pastrygirl

Anyone use Pierre Herme's chocolate macaron recipe from Chocolate Desserts by PH? I swear I had this one perfected at my last job, but recently I've been having poor results. Dense, essentially no feet, smooth rounded tops and at least several crack on top. Maybe I need a speck more whites? The other kitchen was a lot warmer and I haven't been warming my whites lately, could that be it? My non-cocoa macaron recipe is working out fine in the new kitchen. Same city, sea level, brand of almond flour. Hmmm.

I'm going to have an extern soon who has just completed a LCB pastry program. When she stopped in the other day to set it up, she revealed that she had not worked in a kitchen before but was sure it was her passion. I hope she is right, but I am still amazed that people will spend so much money to get into a field they have never worked a day in. The actual work can be very different from the idea of the work, or how the industry looks on TV. I really recommend that before you commit to school of any kind, find an entry level job or do an internship somewhere so you know what you are really getting into. A little experience will also give you a leg up in school and help you know which areas to focus on. Good luck.

Shame on you, you should always tell those chickens the whole truth. The usage that always annoys me is appending the word "off" to whatever cooking method one is using: "Okay, now I'm going to bake off these cookies" or "fry off these potatoes." What does it add? To me, 'bake off' indicates baking a portion of a previously prepared item. Example, in a bakery, cookie doughs are made in big batches, portioned, and kept in the cooler to be baked as needed over the next several days. Instead of baking all the cookies at once as soon as the dough is made, they are baked off in batches of a few dozen here and there. Likewise, muffin batters can be made in large batches and stored in buckets to be portioned as needed and baked off over a few days.

I had no idea shirimp and fish were regular ingredients in kimchi. I had always thought it was just cabbage, salt, and chili, but you prompted me to read the ingredients on the jar in my fridge, now I am enlightened. Thanks.

I realize that not all kimchi is necessarily meat free, it's more the assumption that everyone should care whether something is vegan that bothers me. Buy my apples, they're vegan! I mean really, how much of the population, even a liberal urban population is vegan? 5%? 2%? And the rest of us are supposed to be swayed?

Vegan. Especially with things that would already be vegan. Case in point: at the farmers market today, a woman had a booth selling kimchee. I like kimchee, had just had bi bim bap for breakfast and wished the kimchee had been stronger (it was a quick pickle, not long buried type). I may have been interested in this woman's product if not for the huge banner promoting it as vegan! probiotic! etc! Is it delicious, pickly and spicy or not? Vegans can presumably read labels and ask questions on their own, pretending that something being vegan makes it better/healthier is silly.

Do transfer sheets need more time in contact with warm chocolate for the cocoa butter to melt/fuse? Could refrigerating the molds immediately be cooling the chocolate too quickly? Just a stab in the dark... If the kitchen is 68 that should be plenty cool enough for tempered chocolate to set up quickly without immediate refrigeration. Would you get a better transfer if the molds themselves were warmer?

In a similar vein, I nominate linzer torte. I think really fudgey gooey brownies are better after a day or two, or maybe just easier to get out of the pan .

Which brand of passion fruit puree are you using? As RWood mentioned, Perfect Puree is already concentrated and doesn't need reducing. La Fruitiere is not concentrated and has some sugar, so much weaker in comparison. Haven't used Boiron that I recall. I have been using Greweling's passion fruit white chocolate cream ganache recipe in molded chocolates and am quite happy with the flavor, molded in either dark or white. This may vary slightly from the original (book is at work), but this is what I use: 250 g white chocolate 65 g cream 20 g glucose syrup 70 g passion fruit perfect puree 20 g soft butter Heat cream and glucose and pour over chocolate. Heat puree and pour over chocolate. Stir in butter. Let cool then pipe into prepared molds.

I use luster dust.

Yes, just add cocoa butter. Seems like 10% would be too much, considering that couverture is around 30% fat, and the difference between a thicker chocolate and couverture is probably less than 10%. When I thin chocolate, I just go by feel, adding cocoa butter and letting it melt until I am happy with the consistency. I have added it while the chocolate is melting and warm, around 120F to make sure the butter melts well, then temper as usual.

You want matcha powder, unsweetened green tea powder. It can be expensive. http://www.matchasource.com/about-matcha-s/19.htm

ChrisZ, the high proof alcohol is used because it evaporates quickly leaving only the luster so you shouldn't worry about it soaking into your icing. Not sure how much to use, maybe start out not too concentrated and you can do multiple layers if needed, letting it dry in between.

