pastrygirl

I recently sacrificed one to act in lieu of a baking stone for pizza. Works decently.

Sooo, y'know how sometimes you have a nice cocoa butter swirl in your molds that seems to be in temper, but when you unmold the finished pieces half of them have spots where the color has flaked off? Do we know exactly why that happens? Cocoa butter too hot, too cold, too much agitation? Agitating when semi-set because you just can't leave well enough alone?

I think it could work. Coconut goes great with lots of tart tropical fruits, meyer lemon isn't really that different from lime, pineapple or passion fruit. Do it! Or you could make a meyer lemon curd or some kind of lemon cookie, using the juice in a filling or glaze. Even though the zest smells amazing, i feel like the flavor of meyers doesn't come through as well as regular lemon zest, so I always use the juice too.

The crumb doesn't looks so bad. If the batter deflates too quickly when folding in flour, I think your eggs may not be whipped until thick enough. Those babies have to be THICK!

Does the filling normally soak into the ladyfingers a little? If so, I'd think it would do the same with the sponge. After all, ladyfingers are just one variation of sponge cake. Looks like the butter and chocolate in the filling would stabilize it enough to not need gelatin. i really don't think you have anythig to worry about.

Have you looked at Bragard?

Instead of doing a cocoa butter layer and a luster dust layer, why not just mix the luster dust with the liquid cocoa butter? I feel like I have done that before with fine result, though I don't think I have a photo. Isn't that essentially what the chef rubber jewel colors are, cocoa butter plus color plust luster dust? Why not do clear plus luster dust? Like others, i just brush it in and it sticks to the mold and is (not amazingly, impossibly shiny but) shiny enough.

Thanks! I find the 5 quart kitchenaid bowl such an awkward shape for trying to fold the flour in, and it seems like you need 3 hands for that anyway. I do it on speed 2 or 3 and use the parchment as a funnel to add the flour. You do want to watch and add it gradually, too much at once isn't good.

I use 170g sugar, 140g AP flour, and 60g of fat to 5 eggs, so I agree that the flour looks a little too generous. I don't heat the eggs, just room temp. If the batter deflates quickly, the eggs may not be thick enough. Keep going! Here is my method: whip eggs and sugar until very thick in the kitchenaid with the whip attachment on high speed. Meanwhile, sift flour 3 times onto parchment and melt butter. When eggs are thick enough, turn the mixer to low and gradually add the flour then the melted butter (or I often use olive oil). Remove bowl from mixer and, using a spatula, scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl and fold in any unmixed ingredients. Pour into parchment lined pans and bake at 325F in convection oven until done.

No worries.

Looks like a nice blog. She must be pastrygirl on another board, as far as I know there is only one of us here and I don't have a blog

Where will you be staying? Will you have a car? I can't speak to the child issue, but recently I've had great food at Bar del Corso on Beacon Hill (wood oven pizza and small plates), Walrus & Carpenter in Ballard (oysters/fish, small plates), Restaurant Zoe on Capitol Hill (new american). If you are into sushi I highly recommend Mashiko in West Seattle. Had a good but not amazing dinner at Staple & Fancy in Ballard (Italian). Best bakeries in town are Cafe Besalu, Honore, (both Ballard), Bakery Nouveau (w. Sea), Columbia City Bakery, and Fuji Bakery (international district). Chowhound has a much more active local board than eG, you might want to check recent reports there.

If you ever make meringue and find it too sweet, a little citric acid will balance that out.

That's awesome. Especially since I just posted a pic of some super tasty pizza on Facebook.

I've made white chocolate genoise a few times by using a mix of melted white chocolate and oil instead of the melted butter. Not sure how much the white chocolate really added to the cake, though. It was subtle.

As you can tell from your searching, there is no hard set of rules, just what the market will bear. I'd be happy to share my experience with you. I've been make chocolates in my spare time using the kitchen of the restaurant where I work for the last year and a half. I then sell bonbons to the restaurant at 90 cents each (well, actually $1.10 minus a generous friends and family discount), and they sell on the dessert menu 2 for $4. This is higher food cost than normal (target food cost is 28%), but they figure it is easy plating. The catering division charges $5 for two chocolates because, well, that's catering. I also sell small bars to another restaurant, retail is $3 and I charge $1.40. Prices are based somewhat on my food cost and labor and somewhat on what seems fair so that both the restaurant and I make enough money for it to be worth doing. My food cost is higher on the bars (40-50%) than on the bon-bons (25-30%? haven't calculated in a while). Some days are more worth doing than others, but I figure it is all about learning. Lots of molds that come out well = a good day. Having to re-temper or lots of defects = making minimum wage that day. I'm trying to steer away from hand-dipped because they are so tedious and aggravate my carpal tunnel issues more than molded. I think even with polishing and decorating time, molds are faster, and the more molds you can do at once, the better. I'm convinced there is high potential for chocolate to be pretty profitable, you just need to find enough customers to justify doing enough volume, and be efficient about production. Right now most of my profits go to buying more molds and toys, as I can afford them. So far I don't offer retail boxes, but I know what you mean about how expensive they are. If you are offering the boxes wholesale, I'd just add the cost of the box onto the wholesale cost. The retailer would then adjust their mark-up accordingly. A nice presentation box adds value. Where are you getting your boxes? I just got some pretty nice ones from papermart.com, clear plastic with a frosted edge that were less than a dollar each.

