pastrygirl

I agree with Lisa. Aside from a few things I bake on Silpat, I very rarely bake in silicone. I do have some flexipans which I use to mold mousses that can be frozen, and I have some small silicone molds that I find useful for candy. Other than that, silicone is overrated.

Agreed on the catering, especially if they can do minis and wedding cakes. Or how about a partnership with a coffee shop or wine bar? In general, you want to consider shelf life, portability, and ease of use. Do you want to deliver to your accounts every day? Twice a week? Does the product need refrigeration? Would you offer other components like sauces, or what do you mean by semi-finished?

Johhny Iuzzini has a recipe for a warm chocolate doughnut that involves calcium chloride, sodium alginate, and a ganache thickened with methocel. They are breaded and fried, but possibly his method could inspire a baked application. You may also want to adjust baking time and temperature. I'm sure most restaurants producing molten cakes over the last 15 years haven't had combi ovens.

Exactly. Sugar draws water out of the custard and melts. Sometimes if you try to unmold a flan too soon you find an undissolved disc of sugar. I find it best to let them sit overnight to make sure the caramel has completely liquified.

What are you using to grind your nuts now? I make hazelnut praline paste for pastry use, which is 2 parts by weight toasted hazelnuts and 1 part powdered sugar. I process it all in the robot coupe for a long time. It gets pretty hot and releases a lot of oil, turning out runny enough to pass through a chinoise. It takes a little effort but it's not that bad. I don't know how the sugar affects viscosity, I've never made it without. How hot the nuts get during grinding may also affect viscosity, not sure, but I figure they are toasted anyway and are not getting hotter than that.

Definitely reef-y! That coral looks like the right shade to me, and a nice compliment to the blue. Did she give you color swatches?

You could strain it.

I like the sound of this... and it led me to wonder about doing the same thing with pretzels. I don't have a gadget that's going to get things as smooth as what you're doing but I'm tempted to do some playing around just to check out the flavors and I'll worry about the texture once I decide if I like the result.I've been making milk chocolate bars filled with a mix of milk chocolate, pretzels, and browned butter for fat. Since I don't have a Sumeet (yet!), I process the pretzels and butter in the Robot Coupe for a long while. It does not get perfectly smooth but I don't mind the bits of texture. I'd like to try potato chips at some point too, shouldn't even need to add fat in that case.

Yes, I want to know. Of course I prefer positive feedback, but I do want to know if something can be improved and if I am delivering on the expectations that the menu creates. One person complaining won't necessarily make me change a dish, sometimes I will re-taste it and decide it is the way I want it and the guest just has different taste. Sometimes I will adjust the recipe or re-word the menu for clarity. There is only one dessert that I remember getting multiple instances of negative feedback on, it was a bay leaf flan. I liked it, but at least a few people didn't, so I ended up taking it off the menu.

How big a batch do you need to make at once? I use a square false-bottomed cake pan lined with parchment, fine for the occasional small batch, and the sides are perpendicular, unlike a sheet pan.

Haven't reverse engineered anything lately, but thanks for reminding me that I want a wet grinder.

I wonder if natto would be sticky enough to bind. Of course, you would have to like natto.

I have not tried aerated chocolate in the isi whipper, but I have tried doing it in the kitchenaid, and did not get anything approaching a foam. I had wanted to try the isi, but both of mine were full at the moment. Neither the whip nor the paddle with the KA got tempered dark chocolate remotely mousse-y. I imagine it would be difficult to achieve precision control with the isi, but it seems like it should not be a problem to over-fill and level the molds off with your scraper. Not sure if you would even need to bottom them, since the aerated chocolate would be solid and stable. As for clarified butter, yes, cook gently until all of the water has simmered away and the milk solids fall to the bottom and start to turn golden. Then you are adding only fat and not any water which could seize your chocolate. Depending on how much flavor you wanted to add, you could cook the butter a little longer and brown it, or use coconut oil or another oil. The right olive oil could be interesting. I make two filled bars, one is milk chocolate with a filling of crushed pretzels, browned butter, and milk chocolate - sort of a pretzel gianduja, the other is dark with a filling of white chocolate, coconut, and coconut oil. Both the butter and the coconut oil make their respective fillings softer.

