Patrick S
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Everything posted by Patrick S
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I'm chiming in late here, but congrats on the big, beautiful cakes and the wedding, K8. And thanks for saving us a slice!
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I have a suggestion for a PB cookie too -- prepare the Cook's Illustrated chewy chocolate chip recipe, add in about half a cup of peanut butter, replace the chocolate chips with peanut butter chips, chill the dough before portioning (otherwise the cookies will be too flat), then roll out balls of dough at about 70-90 grams a piece.
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You accidentally linked to the thumbnail. If you remove the "tn_" part of the URL, you get the whole thing. Nice photo!
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Aha! No wonder it took so long -- glass is a very, very poor conductor of heat. Just to follow-up, here is an example of a set-up that will get you up to temp in no time: Clickity-click
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I am certain that the problem lies with your double-boiler set-up. If you set up a good system, you'll reach the right temp in less than 25 minutes. I use a large a large stainless mixing bowl (6 or 7qts) set over a large pot with a few cups of simmering water. The mixing bowl sets down into the pot of water, forming a loose seal, keeping the steam under the bowl. With this set-up, it takes less than 10 minutes to reach 180. It also speeds up the rate at which the lemon cream cools down to 140F (at which point you start beating in the butter). Use a large pot for the water, and a large bowl for the lemon cream. That way you maximize the surface area across which heat exchange occurs, and shorten the time it takes. If you'd like, I can post a picture later on showing you my setup. But I think you get the point.
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I always beat the whites+sugar into the stiffest meringue possible, and I always use some cream of tartar so I don't overbeat. The whites are usually warmed a bit above room temp, to about 75F. I process the almond meal with the other dry ingredients for several minutes in the food processor to mix them and hopefull break up some of the bigger chunks of almond. (Honestly though, I don't know if this really reduces the size of the almong particles.) I always fold the dry ingredients in all at once, "carefully but thoroughly" as the book describes. I let the piped cookies sit out for at least 30 minutes before baking. Doing all that, I still get a macaroon that is fairly flattish.
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Its funny, I made the caramels again last night, and they turned out too soft. I used a candy thermometer (for the first time), since my digital bit the dust, and I think that may have been a factor. I may have been reading the temp of the bottom of the pan rather than the caramel. Oh well, they're still delicious. I chilled them, then cut and wrapped the pieces in wax paperFor the lemon, I added 1/4t of lemon extract right at the end, instead of the zest at the beginning. This time there is a noticable lemon note, though it is still quite subtle.
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I have always used 50 grams (20g yolk and 30g white) for large eggs, a value I took from the Cake Bible.
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Las Vegas compares fairly well to other cities in terms of the rate of violent crimes. In 1999, Vegas had 665 violent crimes per 100,000 population, 554 for the suburbs. By comparison, Atlanta had 2729, Orlando had 2137, Nashville had 1607, Los Angeles had 1238, Houston had 1187, New York had 1063, and Indianapolis had 1016. Hell, Salt Lake City had 710. Those numbers are all based on the DOJ's Uniform Crime Report 1999.
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I think I'll try these, CB. I've been looking for a more chewy PB cookie, and I'm thinking oatmeal may do the trick.
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I say, start by rolling the yolk-brushed cookie baton in the sugar, then wait a few minutes, and then kinda pat some more sugar on it. If you wait a few minutes after rolling it the first time, some moisture will make it to the surface and be available for the sugar to adhere too. I'd also recommend shortening the baking time from 15-18 minutes to like 12-14 minutes. I like the cookies better when they retain a little more moisture.
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The caramels are supposed to be very soft. Mine were just firm enough to hold their shape at room temperature. Actually, even at room temperature, they would spread out a little bit. If you look at the pics I posted in post #77 on page 3 of this thread, particularly the upper left hand pic, you can see what happened when I stacked 3 caramel pieces. They slowly, over the course of a few minutes, slumped over. That's how I like them, super-soft, almost gooey. I've even made some caramels that were so soft you had to keep them in the fridge, because at room temp they were like a really thick caramel sauce. If you want a firmer caramel, I would try cooking to a higher temp and/or adding less butter. ← I just read that again, and wanted to clarify that the caramels that were so soft they had to be kept cool were not made from Herme's recipe. I only made Herme's caramels once, and while they were really soft, they mostly kept their shape at room temperature.
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The caramels are supposed to be very soft. Mine were just firm enough to hold their shape at room temperature. Actually, even at room temperature, they would spread out a little bit. If you look at the pics I posted in post #77 on page 3 of this thread, particularly the upper left hand pic, you can see what happened when I stacked 3 caramel pieces. They slowly, over the course of a few minutes, slumped over. That's how I like them, super-soft, almost gooey. I've even made some caramels that were so soft you had to keep them in the fridge, because at room temp they were like a really thick caramel sauce. If you want a firmer caramel, I would try cooking to a higher temp and/or adding less butter.
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I tried the chocolate sparklers tonight. They're pretty good. I think I like them better than the Korova cookies, and I definitely like them better than the chocolate sables. I rolled them in turbinado like Elie, and I baked them for 14 minutes.
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Great job, thornado!
