cream? Pastry cream is not hard to do, but if you are determined to do as little cooking as possible, you can make pastry cream out of vanilla instant pudding mix. I don't know if that will be firm enough to stay put in you mille crepes though. There is also such a thing as instant pastry cream mix, though I've never used it.
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Chocolate inherantly has quite literally thousands and thousands of compounds..i keep a pretty good list of it at work, and there's many things in there where i've said 'who'da thunk it?' myself. Most of them, like the anandamide or phenylethylamine, while present, are there in such small amounts (caffeine is this way too - many folks believe chocolate's loaded with the stuff, when in fact it's just in there at pretty small lvls).
I realize that the levels of anandamide in chocolate are, for all practical purposes, physiologically insignificant. What makes it presence suprising is that anandamide and the cannabinoid system is found only animals, and not in any plant. Plants don't have the cannabinoid receptors that anandamide acts upon in animals, so it seems out of place.
I seems out of place until we think of who cultivates, transports, and propagates seeds; animals. Plants make themselves attractive, or we select those that are, to continue their propagation. I think there's a book out with that theme, The Botany of Desire?
Sure, but that still leaves the question: why would Theobroma cacao, apparently uniquely among the plant kingdom, produce anandamide? Even Cannabis sativa itself, which produces dozens of different cannabinoids, does not produce anandamide. And aside from that, my understanding is that the concentration of anandamide is, for all practical purposes, too low to be physiologically significant. If that is truly the case, then the function of anandamide can not be to make the plant appealing to animals. OTOH, I suppose its possible that the anandamide concentration, while too low to affect humans or most other animals, is sufficient to affect some anandamide super-sensitive species involved in scattering/distributing/propagating Theobroma cacao.
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Invertase is how you get the liquid centres in the chocolate covered cherries. You start with fondant, add the invertase and once enclosed in chocolate the invertase converts the solid sugar to liquid.
i see, then it wouldn't be good for a ganache then. if you use a smaller amount, will it stay solid?
Sote - i use it in ganache all the time w/out it causing a significant texture change. that could, of course, be due to the fact taht the ganache rarely sits around for more than a week 8-)
that's great to hear. my only other concern is if it's safe? are there any harsh chemicals in it?
Invertase is a natural enzyme whose only action (so far as we know) is to break down sucrose into fructose and glucose (which happens to all the sucrose you ingest anyway). It is naturally present in honey, and I'm not aware of any health risks at all associated with its use.
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Chocolate inherantly has quite literally thousands and thousands of compounds..i keep a pretty good list of it at work, and there's many things in there where i've said 'who'da thunk it?' myself. Most of them, like the anandamide or phenylethylamine, while present, are there in such small amounts (caffeine is this way too - many folks believe chocolate's loaded with the stuff, when in fact it's just in there at pretty small lvls).
I realize that the levels of anandamide in chocolate are, for all practical purposes, physiologically insignificant. What makes it presence suprising is that anandamide and the cannabinoid system is found only animals, and not in any plant. Plants don't have the cannabinoid receptors that anandamide acts upon in animals, so it seems out of place.
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i know, just playing to popular belief. Chocolate's anandamide actually stimulates the same THC receptors, although you'd have to consume roughly 27 lbs of it at one sitting to get the same effect, at which point you've probabaly got larger issues 8-)
That's interesting, Sebastian -- I never knew that chocolate contained anandamide!
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they're medicinal, right?
8-)
Unfortunately, all the good stuff in hemp is in the trichomes of the plant. The medicinally good stuff, anyway.
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Invert sugar is actually sweeter than regular sucrose, because of the free fructose.
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Hemp seed butter is another option. A fairly expensive one, I admit. Try your local health food/co-op/natural grocery. I haven't had the butter, but the seeds are very good.
Hmm, I didn't realize there were people who actually enjoy eating hemp seeds!
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Sherry Yard has a recipe for raspberry ganache (this ganache is piped onto a chocolate financier on the cover of her book) that uses only butter and puree -- no cream or eggs. 8oz bittersweet chocolate is melted with 2oz butter. This is cooled to 100F, and then 1/2C strained raspberry puree is stirred in. Use at 70F.
Herme has a passion fruit ganache that calls for juice, but I assume puree could be used. 1/3C cream is brought to boil, and poured over 5 3/4oz Noir Gastronomie (or bittersweet of your choice). After this is incorporated, 1/3C boiling passionfruit juice is incorporated. After this is incorporated, add 3T room temp unsalted butter. Chill until firm enough to use.
if i were to use the juice, does it specify how much?
You mean the passionfruit recipe? The recipe calls for 1/3C juice.
patrick,
i tried the recipe tonight. any idea if it calls for unsweetend juice? the only thing I could find was sweetened juice, that is actually 25% fruit juice. it didn't come out very well.
The recipe calls for "passion fruit juice" without specifying sweet or unsweet. Was the ganache too thin?
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Water will definitely prevent (or slow) caramelization. I would dry the strawberries first and try to caramelize over the skin rather than a cut surface. Another option is to caramelize the strawberries the way you would bananas -- combine sugar and some butter over very high heat, add the strawberries when the sugar starts to caramelize, and then take them back out with a fork. Be careful though because working over high heat you can easily burn the caramel.
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Sherry Yard has a recipe for raspberry ganache (this ganache is piped onto a chocolate financier on the cover of her book) that uses only butter and puree -- no cream or eggs. 8oz bittersweet chocolate is melted with 2oz butter. This is cooled to 100F, and then 1/2C strained raspberry puree is stirred in. Use at 70F.