A few states do not allow tips to count as wages, and servers get the full minimum wage as a base, plus tips. Washington minimum wage is $9.19 an hour, Oregon is $8.95, California $8 (with San Francisco $10.55), Alaska $7.75, and Nevada $7.25 if the employer provides health insurance or $8.25 if no insurance. Many other states have a higher minimum cash wage than the Federal minimum of $2.13. Only Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming adhere to the federal minimum, with Arkansas, Delaware, DC, Massachusetts, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin paying barely more than that but still under $3 an hour. I can't tell you what effect this has had on business operating costs, but I can tell you that the tipping culture and expectations have not changed at all. The servers I work with in Seattle still expect 18+ percent, and it is still normal to add an automatic gratuity of 18-20% to large parties. Which I think is part of what makes this discussion so difficult. It is simply not true that all servers make $2.13 an hour. It varies widely. But the expectation that diners will tip 15-20% remains the same. Serving jobs vary so incredibly widely, how can we apply the same formula to all restaurants? A server working at a diner in Texas with a check average of say $12 is going to have to turn a lot more tables than a server working in Oregon at a gastropub with a check average of $30, or fine dining in California with a check average of $60. It is reasonable to worry about the bottom rung, but Annabelle is right, most servers don't want a set wage. Those who can work the system love the system.

I know, it is one of those things I keep thinking I should just make myself but have never bothered trying. One of these days...

I've just discovered goat yogurt. Expensive, but lower in fat and easier on my stomach than cow. I know, the cultures are supposed to make cow yogurt more digestible but I still have issues. I like the mild goatiness. I have been getting Redwood Hill Farms, which is over $8 a quart at my nearest store, will have to see if Trader Joes has another option for less. I've been eating it with cereal for breakfast or with sliced zucchini and a dash of vinegar for a salad. Love it!

Ha! I was going to say as long as its not vegan, you'll be okay. Just use lots of duck fat and whatever assorted meats are handy.

Yes, I was stirring the ganache as it cooled. I cooled it to around 78-80 F. Notter calls for 88 F., Greweling for 77. When I filled the cavities, the ganache poured out in a completely liquid form.Try letting it cool completely to room temperature, then stirring.

What is boring you? Need more flavor? More variety? Lots of ways to add flavor without much carbs or fat - Kimchi, lime pickle, dijon mustard, hot sauce, vinegar, lemon juice, herbs, spices...

That is a high proportion of liquid for white chocolate, you could try less cream, or, once the ganache has cooled to room temperature, agitate it to induce crystallization, or until it starts to thicken. Somebody recommends the cooling then stirring for some of his recipes, I don't recall if it is Greweling or Wybauw or someone else, but it has helped me a few times when a ganache seems like it will definitely be too soft and I don't want to mess around with adding more chocolate. I would also question whether the cocoa butter needs to be melted. Maybe adding unmelted cocoa butter would help add seed crystals and firm things up?

Yelp.

I don't know what to tell you. Cheesecake made by the traditional method shouldn't leak any significant fat or water. Some people use a tiny bit of cornstarch to prevent weeping, but a cup each of flour and maltodextrin sounds like a lot, even for that much cheese. Are you using commercial mascarpone or making your own? What temp do you circulate at? Still not sure what result you are currently getting that you are dis-satisfied with and what you are after. Is this based on another recipe that has worked in the past or are you trying to come up with something completely new?

What temp are you baking it at initially? I bake cheesecakes and other custards at around 250-275F or 121-135C, and they generally take about an hour, maybe an hour and a half, but definitely not 2-3 hours. I wonder if the issue is not your mascarpone breaking so much as your eggs getting overcooked? What is the end result you are trying to achieve? Something hot and creamy or liquid in the center? Something more like a souffle? What is happening when you re-heat it? I'm also curious if you could describe what the tapioca maltodextrin does for the texture. I have used it a few times to make peanut butter powder and the like, but never in baking or with anything with so much liquid.

If it's convenient to shop more often and if you don't find shopping to be a tedious chore, I say definitely shop more often. I keep a few bags of frozen peas, corn, and edamame around for nights when I feel lazy because I think those don't suffer from freezing. Otherwise I buy enough fresh meat and veg for 3-4 days at a time. A lot of seafood seems to be previously frozen, so for quality you generally don't want to be re-freezing already frozen and thawed fish or shrimp, and I only buy 1 or 2 servings of seafood at a time. I might buy more chicken or a pork tenderloin if I'm planning to have it for lunches all week, then cook it all and take a portion with me to work. I'm pretty sure water molecules expand in sous vide meat the same way they do in everything else, so unless you have a blast chiller I think freezing is freezing. OTOH, cooked sous vide meats are supposed to have a much longer shelf life. If you sous vide your steak and just keep it in the fridge it may very well be fine two weeks later, when it wouldn't have been if you left it raw. I'm not sure how to calculate that extended shelf life, just my understanding.

..and then strain it through a fine mesh chinoise, and you really can't get much smoother.