pastrygirl

I've been a busy confectionista this week: Nougat with pistachios, almonds, candied orange, and cocoa nibs that nougat cut into bars and dipped in about 66% dark (blend of 72 & 60) Easter egg macarons Easter egg bonbons Sample Easter basket at my pop up shop today caramel apples for a food truck I'm starting to work with

Hey, I've been making nougat too! Made it yesterday, no such drama besides burning the first batch of honey. I approximately followed Greweling's recipe - honey to 248F and sugar to 311F. I would like it just a little softer, so I might play with lowering the sugar temp a little next time. I added pistachios, almonds, candied orange zest and cocoa nibs, then cut it into bars and dipped them in approx 66% dark chocolate. https://www.facebook.com/DolcettaArtisanSweets/photos/a.658452977538432.1073741826.330407983676268/909026599147734/?type=1&notif_t=like

I try not to be an asshole so I don't have to worry about people spitting in my food.

I don't think the restaurant has any obligation to explain the reasoning behind their specials. As long as the food is safe to eat it should not matter whether the dessert special was made because the pastry chef was bored and felt like experimenting or because that case of apricots had seen better days and needed to be used. Cooks all know the really sketchy stuff goes into staff meal, not specials!

The most embarrassing thing about my pantry is how bare it is. And the fridge shelves could use a scrub. OK, and the instant coffee that my brother acquires in his travels and gives to me. It helps that when I buy junk food I devour it pretty much instantly so evidence is destroyed.

Chanjying, the mold is Chocolate World 1468. I have one, but don't remember which of the fine Canadian companies listed above carries it.

Very cute, Ruth!

Hard to pick 'most exotic'. Most different from what I grew up eating? Farthest from home? Rarest? Being one who has both traveled a bit and lives in a large city where it seems like almost everything is available, what is exotic anymore? Not saying that in a bad way, I love having multiple options for Shanghainese soup dumplings and grocery stores with Hawaiian poke bars. Babi guling in Bali was incredibly delicious with complex and mysterious seasoning. On the other hand, is roast pork exotic? Beef lung curry in Wangduephodrang, Bhutan was something I tasted before knowing what it was. Strange-to-me texture, otherwise a fine curry. Also duck tongues, truffles, yak, cod sperm and everything on the menu that night at El Bulli could be contenders.

hmm, I've never actually tried it in that application, but I think you would want to add it at the end, after you have a stable meringue. I think it would dissolve but i can't promise. I use it mixed with toasted coconut so I can't tell if the powder texture can still be detected because it is already grainy. You could also mix it with the minimum amount of water possible to make a thick coconut milk paste, though of course added liquid will soften your meringue/marshmallow. Gelatin or hotter cooking will help with that if you are going more marshmallow-y.

Easter food memories are fuzzy though we always celebrated it. Get dressed up for church then come home and have sunday breakfast, with little easter themed egg cups at our place settings filled with jelly beans and mini chocolate eggs. I saw my mom yesterday and she said 'the usual' lamb and asparagus for dinner this year, though I'm sure sometimes there was ham. My older brother's birthday sometimes coincides with Easter, as it does this year, so sometimes it would be a combo easter/birthday. Maybe that's why I don't remember a traditional dessert, it was birthday cake or easter candy. Egg hunt was indoors, with Brown & Haley mountain bars and/or Cadbury creme eggs hidden around the house. We did dye chicken eggs, but only hunted for chocolate ones.

Bunnies! testing the colors - I mixed Chef Rubber cocoa butter colors into some white chocolate for opacity then drizzled and finger painted the molds before filling with 60% first batch finished packed and ready to sell! I need to get faster and line the mold halves up a little better, but otherwise I'm happy with these.

You can make pate de fruits in a thin layer then cut it and insert it into your shell. It won't be form-fitting, but you could float it between two layers of ganache, probably easiest in square or rectangular molds. Or if you don't mind hand dipping you can make the pate de fruits, let cool, add the ganache layer, then cut and dip.

OK, so no master class? I'm not sure I want to use up all my frequent flier miles if there is no master class. I'm sure you are all lovely, but maybe if I save my pennies (and miles, and hotel points) I can go hang out with Francisco Migoya at Callebaut in October, can't get more of a modern master than Frankie! The past few years I had the money but not the time, now I have time but not money Oh the joys of self-employment! Still, if there is a rough curriculum or schedule, I'm interested in seeing what it is.