Herme has a passion fruit ganache that calls for juice, but I assume puree could be used. 1/3C cream is brought to boil, and poured over 5 3/4oz Noir Gastronomie (or bittersweet of your choice). After this is incorporated, 1/3C boiling passionfruit juice is incorporated. After this is incorporated, add 3T room temp unsalted butter. Chill until firm enough to use.
if i were to use the juice, does it specify how much?
You mean the passionfruit recipe? The recipe calls for 1/3C juice.
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Thanks for the compliment Dorie.
Patrick, this one does not use the hot syrup/yolk mixture. The mousse is instead made with a thick custard (yolks+sugar+cream), whipped cream and whipped stiff meringue (whites+sugar).
Ah, I see.
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Beautiful tarts! Patrick, what is the diameter of your mini pans? Are they tinned steel or did you splurge on the heavier ones?
I'm just composing a menu of mini's for a group of ladies for next week. I was going to do lemon tarts anyways, but I think I may use your ganache/caramel idea. They sound divine. Did you like them with the white pastry shell or would it have been even better with a chocolate shell?
I haven't measured them, but I think they are about 2" at the bottom and about 3" at the top. They are very thin and light. As for myself, I prefer regular sweet tart shells to all the chocolate doughs I've tried, so that's what I would use again next time.
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[i'd love to hear about your technique for lining the tins with your pastry dough. I did a bunch of tartlets from Sweet Miniatures a few weeks ago and was quickly reminded of how tedious and time-consuming it is to press the dough into each little tin. How did you get such consistent results, and did it take hours?
Definitely tedious and time-consuming, at least compared to just making one big tart or pie, but its not so bad once you get
For some of them I cut out circles of dough, pressed them into the tins, pressed out the sides and bottoms to as consistent a thickness as I could, and then trim the excess dough from the top using a knife. If the cut surface looked course, I would just tap it with my finger to smooth it out. For others I just took a lump of cool dough and pressed it into the tins. Of course, the more I did, the more I could kind of feel for the right dough thickness with my fingertips, and the more consistent they came out.
For blind-baking weights, I used two pennies stacked on top of a quarter, wrapped in foil to look like big Hershey's kisses (that makes them easier to add and remove from the tart tin). So, I would press the dough into the tins, refrigerate for a little bit, bake for several minutes, then add the weights (I found that if I added the weights at the beginning, they tend to get stuck in the dough), then finished baking.
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Yeah, these really caught my eye as well. I jotted down the idea and need to try it sometime soon. Did you use your favorite caramel from Sherry Yard by any chance? (They all look really beautiful; I just was particularly intrigued by the flavors in the chocolate tart.)
That probably would work well, but instead I used a very simple caramel recipe a bit firmer than a sauce:
4T water
2T corn syrup
1C sugar
1T butter
4T cream
Combine water, sugar and corn syrup. Caramelize. Remove from heat. Add butter. Stir in cream, being very careful to avoid steam burns.
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As you can see I think I did not whip the chocolate with the little bit of cream properly. That resulted in small pieces of solidified chocolate in the mousse, but they tasted very good, like little specks of chocolate chip.
I've had the same problem with other mousse recipes. I don't have the book in front of me, but I am assuming the recipe has you incorporate the cool cream into the warm chocolate, and then a pate a bombe into the chocolate+cream. However, I have found that if you fold the pate a bombe into the chocolate first, and then the whipped cream, it seems to come together far better.
You are right Patrick. The first thing we are asked to incorporate into the chocolate is a little whipped cream. What is Pate A Bombe??? I'm assuming you mean the custard right? I will try incorporating that into the chocolate first next time around. Honestly though my wife and I are very happy with this treat of a dessert, the chocolate "chips" are not a problem. Now, if I was making chocolate mousse then they would be.
Pate a bombe is the whipped mixture of hot syrup and yolks. I'm sure the chips are not problem -- just another layer of texture. I just wanted to give you an FYI because I had experienced the same thing you describe.
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are ziplock bags and foodwrap foodsafe at high temperatures?
It depends on what you mean by "high." I mean, they certainly are not safe to use, say, on the grill or under a broiler. What Ziploc's site says is that:
All Saran™ Wraps, Ziploc® containers and microwaveable Ziploc® bags meet the safety requirements of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for temperatures associated with defrosting and reheating food in microwave ovens, as well as room, refrigerator, and freezer temperatures. -
As you can see I think I did not whip the chocolate with the little bit of cream properly. That resulted in small pieces of solidified chocolate in the mousse, but they tasted very good, like little specks of chocolate chip.
I've had the same problem with other mousse recipes. I don't have the book in front of me, but I am assuming the recipe has you incorporate the cool cream into the warm chocolate, and then a pate a bombe into the chocolate+cream. However, I have found that if you fold the pate a bombe into the chocolate first, and then the whipped cream, it seems to come together far better.
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Patrick - those are gorgeous! Which ones were your favorites? How did they taste?
They all turned out pretty good, but if I had to pick a favorite it would probably be the chocolate-caramel tart. I love the combination of fudgy ganache, chewy caramel, and crispy sweet tart dough.
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I've been doing a bunch of bite-sized desserts using my little tart pans. Actually I don't know if they are supposed to be tart pans or petite brioche pans, but they work fine as tart pans regardless.
Little financiers:
Lemon cream tartlets:
Milk chocolate ganache tarts with dark caramel and a sprinkle of sea salt:
Mini lemon meringue pies:
Simmering In Plastic Wrap
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DEHA is not classified as a human carcinogen by OSHA, the U.S. National Toxicology Program, or the International Agency for Research on Cancer, which are the main agencies that classify chemicals according to their carcinogenic potential. DEHA is approved by the FDA for use in food contact applications and is considered safe in those applications. According to the EPA, DEHA:
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