pastrygirl

Well I guess cream is essentially butterfat and water, so it wouldn't be so out of place. I haven't really researched brittles. I hope you'll share your favorite recipe when you find it.

At altitude, you have to adjust (lower) your deep fry temperatures as well, not because the oil isn't as hot, but because of the water escaping the food you are frying faster. FWIW, I made some cashew brittle/toffee yesterday (at 7500 feet) and cooked it to 325F, which is the same temp listed in Joy of Cooking's regular recipe. There may be a point about candies after the water has boiled off. Anyway, for toffee you can just cook it until it is about the color of peanut butter, testing it occasionally by dripping some on a cold surface to make sure it hardens. Hard crack stage should be around 300F at sea level, after that you get your carmelization. I think the browning you get before that is the butter browning, not the sugar. I would think that a recipe with cream was meant to be a chewy candy, aren't hard toffees usually just sugar, butter, and nuts? And adding baking soda makes the candy foam up and gives a lighter texture

You can try toasting the milk powder to get more 'brown' flavors. A friend raves about the toasted milk ice cream at Charlie Trotters, but I haven't experimented in that direction yet. I think Michel Bras has a recipe for brown butter ice cream, but I don't have that book here. the few ice cream experiments I did with adding butter to a milk custard base worked fine. Maybe you have a little too much fat overall?

Freeze it partially in a flat layer, then mix it as you pack it into the canister. Or, paco the base then mix in your additions as you scoop.

But Greweling does have butter ganaches that include liquid such as liqueurs or fruit juices, so I think a strong coffee extract or some Kahlua should be fine. If you can get Trablit coffee extract, it is very good and all natural, or instant espresso in a little water works too. If you want to add more than the 40 g or so of liquid called for, reduce the butter by that much - he says that butter and liquid flavorings count as liquifiers but liquid sweeteners do not. I'd try the basic ratios in the passion fruit honey or spiked eggnog ganache, and use some combination of Kahlua and extract instead of the passion fruit or rum. Tammy's idea of putting whole beans in with butter to transfer flavor should also work with chocolate. I'm sure I've seen a recipe somewhere for a white coffee ice cream made by letting white chocolate and coffee beans sit together overnight. Trablit: http://www.lepicerie.com/catalog/product_1...ee_Extract.html

What drives you to be a hardcore traditionalist? Are you the type that sneers at any flavor creme brulee besides vanilla? What are your favorite desserts that you've created so far? At what point does something cross the line into not being traditional anymore?

Check out the Sweet Spot by P. Ong. gingerbread & kumquats thai iced tea/coffee & white chocolate champagne & yuzu green tea or chai cookies/tuiles black sesame brittle pineapple tarte tatin w/ coconut ice cream cardamom rice pudding creme brulee in any number of asian flavors baby pumpkins with coconut custard baked inside - traditional Thai kaffir lime infused into something else lemon or lime

Speaking of chocolate, and thinking about balancing ganaches via Schneich's formula, how do you determine the relative fat and sugar percentages of a given chocolate? If I have the cacao percentage, is the remainder necessarily sugar, or are there other factors? How do I know what portion of the cacao percentage is cocoa butter? I feel like I'm missing something.

Which, if you are doing a small batch by hand, means that you need at least three hands to hold the bowl, stir, and pour all at the same time.

For a sorbet that is essentially water, you want about 1 cup sugar/7 oz/200g for every 2-1/2 cups liquid. This worked for an earl grey tea sorbet that was a signature of a chef I worked for.

Just a quick question what does the egg do? Does it tell me how much acidcity that is in the sorbet mix? Thanks ← It tells you the sugar concentration, via bouyancy. The more sugar in the solution, the higher the egg will sit in it. So, if your egg is barely peeking through, only a dime sized area showing, add more sugar/syrup until you get a nickle to quarter size patch of egg above the surface. If you already have more than that showing, add water until the egg sinks to that level. It is a rough guide at best. After some practice tasting the base and noting the frozen results, you'll get a feel for how sweet the base should taste. Of course if you are using commercial juices, purees, or IQF fruit, it will be easier to establish consistent recipes than if you are using fruit of varying ripeness and making it up as you go along - not that there is anything wrong with that, it will just take practice.

Math is fun, indeed! I'll take a look at those links. So far it seems like just about any source of fat works: butter, cream cheese, nut butters or pastes, coconut milk, and it really is amazing what cornstarch can accomplish. I usually have local unsalted butter that seems a bit watery (you can see tiny droplets on the surface) so I'd guess it's maybe 75% butterfat?. The salted butter is salty enough to be shelf stable in India for a good 6 months, so that is pretty salty; I use it when I have to for cookies but it is plain nasty in buttercream.