It is with the cans of coconut milk, Kaya and Chaokoh are two brands I've seen.

There is a 99 Ranch market at the Great Wall Mall in Kent and a few H-Marts around - Seattle, Lynnwood, Federal way, and Tacoma. Uwajimaya is also a good Asian grocery, though maybe more Japanese than Chinese. If your friend works in Downtown Seattle, she should definitely check out the International District, and little Saigon, there is Uwajimaya at one end and Viet wah at the other, along with several produce stands around 12th Ave S and S Jackson.

KennethT, wow, 2005? You're right, it was pumpkin seed. Caramelo de aceite de calabaza. That was one of the bites I didn't get a picture of. Marcel was trying to do that technique with the ring mold one one of the finales on Top Chef, but it didn't work out for him.

I agree with Tri2Cook. Sugar garnishes can be fun for the pastry chef to make and can look cool, and I do appreciate having only edible garnishes on the plate, but there is only so much pulled sugar people want to eat. If it is very thin and delicate or flavored it seems more worth eating, but a slab of isomalt or a large bow or flower is way too much plain sugar to eat at once. I think if you want to play with sugar and not feel like your time is wasted when it doesn't get eaten, you should aim to give the sugar pieces some flavor and make them small and integrated as a component in the dessert. Like a single flower petal flavored with rose, or a blown sugar cherry that actually tastes like cherry or is filled with something (coulis? ganache?), then have the servers include it in their description when they present the dish. I had a bite at el Bulli that was blown sugar filled with some kind of pistachio oil IIRC. You had to eat it in one bite. It was intense and amazing.

You could sweeten with powdered sugar. That's what I use when I make hazelnut paste. Or fondant sugar if you don't want the added corn starch.

Where are you? If you have a good Asian supermarket nearby, look for packets of coconut cream powder. They are 50 or 60 g for about a dollar in seattle. Dry powdered coconut flavor so you're not adding liquid to the meringue.

A sweet tart dough or Pate sucree will give neater edges than a flaky pie dough or Pate brisee. Other than that, overworking, too much water, and kitchen gremlins might be to blame. Darienne, I think Chris means that they bake the tart shell then use a microPlane zester to shave the edges down even with the tart ring.

Depends on altitude

Why? Because they can. Are you familiar with Americans? We like excess I don't think this concoction would be bad, but it does seem like entirely too much work!

I would guess that for most small shapes the shell is 1/4 to 1/3 of the weight of the bonbon, so for a 15g mold I'd allow 10 to 12g ganache per cavity. a few minutes later.... OK, so in the interest of science I dissected a few old bonbons that I had in the freezer. The mold used was Chocolate world #2295 which is listed as approximately 13g per piece. The total weight of 4 pieces was 50 grams. Broken apart they had total 32g filling and 18g shells. Shells were not too thick white chocolate, filling was Notter's key lime ganache, IIRC, also white chocolate. Those particular pieces averaged 64% filling to 36% shell. I hope that helps!

As Anna N mentioned above, some salted butters are saltier than others. Maybe it is an extreme example, but when I was working in Bhutan, we had limited access to locally made unsalted butter, but packaged Amul butter was easily available. Amul butter has enough salt in it to keep it shelf stable in India. It was some salty stuff and I had to warn my staff against using it in things like cake frosting. Their website says 836mg sodium per 100 g butter. Darigold salted butter says it has 100mg sodium per 14g serving, so that would be 714mg/100g butter. Land O' Lakes salted butter has 90mg per 14g serving, so even lower sodium at 642mg/100g. At home as well as at work, I buy unsalted butter - I've been in pastry so long that it is a reflex. I do add some salt to most sweet things I make, but I still appreciate having that control. So I don't think it is a myth that there is a difference, but if you have butter that you like and do not find too salty for sweet applications, by all means use it. But if you switch brands (or move to Bhutan), you may notice a difference!

I assume it is the weight of solid chocolate, but don't know for sure. You are always going to have slight variations in the amount of filling you need depending on the thickness of your shells - a difference of a gram of chocolate per cavity will add up to needing an ounce more or an ounce less of filling.