BB, yes liquid glucose is essentially the same as US corn syrup, just a little thicker viscosity, and maybe made form wheat (the patis france glucose syrup I use is made from wheat). You don't necessarily want to add the extra liquid in liquid glucose, so the atomized should be better for ice cream. I use 600g granulated sugar plus 100 g atomized glucose to a bit more than 3 liters dairy and 400 g egg yolks.

Is there going to be a giant barbeque? They can sell tickets and get the state back in the black

I have one of the 'curve' molds, have only used it a few times but it's cute and they came out fine. Like other folks, I too tend to reach for my rounder, easier to polish shapes. Chocolate is fussy enough without having to do intricate mold cleaning and polishing But overall quality seems high enough.

Mmmm, purrrple... What's the flavor?

Dark chocolate bunnies with milk chocolate passion fruit caramel centers.

I would think you really should refrigerate it. Potatoes are a moist low acid food and ideal breeding ground for whatever might want to replicate in them. Plus isn't there dairy that might go sour?

I searched a little about ice cream last night and it appears that contamination after it is made is the most likely source of illness. Salmonella is of course something to be aware of, but if you don't cook your custard to 175F it's not going to thicken anyway. I get pasteurized egg yolks by the quart, but only for convenience. You might want to use a thermometer to make sure you get up to the right temperature if you use fresh eggs.

OK, that makes more sense. As for presentation, a little caramel sauce or fruit puree plus a tuile or other small cookie instantly adds value. Caramel sauce keeps for weeks in the fridge, and you can freeze fruit sauces in pints or smaller so you don't have to make it fresh every time. I think individual desserts also tend to look more expensive, so if you could do the mango pudding in individual cocktail glasses, maybe even layer it with something for contrast, it will look great (or at least fancier than a scoop out of a big bowl of pudding). Fresh fruit or berries, or large flakes of coconut tossed in simple syrup and toasted until crunchy would be nice on the pudding (keep the crunchy stuff separate and add just before serving). It sounds like you have a great relationship with your friend and really are doing this out of love for her and for baking. That's awesome! Westie, I'm curious about the ice cream thing. I'm in WA state, and I have heard that there are weird/strict rules about ice cream production and getting certified as a commercial dairy, BUT this does not seem to apply to restaurants who make ice cream in-house, only when it is packaged and intended for retail sale. I've made ice cream and sorbets at all my restaurant pastry gigs here and in CA over the past decade plus and no health inspector has ever even blinked about it. Heck, I'm not sure they even bothered to look inside the freezer. How does ice cream end up carrying food borne illness? And since you can buy pasteurized liquid egg yolks and dairy, shouldn't that be pretty easy to prevent?

Wow, your confidence is underwhelming! I hope you are a better baker than you claim, otherwise how are not pretty and not necessarily successful desserts a boon to the restaurant? What do you know you make really well? Do you have a great cheesecake recipe that you can make different flavors and change up every few months? Can you make a great pie or ice cream? Nothing wrong with simple, but to has to be GOOD. Dessert is the last course and last chance to make an impression, you want people leaving happy. You probably wouldn't want to work more than a few days a week, so think of things that keep well. Cheesecake, creme brulee, flourless cake, trifle, ice cream, all keep several days (assuming proper storage). Lighter cakes, many mousses, and fruit tarts will have a shorter life span, as they dry out and shrink and such. As for pay, if you are not used to production baking it is kind of you to not want to charge your friend top dollar for labor. How about something like minimum wage plus a little bit of trade? Say 10% of dessert sales per month becomes a gift certificate for you, possibly also redeemable in the form of wine from the cellar, if you drink and if your friend has a nice wine list. Also consider that dessert tends to be lower food cost than other courses. Food cost on 6 ounces of creme brulee and a couple of small shortbread cookies is about $1, and depending on the place you can sell that for $6-8. Of course you don't want to waste ingredients, but remember that wholesale prices are lower than what you are used to paying. You think this would be fun to do for a while, but what if it gets really popular? Are you willing to put in more time if there is more demand? And what kind of restaurant is it that doesn't have dessert?