I just made some raspberry and some orange butter ganache to fill molds. I have a little extra of the orange. Is it going to be possible to get this extra bit back to piping consistency? Seems like once it's set up it's going to be tricky to get back into temper. Or is it a use-it-or-lose it situation? Maybe it could be softened to room temperature and mixed in with an new batch? FWIW, I used 210 g chocolate, 75 g butter, 75 g jam, and 30 g liqueur, following Greweling's 2:1 formula, with butter and alcohol counting as liquifiers and the jam only counts as sugar. The raspberry is pretty stiff because I used dark chocolate (55%), the orange has milk chocolate and that was looking a little softer. Both are yummy, and nice how they set up faster than cream ganache so you don't have to wait so long to put the bottoms on.

Usually, but that is the product currently 'out of market'. You're right, that wasn't clear, sorry. I have an emergency shipment of some other cream coming up from Bangkok, so hopefully this won't be a problem after all. It is so disheartening when these shortages happen, but on the other hand it is exciting to be able to actually solve the problems. (Liters of 38% cream from Ireland via BKK, $8.50 plus $5 shipping plus customs duty, yeah that'll be about $15 a liter Accounting may have a problem with that, oh well!) I came up with 5 recipes that I think will work, here they are in case anyone is ever stranded on a deserted island or in the Himalayas without cream, all make about a liter of base: Ginger 3-1/2 c milk 25 g milk powder 150 g butter 7 egg yolks 120 g sugar 1 TB ginger powder 1/4 tsp salt Combine milk, milk powder, and butter, scald. Make anglaise in the usual way. Add 2 TB chopped candied ginger after spinning. white chocolate 3-1/2 c milk 25 g milk powder 7 egg yolks 70 g sugar 1/2 tsp vanilla 1/4 tsp salt 125 g white chocolate Make anglaise, pour over white chocolate and stir to melt. Caramelized banana 110 g sugar 100 g butter 2-1/2 c milk 400 g ripe banana Caramelize sugar, add butter and milk and heat until sugar is dissolved. Add banana and puree. I might try this with brown sugar instead for banana butterscotch. vanilla cream cheese 130 g sugar 30 g cornflour (cornstarch) pinch salt 3-1/2 c milk 1/2 vanilla bean 300 g cream cheese Combine sugar, cornflour, and salt. Stir in milk and vanilla bean. Bring to a boil, whisking. Boil 1 minute. Pour over cubed cream cheese and stir until melted. chocolate rum 120 g sugar 25 g cornflour (cornstarch) 20 g cocoa powder pinch salt 3-1/2 c millk 125 g dark chocolate 2 TB rum Combine dry ingredients. Stir in milk. Bring to a boil, whisking. Boil 1 minute. Pour over dark chocolate to melt. Stir in rum. Thanks everyone for ideas & encouragement! If you want my job, it's available next July

Pastrygirl: Now THAT's a cool idea! I do have an ISI, and LOVE making sabayon, but wrote it off completely as I'm not going to trust my babies in the hands of some college-student line cook. Any other info regarding how you did it? Or is it as simple as it sounds? ← Thanks, I was pretty excited about it when I realized it would work. I used to always end up making sabayon in the middle of summer, and whipping it over a steaming bain when it's already 90F in the kitchen is not that fun. This method takes the pain out of the process. Here's my recipe for cardamom sabayon. If you change the booze and spices and maybe more alcohol & less wine, I think it could be adapted to an eggnog foam. I've also done a variation with apple cider replacing some of the wine and a good dose of cognac. 22 egg yolks 18 oz sugar 1-1/2 tsp ground cardamom 4 c white wine 2 oz grand marnier * cream as needed In a medium pot, whisk egg yolks, sugar, and cardamom to combine. Stir in wine and grand marnier. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly with a spatula. Do not whip, that's what the isi is for. Add cream to reach 3 quarts. Strain through fine mesh. Makes 3 quarts. Store in quart containers in the fridge up to a week or so. Charge with 2 NO2 per quart. Ignore everyone's whip-its jokes. The eggs do not scramble, I don't know why, but it works.

Do you have an isi? Foam it. I used to make sabayon base - cooked like creme anglaise, stirring but not whipping - and keep it in quart containers ready to go into the canister. You may even be able to freeze the base, honestly I don't remember.

Is it out of the question to rinse the salt off and redry the nuts? ← Cookbooks often recommend doing exactly that if unsalted nuts aren't available - like if all you can find are cans of salted macadamia nuts but salty is not the desired outcome.