Well not everyone wants to be an artist. There is a larger confectionery market than just us small producers using everything fresh and pure. If you want to get your product onto supermarket shelves, you're going to want it to have a good long shelf life - maybe why the artisan chocolates I see at my store are more often flavored solid bars than softer ganache pieces - Vosges and BT McElrath for example have retail bars but not bonbons for mass market, with more perishable stuff available online.

In my experience, it seems that when caramelizing sugar using the wet method crystallization issues tend to happen more frequently when there is too much water to be boiled off or when it is cooked too slowly. If all you are going to do is boil the water off anyway, start with as little as needed to moisten all the sugar.

You shouldn't need to wait 15 minutes to check for temper, you should be able to tell within 2 or 3 minutes. In this 15 minute wait, where was the chocolate? In a warmer/melter at stable temperature? Not familiar with inulin, but is it possible there is a crystalline structure to it that is inducing the chocolate to over crystallize somehow? A shot in the dark...

Not a reese's, but I've been making salted peanut milk chocolate gianduja with feuilletine, solves any peanut craving I might have.

I've done a few bacon things, and always end up concluding that they needed more bacon. I made a batch of bacon truffles recently that I thought had potential, but I am curious how adding cooked meat to a confection affects the shelf life. Would bacon bits in a cream or butter ganache be a problem? What about other animal fats? How could you use foie gras fat in a bonbon? I've also made foie gras and salmon ice creams, smoked tea creme brulee, curry caramel, pepper meringue, pear-shiso sorbet, tarragon granita, rosemary bonbons, and basil coulis for a strawberry and rhubarb dessert.

I am happy to report that both batches of pate de fruits turned out beautifully today. Cooked at 350F on the induction, no scorching at all, set up nicely after being cooked to about 222F. Pear-passion fruit pate de fruits 15mm frame 1 kg pear puree 200 g orange juice 150 g passion fruit concentrate - 150 g sugar 30 g pectin - 1200 g sugar 225 g glucose - 7 g tartaric acid 20 g hot water

My last two batches were much better. I cooked them at 350f and they didn't seem to take any longer to cook. Also reduced the sugar slightly - I had increased it with the idea that when cooking to a temperature you are cooking to a sugar concentration, so might as well start out with more sugar from the start, but maybe there is more to it than that when pectin is involved? A few dark bits, but not as bad. Even better, it did not splatter so violently, meaning no burns on my forearm. I make two or three batches a week and really do not need any more volcanic jelly burns

This is a fairly soft filling for a molded bonbon, but you could adjust the liquid and make a dip-able center. 300 g boiron coconut puree 25 g glucose syrup 490 g white chocolate couverture 60 g cocoa butter 25 g invert sugar 100 g unsweetened dessicated coconut, toast if desired Heat coconut puree and glucose, pour over white chocolate and cocoa butter. Add invert sugar and coconut.

Yes the enzyme breaks down when heated. Plenty of carrot cake recipes use canned pineapple in chunks or crushed, juice should be no problem.

Thanks for the encouragement, I'll keep trying. The apricots are in fairly light syrup, and the resulting puree does not taste super sweet, but maybe I do need to go back to the Boiron charts and see if I've deviated too far. I am happy with the flavor and texture, just not the burning! I had decided the induction burner was better than the gas ranges, where the flames go up the sides and scorch the sides, but if I think about it, maybe it does scorch more with induction in the long run. Hmmm. I thought PDF was supposed to cook as fast as possible which is why I've been cooking on high. I'll try a little lower. I have a very limited pot selection to use on the burner, but I did already come to the conclusion that two small batches are more likely to be successful than one big one. Pate de fruits are a weird animal, I have had a few batches that were just bizarre for no apparent reason, but usually they turn out OK.

I cannot seem to make pate de fruits without ending up with little scorched bits that make me think of bugs in amber, and am getting tired of it. I am using an induction burner on high (400F), stir constantly, use a heavy bottom pot, do my best to prevent scorching, but they still do. Is my formula off? Once i have added all of the sugar, the temp is about 215F, then it takes quite a while to get up to 225, I'd say at least 10 minutes, maybe more. Lately I've been pouring them out at 222 or 223 to prevent too much scorching and they set up fine - the texture is good and I do not need an extended shelf life as they are consumed within a week. Here is what I made today, both batches scorched a little, despite my best efforts: 925 g apricot puree (from canned apricots, some body but not thick) 200 g lime juice 150 g sugar + 30 g rapid pectin 1400 g sugar + 200 g glucose syrup 8 g tartaric acid dissolved in 25 g triple sec Would more or less sugar help? A thinner puree, more like a juice? ???

Could you base it on a marzipan recipe? I do have a coconut truffle filling that I like, but the recipe is at work. I will try to remember to find it tomorrow.