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Moderator note: The original "Chocolate Desserts" by Pierre Herme topic became too large for our servers to handle efficiently, so we've divided it up; the preceding part of this discussion is here: "Chocolate Desserts" by Pierre Herme (Part 1)] Continuing with the chocolate-caramel theme, I made the chocolate-caramel mousse from Desserts by Pierre Herme. This mousse has a whipped cream base, into which is folded melted into bittersweet chocolate+caramel sauce. Very sweet, and very delicious.
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I tried a different, natural banana flavoring (Frontier brand), and I'm happy to report that the flavor is much better. Whatever that "something" was that turned me off the last flavoring, it is not present this time. The flavoring I used is mixed with canola oil, but that doesn't seem to have affected the texture in any adverse way. I ended up using 2t, and I added it towards the end of the whipping rather than at the very beginning.
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I made the truffles yesterday, using Callebaut Java (which is quite 'caramelly') and Callebaut 70/30, and I must say, I find them to sweet for my taste. It may be being a 'continental' or maybe just a bit strange, but I find a lot af american or american adjusted recipes too sweet (of course, Herme is french, so there goes that line of argument....) - anyway.... ← If you prefer bittersweet truffles, these definitely aren't going to be your favorite. Personally, I find most truffle recipes way too bitter, and several of Herme's recipes I loved but thought could be slightly sweeter. But my general preference is definitely more toward the sweeter end of the sugar content continuum.
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I took some of the left-over ganache and rolled it in praline powder. I've been experimenting with caramel and nuts lately so I had a bunch around. They're not as pretty as cocoa powder, but I like the element of flavor they add.
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As CB pointed out, cake pans are cylinders, so you can calculate their volumes by the formular pi x r^2 x h, where r and h are radius and height, in this case in inches. So, the volume of a 9" diameter, 1.5" high pan is: 3.14 x 20.25 x 1.5= 95.3775 square inches, the the volume of an 8" pan is 3.14 x 16 x 1.5= 75.36 square inches, and that of a 6" is 3.14 x 9 x 1.5 = 42.39. Three 9" pans are about 285 sq in in volume. Three 8" pans are 225 in sq. So, assuming you're filling all the pans to the same depth, I think you'd have enough batter left over to fill roughly one and a half 6" pans. The real question is, if train A and train B are on a straight track 100 miles apart, and train A is moving north at 60 miles an hour, and train B is moving south at 80 miles an hour, and train A is decelerating at a rate of 10 miles per hour per hour, at what point will your head explode? Seriously though. Check my math before you bake anything. . .
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The other night I got the idea into my head that I'd like to work out recipes for caramel and praline macaro[o]n variations. As far as fillings, I'm thinking maybe caramel whipped cream in the first, and commercial praline cream in the other. Please, though, share your ideas if you have any. About the cookies themselves, I am curious about what would happen if you replaced some of the sugar with powdered caramel or powdered praline? Alternatively, I could just sprinkle a little on top of the cookies before they go into the oven. If that doesn't work, I suppose I'll just stick to plain cookies and let the filling do the flavoring. Just brainstorming here, and I'd much appreciate any feedback.
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The cake is supposed to be dense, almost like a pound cake. As I wrote in my description of it: As for the flavor, you're just not going to get a strong strawberry flavor using only strawberries. At least, I didn't, even when I used a lot. That's why the recipe included a packet of jello. I'm not sure why that it - maybe natural strawberry flavor compounds are not very heat-stable. At any rate, none of the cakes I made with just strawberries was worth making again, for just that reason -- not enough flavor.
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Its very similar, but not identical. The truffle recipe differs by having a slightly higher proportion of bitter to milk chocolate, and by having much less butter. The butter-to-chocolate ratio in the pave ganache is like 12/10, while in the truffles it is only 1/16.
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I wanted to try some of Reinhart's recipes, so I made pizza again this weekend. Nothing fancy, just cheese, and one with prosciutto. I used Reinhart's pizza sauce from American Pie, which has more garlic than the one I normally use, and is also different by containing some red wine vinegar. I deviated somewhat by adding half a finely-diced medium onion cooked in olive oil. I used Muir Glen (spelling?) fire-roasted crushed tomatoes. I liked the sauce quite a bit. My daughter and mother-in-law liked it better than the one I've used in the past, so this will be my default sauce from now on. On saturday, I used Reinhart's sauce on the Cook's Illustrated dough that I normally use. I let the dough rise in the fridge overnight. I pushed my oven as far as it would go, preheating at 550F for about an hour. On sunday, I used Reinhart's Napoletana dough recipe from American Pie. I definitely agree with ellencho that it is very easy to shape, compared to the higher protein, bread-flour dough I've gotten used to working with.
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John, your Pave must have been massive if you only made one! I hope you liked it. I know I did. Last night I made a half-recipe of Herme's caramel chocolate truffles (p. 163). Chocolate-wise, I used 5ozs Valrhona Caraibe bittersweet, and 3oz Callebaut milk chocolate. I dry caramelized the sugar as directed in the book, and let it get as dark and intense as possible. I waited til I was getting a faint trail of smoke from the sugar before I moved from the heat added the butter and cream. I feel like gushing, but I won't. I'll just say that these caramelicious jewels are the best truffles I've ever had (well, I guess that is gushing. . . ). Caramelizing. The Butter and Cream Are Added. The Caramel Is Stirred Into the Chocolate. The Ganache Is Smooth and Ready to Cool. I Had to Sample the Ganache. A Ganache Puck, Ready for Truffle-Forming. The Best Truffles Ever.