I'd sell a couple of staff for half and half! Seriously, you can have Leki Wangmo in exchange for about 20 liters of half and half and a bag of kumquats (I miss kumquats)... No, sadly, no half and half, no 'less conventional hydrocolloids' either. Only 1.5% fat milk, milk powder, SC milk, cornstarch, agar, gelatin, usually butter, and usually eggs. I'm really tempted to throw some butter in there and hope it doesn't separate later, or white chocolate. Time to start experimenting. Creaminess will be mine! The Lebovitz recipe and the Cipriani gelato look like possibilities, but I'm really in need of a basic recipe that can be vanilla, ginger, or whatever. I hate bananas, but the banana as thickener idea could be useful, it would go with a couple of things on the menu. If you're ever struck by wanderlust and dreams of adventure and decide to take a job in some poor, remote, developing nation, be prepared for quandaries like this. Andrea

Lisa, thanks but I am looking specifically for ice cream. Warm chocolate cake with caramel sauce and sorbet just isn't the same! My regular custard ice cream recipe calls for 4 c cream and 3 c milk, and what I have here is 25% cream and 1.5% milk. It seems like there must be some adjustment I should make if I were going to use all milk, or it would be too icy. Less milk? Boil the milk to reduce it? Add milk powder? Add butter? More yolks? Cornstarch? I want it to be as close as possible to the 'real thing'. I'm sure it's do-able, it's just the initial headache of these situations always throws me off. And of course there is probably at least one out of five lodges that is running out of eggs right this second, and sometimes there is only super salty butter. This experience is making me so much stronger and more creative

Anybody have ice cream or gelato recipes that do not require cream? Due to supply problems, I have to make do without for a couple of weeks and would welcome any recipes. The art of turning nothing into something - such is life in the middle of nowhere.

Yesterday I tried the marzipan, apricot butter ganache, and a white chocolate marmalade butter ganache of my own formulaton. The butter ganache is exciting for those situations where you might be in a developing country and not have any cream , like this week in Bhutan. I found the butter ganaches wanted to shatter as I cut them, but that may have been due to a chilly kitchen. Also not much apricot flavor, I think I need to concentrate my rather runny jam or use more jam next time. Is there any reason not to use butter ganache to fill shells? The keeping quality is attractive when thinking about doing some bonbons ahead for the holidays. I found the marzipan a little soft, I don't know if that is due to lack of glucose or what. I cooked the syrup to 215F, or 17 degrees above boiling point (at 7500 feet), which is a few degrees hotter than recommended. I liked it better with 1/2 tsp almond extract added. I ended up adding icing sugar so it was stiffer and easier to dip, next time I think I would just cook the syrup hotter and maybe process it a little longer.

First, try less sugar. If there is too much sugar it won't freeze properly and will end up as a tub of icy goo. In my experience freezers need to be around 15 to 18 degrees below freezing to keep ice cream and sorbet frozen but scoop-able, and if everything else seems frozen except the sorbet, it probably is the recipe's fault. There are commercially available ice cream and sorbet stabilizers, or you can try adding a little pectin or gelatin or an egg white. I think sorbets made from juices are less forgiving than those made from more pulpy fruits, so sometimes I'll do something like pear-lemon where the pear gives it more body and it doesn't separate like plain lemon sorbet often seems to.

A few months ago, one of our Bhutanese cooks was printing new menus and one of the items was a salad garnished with prosciutto. If there is not an expat around, there tend to be some spelling mistakes, which we had alerted the staff to be vigilant about, so he dutifully spell-checked the menu. Unfortunately Microsoft Word does not know Italian very well, so the cook went with Word's first suggested alternate spelling for prosciutto: prostitute. Yup, prostitute salad, and not even an extra service charge!

Are you pouring warm ganache over the cake as a glaze, or spreading on thicker ganache as frosting? If I'm pouring ganache, I usually do a layer of buttercream and chill pretty well before finishing, but I wouldn't do that if I'm spreading on swirls of whipped ganache. As for the band, I'd ice the cake first so the band has something to stick to. Maybe a thin layer of buttercream, wrap the band, then glaze the top?

I'm at 7500 feet most of the time and I've noticed two altitude related problems with candy. One is that if I'm making a fairly stiff ganache, the cream is sometimes not hot enough to melt all of the chocolate. It boils at 198F here, and sometimes that extra 14 degrees of heat would be really useful. The other thing is that my attempts at agar jellies/pate de fruits seem to get moldy after only a few weeks, and I am wondering if this is due to less sterilizaton happening with cooking to lower temperatures. Tempering, however, is not any more problematic than normal.